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Hosted by best-selling author and scholar Dr. Theron D. Williams
What if everything you thought you knew about the Bible was missing a vital piece of the story? This podcast unapologetically centers the Black presence in biblical scripture, challenging mainstream narratives and reclaiming the history that colonialism tried to erase.
In each episode, Dr. Williams unpacks powerful truths about race, faith, and identity through deep dives, guest conversations, and bold reflections that bridge theology and historical scholarship. From dismantling the myth that Christianity was introduced through slavery, to tracing the African roots of biblical figures, this show is a spiritual and intellectual awakening for the Black diaspora.
Whether you're a seminarian, theologian, or spiritually curious, you'll leave each episode more rooted, more empowered, and more connected to the truth.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (00:20)
Welcome to another Bible is Black History podcast, I am your host, Dr. Theron Williams, the pastor of the Mount Carmel Church and the founding president of the Bible is Black History Institute and Online Academy and bestselling author.
And today we're going to discuss white Jesus, its political, social, and psychological, spiritual implications. this topic is always met with controversy, with one crowd contending that the image of white Jesus is innocuous, is innocent, is benign, is harmless, and it's only art. So why should it matter?
So why are you reading all of these implications into a piece of art that really doesn't matter? It's only a representation and it doesn't matter. And who cares? And why do you keep pressing this issue? Give it a break.
while other crowds claim that this representation of white Jesus is the actual historical representation of Jesus and to attack this representation is to attack God. I remember I was watching a ⁓ YouTube, not a YouTube, but a Facebook challenge called
destroy the white Jesus imagery. And there were mostly young African-American men out in public with images of white Jesus and they were ripping those images up. And there were people who were really offended. there were some, particularly there were two old white women who literally attacked.
two young black men who were in public ripping up the image of white Jesus. And so there is an aggregation, there is a crowd that really believe that this image of white Jesus is the actual historical biblical image of Jesus. Still there are others who protest the image, arguing that the historical Jesus could not have been a white man.
and that this image was a production of white supremacy to whitenize Jesus and by implication, whitenize Yahweh his
Michael Emerson and Glenn Bracey co-authored a fascinating book entitled, The Religion of Whiteness, How Racism Distorts Christian Faith. They critiqued white evangelical Christianity through a sociological lens and provided quantitative data to support their claims that two thirds of white evangelical practice the religion of whiteness.
In this religion, Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is not the object of their faith, devotion, or worship, but they claim whiteness is. And beneath the shell of whiteness, they practice a form of Christianity whose objective is to support the flourishing of white supremacy and white domination.
Emerson and Bracey argued that the symbols of their faith are white Jesus, the US flag, and in some cases, the Confederate flags and guns.
The late psychologist Francis Chris Welsing provides a provocative theory as to why white men so adamantly cling to their guns, especially their long black shotguns that discharge from the head of the barrel a cluster of tiny light-colored projectiles not designed to give life but to take life. But that's another topic for another day.
White Jesus, imply, Bracey and Emerson imply, is the most important symbol in the religion of whiteness. And so we wanna have a further conversation about that. And I am honored, delighted, thrilled to have on our podcast today, Reverend
Christina Sinks, she is an ordained
in the United Methodist Church. She holds a master's degree in public ministry from Garrett Theological Seminary. And man, she wrote a 2019 article. And this article is titled, Who Do You Say That I Am?
race, iconography, and Jesus in the 21st century. Now, I said in my intro that I am the founding president of the Bible is Black History and we have an online academy. It's a major academy where we look at from an academic perspective, ⁓ theological and sociological perspective,
Black presence in the Bible. And we really do a deep dive in it. It's a nine month course where you can receive ⁓ continuing education college credits from the School of Theology at Virginia Union University, my alma mater. And I came across this article and I read it and what little hair I got left, it blew it back. I mean, it blew my hair back.
I read an article and it was riveting and I couldn't put it down. And so I said, I need to download this article, put it in our curriculum and make it mandatory reading for our students. And we have her with us today and I am so delighted. And I didn't know Christina. I just tracked her down, sent her an email and asked her, would she join us?
in this discussion so that we can have this conversation. And she's a graduate of Garrett. I graduated from Chicago Theological Seminary on the same campus of Garrett. I took some classes at Garrett as well. And so she wrote this article. And before we bring her on to talk about it, there is a passage that really blew me away, where you talk about a study
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (07:28)
wonderful.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (07:46)
had been conducted on the psychological impact of exposure to white Jesus, you said, one study of the psychological effects of iconography finds that exposure to white Jesus iconography lead both white and black individuals to express greater racial bias against blacks.
