So William Yu, the creator of the hilarious (and surprisingly effective) #StarringJohnCho, has faithfully tweeted every single day for the past several years.
And I agree. Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang’s TV series Master of None gets credit for first alerting me back in 2016 to how important, affirming and empowering it was to see someone like me as a major character on screen in mainstream western media. There was a guy with East Asian heritage (Kelvin Yu as ‘Brian’) who was… just being himself? An Everyman who spoke fluent American English? Who wasn’t a doctor, ninja or maths geek speaking in a caricutured accent? I felt seen and validated.1
That was six years ago, and thankfully societal discourse around the importance of representation has become much more pervasive and mainstream; the whitewashing of Hollywood has been consistently challenged in recent years, and diverse casting in visual forms of media telling rich and nuanced (not stereotyped or clichéd) stories has increased tenfold.
Notable figures for me, personally: Hayden Szeto in The Edge of Seventeen. Steven Yeun in The Walking Dead. And of course, the entire cast of Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
There’s a moving clip of an East Asian girl seeing Phillipa Soo as ‘Eliza’ in Hamilton that perfectly encapsulates the real and profound impact of representation even at such a young age:
There’s no