That messed me up. Especially I understood how whites can hold racial biases against blacks, but blacks hold racial biases against blacks as a result of their exposure to white Jesus iconography. And so Christina is here. Christina, talk to us. Tell us why you wrote the article. And let me say.
You need to get this article. You need to download this article and read it. She explains all of it, why she wrote it, her methodologies, what she was trying to do with the article, the whole thing. But since you don't have as a listening audience that article in front of you, we have the author of that article. Talk to us a little bit, Christina, about why you wrote the article.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (09:04)
Sure. Yeah. And thanks Dr. Williams so much for having me on for reaching out. ⁓ Like you said, I wrote this back in 2019, my senior year of college, and I was proud of the paper. was excited about it, but hadn't really ⁓ heard anyone reading it. So I was so happy to hear from you. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, so I wrote it for a class at the University of Puget Sound.
The class was called the Body in Comparative Religion. And in that class, we talked about ⁓ all kinds of things. ⁓ Sky burials? Yeah, yeah. Sure.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (09:42)
Wait a minute, hold up Christina. Christina, hold up, hold up.
You wrote this as an undergraduate student?
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (09:49)
I did. For class. ⁓
Dr. Theron D. Williams (09:52)
Whoa. ⁓
You know, these are, this is on a doctoral level and you're doing this as an undergraduate. Okay, let that mess me up right there. But yeah, go ahead.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (10:05)
Well,
thank you. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, the class itself kind of framed this idea that the way that we live in bodies and experience bodies has an impact in many different practices of faith. So we talked about sky burials in Tibet, where the earth and the ecology around the place there. ⁓
consumes the body rather than it being buried in the hard frozen ground. That's one example. ⁓ And kind of all kinds of other examples of how the body is experienced in religion. And so as I was thinking about a topic to kind of put a capstone on my religious studies degree ⁓ as a Christian myself, I thought like, what better way to look at this than the embodied God, right? Through Christ who we know as savior. And ⁓
Throughout college, I also studied with the African American studies professors at my college who were also professors in the communications department. And with that background, with topics that I looked at throughout college, like a mostly white choir singing, ⁓ singing gospel music, example, ⁓ things that we talked about, things I read about throughout college, I was excited to kind of bring that topic in to discuss.
with this idea of the body being such an integral part of how we experience religion. ⁓ And then you've got Jesus Christ Superstar, which is kind of like a central piece of my article and a musical that I really love and ⁓ a subversive piece in itself. And then you get, and this is a great time to be talking about this. I'll hopefully get to talking about the recent staging of it.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (11:46)
man.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (11:58)
⁓ and the casting there. But the casting choices throughout the history of that musical have been subversive and controversial. ⁓ that's kind of a piece that brought it all together for me. And so ⁓ that's kind of how it came about. Yeah.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (12:15)
And it's interesting, Christina, how you weave throughout the article the Jesus Christ superstar narrative. And that was one of my favorite. I have the soundtrack. I listen to it even today. ⁓ So yeah, I really appreciated that, the different quotations from Jesus Christ superstar where you build your article around that.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (12:39)
You
Dr. Theron D. Williams (12:44)
⁓ Can you talk to us a little more about the idea of white Jesus? I know you talk about where it came from, where it emerged, the beginnings of it and that type of thing. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (12:58)
Yeah. Yeah. And I'll start with my own background a little bit. ⁓ we all have in society, ⁓ I think a time when we are, have a racial awakening. And for some people that is forced to come a lot earlier than others. ⁓ for me, I grew up in a, community where I think about 80 % of the students around me in my classes growing up were Asian American of different backgrounds. And, ⁓
As a white person myself, that was kind of an interesting experience as a, I was never a racial, ⁓ numerical majority, in those, in those spaces growing up. And so when I attended college, that was the first time I was kind of. For the most part in spaces where white people were in the majority numerically. And so I came, as through the classes and professors that I mentioned previously came to wrestle with my racial identity.
really in that time in my life. And of course that continues now. ⁓ But our racial understandings, our racial awakenings, hopefully force us to understand and take a look at our view of ourselves and our view of others and as Christians and as people who believe in God ⁓ and believe that humans are made in the image of God. That's kind of the key.
peace, the crux of the matter, that we believe we are all Imago Dei, made in the image of God. And so what is that image? ⁓ And as you mentioned in the article, ⁓ guess, like people have always had an image of who God is and who Christ is. And that's the nature of, of faith that we want to be able to have something tangible to grasp onto. ⁓
something to look at, right? Icons, deities, statues, all of these things are ⁓ throughout the centuries are part of so many faiths. ⁓ But then you get the complicating factors of a white supremacist society. And when the only acceptable or the only like culturally ⁓
publicized images of Christ, of the human embodiment of God are white. ⁓ You you can't help but like see that as woven tightly together with the white supremacist society that we live in. ⁓ And I think there's a lot there, right? Colonization, ⁓ the enslavement of African Americans, ⁓ the colonization and genocide of Native Americans in the U.S., right?
Kind of the, this is, I think white Jesus imagery and the issues there are central to this nation and the race issues that we have had here from the beginning. I can talk about the ⁓ letter that was written to ⁓ like describing what Christ looked like that was actually really fabricated. ⁓ This is written, they said it was from. ⁓
Let me see where it When they thought it said it was written. they said it was written in the first century and then translated to English in the 17th century. But later this was found to be fabricated. You know, but it describes Jesus as like with nice, like light brown hair and ⁓ his eyes are grayish and clear and he's tall, ⁓ you know, and he's fair.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (16:36)
Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (16:52)
And that's a quote in there. ⁓ But it's fabricated, right? And like we've
We know what people from the Middle East look like and that's not it.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (17:02)
Exactly.
Well, you know, throughout human history, ever since people started imagining gods, those communities who imagine God in a human form, always, without exception, always imagine their deities to look like the devotees. If you go all the way back to ⁓
Babylonian religion and Mesquitamian religion, their god Marduk. You may not know precisely how the people of Mesquitamian look back in antiquity, but they left behind images of their gods. So if you can find out the image of their god, how they imagined their gods, you can tell what that people looked like throughout history, whether it's
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (17:42)
you
Dr. Theron D. Williams (18:01)
the gods of Hindu, whether it's Buddha, whether it's the West African gods, whether it's the Greek gods, ⁓ all of their gods, they always reflect the people who are their devotees. ⁓ And that's even so in modern times with ⁓ white Christians. Michelangelo depicted God as a white man on the ceiling.
of the Sistine Chapel, an old white man with a long beard. And then they re-imagined Jesus to look like a European person. So in all fairness, they're being consistent with human history in how peoples imagine their gods to look like this. The problem is, in this era, the imagined God in Jesus of Christianity
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (18:32)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (18:56)
is enforced and imposed on everybody else as if that is the actual historical rendition, which underscores what Bracey and Emerson talked about in their book, The Religion of Whiteness. It underscores this whole idea that this thing is about white supremacy and not so much about Christianity.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (19:23)
Right. And if we didn't live in a white supremacist society, this wouldn't really be an issue, right? ⁓ In my paper, I go into this Marx ⁓ quote that in every age, the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas, that the people who have the most power will perpetuate ⁓ kind of what's acceptable to think about. And I think that's very true of religion.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (19:42)
Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (19:53)
as And as you talked about and as folks know, like there's many different depictions of Christ throughout the world ⁓ that look like the people in the places that make them. And that's wonderful because Jesus is the Son of God, the embodiment of God. But all of us are also that, right? All of us are also Imago Dei made in the image of God. And so to
Dr. Theron D. Williams (20:18)
Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (20:22)
be able to imagine God and God's son on earth as someone who looks like us or has features like ours is powerful, right, for the faith and for ⁓ the practice of faith and the embodiment of faith, right? Like we all live in bodies and go through the world in bodies and those bodies experience different things in the world differently. And so I think that's so important. ⁓ But you're right, it's this like...
Dr. Theron D. Williams (20:32)
Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (20:49)
tight grip on white supremacy that makes a white Jesus ⁓ particularly problematic in the world that we live in.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (20:58)
Talk a little bit about how ⁓ Jesus, white Jesus, you talk about bodies and embodiment and that type of thing. Talk a little bit about how Jesus, white Jesus, is the embodiment of white supremacy.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (21:19)
Yeah. There's so many pieces there, but...
I kind of think of it as when people say, ⁓ our lives matter, right? It's like, technically, generally people agree that statement is true, but in a society where white supremacy reigns, that's not the statement that should be front and center. and so that, that's kind of how I see white Jesus, ⁓ imagery.
Is it bad for white people to see God in themselves and see their bodies also as godly and made by God? No, of course not. But in a society where white supremacy reigns and causes harm every single day, a perpetuation of white Jesus and the idea that only white people, and not just only white people, only white men, and in particular the ones
who particularly have the features that most commonly are seen in the white Jesus. ⁓ But those are the closest to God, right? That perpetuates a hierarchy that's so antithetical to what Jesus preached. ⁓ A Jesus who was always looking out for the least of these, ⁓ certainly not holding up a particular standard of beauty or certain type of body or kind of person that was closer to God than anyone else.
⁓ and so the, the grip, the tight grip on a white Jesus and the unwillingness to believe something else, especially when like, this isn't even considering, ⁓ if we're going to be like historical about it, he certainly didn't look like that. You know what I mean? Like that's kind of even a separate piece. it's this, this raising of some closer to God than others that mirrors the white supremacy that we experience in society.
And it's no wonder that kind of people have this perception. ⁓ Even in the paper, I talk about how ⁓ at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which was bombed by a white supremacist, ⁓ there was a white Jesus stained glass window, right? And so even in a black church, was ⁓ the image that was seen and held up, literally like held up and ⁓
Dr. Theron D. Williams (24:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (24:05)
People in, I think it's World War I or World War II, were given pocket-sized images of Werner Salmon's head of Christ. And I think if you imagine the painting of white Jesus, I can't show it here now, and if you're listening, I think you can imagine it. It's the one with the blue eyes and the glowing golden hair that everyone had, because they were given to service, there it is, Werner Salmon, there he is. ⁓ They were given out to service people.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (24:29)
There he is. Yeah.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (24:35)
⁓ during the war and these people held that image close and it was important to them, right? And so...
Dr. Theron D. Williams (24:43)
And know, Christina, this is the most replicated image of Jesus in history. In the 20th century alone, it was replicated over 100 million times. We stopped counting in the 21st century, 100 million. But what you do in your paper, in your article, you trace ⁓ the image of white Jesus in film.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (24:49)
Right. Right.
I believe it.
Sure, sure,
Mm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (25:14)
You
you track that and I thought was fascinating. Can you speak to that? And I know the article was written a long time ago, but can you speak to the evolution of Jesus, white Jesus in ⁓ the cinema? How it perpetuated, yeah.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (25:33)
Yeah.
Sure, sure. I can speak a bit to that. ⁓ You know, I think it's kind of like, it's also tied to this idea of like, who's, what's the standard of beauty that, or a standard of ⁓ masculinity that's like, that's, people want to buy movie tickets to. ⁓ And that also ties in with white supremacy. And so in the films that I talk about in the paper, ⁓ the Jesus figures are,
Yeah, kind of what you see as like ⁓ a white masculine standard of beauty, what a body quote should look like. ⁓ There's a book that I'll refer folks to, ⁓ or sorry, an article ⁓ that talks about the films more than I can. ⁓ I'm sorry, it's a book. It's by Katherine Jones and Atsushi Tajima, The Caucasianization of Jesus.
Hollywood transforming Christianity into a racially hierarchical discourse. It is an article, not a book. I'm confused, sorry. And so my history here is not at all comprehensive, but you think of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, the early Jesus Christ Superstar films, 1973.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (26:43)
Okay, okay, that's okay.
Yeah?
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (27:04)
And I think there's one other one. ⁓ And all kinds of other films that I mentioned in my paper, right? Like these are, it's like how we see casting in films generally, right? Like race in films and casting is always something that's talked about. And unfortunately for better or for worse, not for better or worse, ⁓ I don't think that any of the Jesus films have been free from that standard. So I think that kind of falls into the category of like,
What do people see as standard of beauty and what are they gonna pay money to see on the screen? What's gonna sell, right? Yeah.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (27:37)
Mm-hmm.
Well, Jesus Christ Superstar played on Broadway with the original characters. ⁓ The guy who played Judas, what was his name? He passed away maybe five or six years ago. ⁓ He became a R &B and jazz singer, I'm gonna think of his name in a minute, who played Judas, the black man. And then,
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (27:59)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (28:11)
the white guy who played Jesus. I can't think of his name either. ⁓ But anyway, they played together on Broadway for several sessions. And they had got rave reviews. It's an awesome play. It really is. And they got rave reviews on the play. Ted Neely was ⁓ played as Jesus and Carl Anderson was Judas, the black guy.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (28:30)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (28:42)
And Ted got sick one night and couldn't perform. So Carl Anderson moved over into the role of Jesus. Yeah, and somebody else took Carl Anderson's place in the role of Judas. I think of the white guy. And where the reviews were astounding when Jesus was white.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (28:52)
really?
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (29:09)
When Ted got sick and couldn't do it, Carl took his place and they got scathing reviews over the same play. And both of them, you've seen the movie, both of them are amazing vocalists. They both can sing really well.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (29:19)
Terrible. Yeah, yeah.
Right. I mean, I'd argue like Judas
has more, the Judas role has, has to have, you know, more powerful vocals than even the Jesus role. So.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (29:37)
Yeah, yeah,
but they were both powerful vocalists and the reviews were the reverse when Jesus was played by a black man. So yeah, there you have it. Because in our society, it cannot have any other image of Jesus than a white one. And we know historically archaeology
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (29:42)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (30:06)
archaeologically that that's not the image of Jesus, that he could not, we know that. But if you go to any store at any time, you will see on the checkout counter with the magazine rack, there are going to be pictures of white Jesus. It is bombarded into our psyche. Yeah.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (30:21)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Right.
And people, people can't accept something else because there were so, I mean, it's kind of like what you talked about the beginning, the icons and the idols rather that we hold onto in America and especially white America that we hold onto guns and white Jesus as idols that ⁓ keep us safe and ⁓ keep us in power. Right. And like,
Dr. Theron D. Williams (30:50)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (30:55)
Yeah, if we want a white supremacist society where white men are in power, like, yeah, those things will keep us safe. But if we want a society like the one that Jesus preached, those things will never, never keep us safe. Right?
Dr. Theron D. Williams (31:07)
Well, know, Christina, and a few years ago, I don't know if you saw it or not, a movie came out called The Book of Clarence. And it was a book centered around Jesus in his day, in his time back in Israel in Galilee. And it was a story about, of course, everybody was black.
in the movie, depicted Galileans and everybody else as black people. And there was this guy in the movie who saw the miracles of Jesus and he wanted to use Jesus and his miracles to make money for a profit. So this guy named Clarence was trying to co-op Jesus and use Jesus for his own personal financial profit.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (31:38)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (32:06)
So the the the promos were out on Facebook and you go on Facebook, you see the promos and you see the remarks from the promos. The picture hadn't even come out yet, but just the remarks from the promos. People were saying it's demonic, it's sacrilegious, it's against everything. And I went on and said, can you wait till the movie come out first?
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (32:06)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (32:35)
and you see it before you write a review. But any conversation about Jesus being anything other than white, for many white evangelicals who are a part of the religion of whiteness, must push back on it and are deeply offended by it.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (32:36)
Right?
They're scared, right? They're scared their kids are going to see it. They're scared that their kids are going to be influenced by it. I think there's so much like bubble wrapping of, of, of white evangelical kids. And that's not a world that I come from. So that's just from hearsay. But, ⁓ I was looking up some articles recently in preparation for this podcast and, yeah, demonic.
are the word, is the word that comes up all the time. And it's like, ⁓ are you afraid? Like, okay, you don't have to call something demonic just because it's something different than what you have experienced. ⁓ and that was the same with, I think the TV show is called black Jesus that I wrote about in the paper as well. and with, Cynthia Arrevo, the Broadway star, Tony and Oscar winner.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (33:29)
Yes. Yes.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (33:50)
who just played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar back in August. I just was looking up articles about it and it's these Christian evangelical sites that are like ⁓ vetting films for whether they're appropriate for Christian audiences and have these comments about it, right? Demonic and. ⁓
Dr. Theron D. Williams (33:53)
Mm-mm.
Also,
so it's a black guy playing Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (34:13)
a black woman.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (34:15)
okay, okay, okay, yeah.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (34:17)
So this is something I wanted to talk to you. Maybe, I
don't know if this is a good time to get into this.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (34:21)
Yeah, go ahead, yeah. Yeah, go ahead and talk about it because I didn't know, and I love Jesus Christ Superstar and I've seen what Jesus was played by John Legend. You make mention of that in your article, but I didn't know a version of Jesus Christ Superstar came out when a black woman played Jesus. Talk about that,
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (34:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So,
well, this is, I wanted to get to this point of like, ⁓ of course in our society, a black male Jesus is, that imagery is so important. And if we think about a Jesus who embodies the least of these, especially in this world that we live in, like that is, that is so important. And it's not, that's not the only identity that needs to be lifted up as ⁓ Imago Dei, as an image of God, reflection of God.
⁓ And so I guess my challenge to the listeners would be ⁓ who is the least of these in your community, in your church, in your area of society that ⁓ depiction of Jesus as that individual or that identity would really like turn things upside down. And it's probably the person we're most uncomfortable to depict as Jesus, right? ⁓ The most downtrodden in society, the most
excluded even from our own institutions. I truly believe that's where Jesus would be if he were here today. And I believe he is there today with those individuals. And so kind of a call to expand what that looks like. And so the ⁓ staging of Jesus Christ Superstar that I referenced was just in August at the Hollywood Bowl ⁓ with ⁓ Adam Lambert playing Judas and
Cynthia Erivo, who's ⁓ starred in Wicked, the film, and on Broadway as well, ⁓ as the Black female Jesus. And they didn't change the text, they didn't change the lyrics or anything. It's all like referencing, it's all the same lyrics. Like they're talking about him as Jesus and all this stuff. But a Black woman plays the role. And why? Because she's an amazing singer. ⁓ But people were so upset about it, right? ⁓
Dr. Theron D. Williams (36:16)
⁓
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (36:38)
I'm sure they had similar things to say about like Hamilton and all of the white founders of America being played by, ⁓ by people of color, right? Like, I think it's a lack of imagination and it's a feeling that a piece of art can take away some real power that you have. And the amazing thing about that is like, I do believe that art can move people and, and,
change power structures, you know, if done in the right way. I do believe that art does have that power. And so I guess it's like, yeah, if you're like so tightly gripping to white supremacy that that scares you, like maybe you should be scared because like.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (37:23)
Well, know, Christina, I don't know if it's a lack of imagination because ⁓ Hollywood has always cast white people in roles that were black people. You know, you look at the 10 commandments ⁓ where Ewell Brenner plays Pharaoh, an African king, during the time when Egypt was Nubian black.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (37:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (37:52)
⁓
You can look at the movie came out called Michael Marlin and Elizabeth that dealt with Michael Jackson, Marlin Brando and Elizabeth Taylor, where a white man was cast as Michael Jackson. And we, yeah, we all saw Michael Jackson grow up as this little black kid from Gary, Indiana with a big afro, a big nose, the whole nine yards, you know. So we all know, but.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (38:07)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (38:21)
It's not a lack of imagination, you know, because Hollywood cast white people in whatever roles they want to cast them in, irrespective of what the historical person actually looked like.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (38:25)
Mm.
Right, right. I see what you're saying. And that's why representation, I think, is so important. We have to see all kinds of people in film and on stage ⁓ and on TV, ⁓ not just in religious roles. I I think this more broadly as well, but especially when it comes to faith and not just on TV and those things, but like in the roles, ⁓ preaching and wherever religious
decisions are made as well, right? Like that representation is so important. ⁓ So whether it comes to artwork or actually like leading in religious spaces, I think ⁓ that broad representation is so important. And some other kind of artworks and ideas that I'd love to point your listeners to are, some of them are mentioned in the article, but when you spoke about Michelangelo and the creation of Adam.
⁓ There's a painter called Harmonia Rosales who has a recreation of that mural called The Creation of God. And it's two black women kind of doing that, the touching thing ⁓ kind of ⁓ in reference to the Michelangelo painting. And she has other paintings like this as well. ⁓ There's ⁓ a person, artist named Kelly Latimore who does
iconography, and he has an immigrant ⁓ refugee family depicted as the Holy Family, ⁓ you know, making their way through the desert at night, just as we know Jesus's family did. But we so, so rarely see that as, hear that as the part, the story of the Nativity when we, you know, thinking about like, gentle Jesus making mild in the manger, right?
Dr. Theron D. Williams (40:31)
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (40:32)
We
don't think of the migrant family ⁓ when we think of that. ⁓ I was in New York this year, ⁓ earlier this year, and I had, I think I wrote about this in the article, and this is a statue that I had never seen, but had been important to me. And I visited an Episcopalian church in New York, and there was this statue of the female Christ. ⁓ Right? And like, we know women are downtrodden in society.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (40:38)
That's right.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (41:01)
now more than ever with rights being taken away. ⁓ so how can we understand our Savior as a woman persecuted by the state for speaking out and being punished for that? ⁓ In Palestine, ⁓ in the last few Christmases, there have been nativity creations of Christ in the rubble, wrapped in the
Dr. Theron D. Williams (41:15)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (41:30)
the Palestinian scarf ⁓ in a pile of rubble. ⁓ I mean, if that doesn't hit ⁓ closest to home, I don't know what does, right? Like literally in Bethlehem, ⁓ where Christ was born, ⁓ children are not safe. And so to depict that, to understand that reality, to... Like I said, I truly believe in power of artwork.
to move people and to change things. ⁓ And so like, let's share those images, right? Let's like, let's disseminate that. Let's talk about it. ⁓ And in the practice of that, let's be looking to the least of these in our society and understanding that Christ is with them and Christ is present in their lives.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (42:25)
Christina, let me apologize. I was so in a hurry to get to this fascinating article that I did not talk to you about the work you're doing now. Can you talk to us about that?
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (42:31)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and it might feel different, but I feel like it's so related. feel all this work is so related ⁓ and I feel like it's one in the same, truly. The work that I'm doing now is focused on ecological regeneration on climate justice. I work for an organization called Green Faith, and we are a global multi-faith climate justice nonprofit. ⁓ And so we...
address the needs of ⁓ people suffering from climate crisis ⁓ all over the world. And that's another piece where I see like that is Christ crucified. The people suffering most from floods, from rising sea levels, from storms, from wildfires ⁓ due to ⁓ the greed of the fossil fuel industry that has led to climate change. ⁓ That is where the suffering Christ is.
And not just the people, right? But like, we believe that, I believe that creation is part of God's body and part of who God is. And the suffering creatures, the extinctions, ⁓ those are...
things that we need to pay attention to as Christians. And so that's part of my work. I work also, I'm developing a curriculum on this topic with Garrett Seminary, with the Center for Ecological Regeneration there. I, tying in all the music and all the justice pieces, I sing with a band called The Many, and we do Christian progressive.
conferences and other like church events, really focused on all aspects of justice. ⁓ We are a group of kind of misfits from the church, ⁓ a lot of queer people, people of color, and otherwise people who have not been welcomed in the church, ⁓ making a space and being honest about what faith looks like and kind of not shying away from
the fact that we need different ways to talk about and think about and depict the divine in order for the church to be inclusive of all people. So maybe we can share links to those, but that's work that I do.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (45:02)
You know, I f-
Well, you know what I find fascinating? I mean, this is just utterly fascinating that the group you just described and defined is the very group that Jesus would have been hanging out with. know, I mean, he was eliminated, excluded from the institutions in his day, you know, described the fair. I mean, he went into the synagogue and they tried to kill him, you know, in his own synagogue.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (45:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (45:36)
grabbed him and gonna throw him over a cliff because they didn't like what he was saying. He was excluded from the institutions from his own community. And of course, he was dominated by the Roman government living under colonial oppression. And the crowd Jesus hung out with was deeply criticized by the governing authorities, the power brokers of his time. They didn't like him hanging out with women.
They didn't want him hanging out with sinners, any of that, but he kept hanging out with them. That was his crowd. Those were his people. The people who were pushed to the margin of society was the very people that Jesus hung out with. So yeah, you're right. And what fascinates me is that power structures in the name of Christianity continues to marginalize the very people that Jesus identified with.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (46:06)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (46:35)
That's fascinating, which underscores Emerson and Bracey's book that the religion of whiteness is not so much about Christianity as it is about the protection and the proliferation and the flourishing of white supremacy. That's the core of it. Yeah.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (46:59)
Right. so Christianity is a tool to continue oppressing people and to maintain that power structure for those groups, But I think as like, if we want to be true to the faith of following Christ, maybe we don't want to call ourselves Christian because there's so much there, but like truly to follow Christ is what you said, kind of welcoming the least of these. And sometimes it means going against the power structures and the governmental structures to do that.
I truly, my heart is so with the immigrant communities these days ⁓ who suffer every day and live in fear. And ⁓ I mean, there's no other way to say like Jesus was an immigrant and lived that experience. ⁓ And so if there's any room in our hearts to ⁓ kind of find ways to disrupt the unjust treatment of immigrants, which is throughout the Bible.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (47:30)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (47:59)
is
You know, throughout the Bible, God calls us to love and welcome immigrants and to say anything else is untrue. ⁓ So if there's any room in our hearts to be disruptive in those cycles, ⁓ to be accompanying those folks who need it most at this time, ⁓ I think that's my heart is so deeply with those communities right now.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (48:08)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, know, God's, Bible is full of examples of God's people being immigrants. If you look at the book of Genesis and the story of Jacob, when he and his family, was what? How many? 70, migrated from Israel because of the famine, migrated into Egypt.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (48:42)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (48:58)
You know, and they live there. Joseph had gone there before them and created a situation where he was in power. And he welcomed the migrating people of Israel into Egypt and kept them there and protected them. Of course, when he died, it was a different story. But as we wrap this up, Christina, you said something in your article about
Jesus's image appearing on the cover of Ebony magazine. And black people were offended by the image of black people, by the image of black Jesus, ⁓ to the point where Ebony almost went out of business because black people stopped subscribing to the magazine that featured black Jesus.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (49:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Mm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (49:56)
talk a little bit about how white Jesus even distorts the view of Christianity for African-Americans, how we can't even accept an image of black Jesus. you're really young. You probably weren't even born when Good Times was out. Good Times, a sitcom.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (50:05)
Mm-hmm.
Hehehe.
I don't know.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (50:23)
with Florida Evans and JJ and Michael and all that. It was called Good Time. Before Your Time, it was a sitcom that centered on a black family who lived in the housing projects in Chicago, Illinois. And in the inaugural season, they had an episode called Black Jesus, where that family had the traditional image of white Jesus on the wall.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (50:27)
before my time.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (50:53)
And Michael, who was young and precocious and leaned in to his Black identity, found a picture that his big brother JJ had painted of a Black Jesus. He went and took the white Jesus off the wall of the family and put Black Jesus up. And the mother had a fit, said, this Black Jesus is not going to be on my wall. The white Jesus is the one I know. That's the one I worship. That's the one I love.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (51:09)
Mm.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (51:22)
And if Jesus had been black, the Bible would have said it, notwithstanding the Bible never said he was white either, but that didn't distract us. So she had that image on the wall. So we have this whole episode dealing with black Jesus versus white Jesus in a black household. And so you mentioned that this image of black Jesus was on the front of Evidy magazine. Can you speak to that? And then we'll wrap it up.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (51:35)
Mmm.
Sure. Yeah, and you're right. People were upset about that. And I think it almost put up any, like you said, put them out of business almost. ⁓ I mean, I would say that's internalized racism, know, perpetuating from white supremacy. ⁓ don't, I don't, I mean, of course it's complicated, but I don't think the cause is a mystery. I do think that's it. If you're told,
over and over over again and all your images that you see are white Jesus then like ⁓ and that's who's there when you pray in church on Sunday morning and that's who's in your devotional books or whatever. Yeah, you would come to think that ⁓ especially if you live in a society that tells you every single day ⁓ that you the body that you live in is not ⁓ it's further from the divine, right? So I
I guess that's what I would describe that to. ⁓ And my goal, really, my hope with the article and with my work now too is to expand our horizons of who's included in the community of God and also what God looks like. ⁓ If God is not made up of the vast rainbow tapestry of humanity and all of creation, ⁓ then like, you know, we've ⁓ made God into
into an idol. If God is not larger and more beautiful and more expansive than we can imagine, we're doing something wrong. If we've kind of defined the image and said that's what it is and nothing else, that's not faith. That's us trying to put God in a box.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (53:25)
Yeah.
And you know, that's the genius of the Hebrews of the Old Testament. They didn't have an image of God. God forbid, he said, no, don't make any image of me. I don't want to be put in one box. So don't make any images of me. That's the genius of the Hebrew faith of the Bible that they decided, or by the mandate of God, no images.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (53:52)
Right.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (54:07)
You know, but that didn't people from putting the God of the Bible in an image of a white bearded man on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. So thank you, Christina, for hanging out with us and for sharing with us. Ladies and gentlemen, you really need to go Google this article. Who do you say that I am? Race, iconography,
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (54:19)
Mm-hmm.
Thank
Dr. Theron D. Williams (54:37)
and Jesus in the 21st century. You need to get it and you need to read it. Thank you, Christina, for hanging out with us and your fiance and your when is the wedding day.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (54:50)
next fall.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (54:51)
Congratulations and I wish you and your fiance a whole lot of happiness. Okay? Yes, yes.
Rev. Kristina Sinks (she/her) (54:53)
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Williams. Really interesting. So glad
to get to talk about this article. And I always recommend people listen to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar. So get out there and do that. Legend version is awesome. I recommend it.
Dr. Theron D. Williams (55:07)
yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome.
Yeah,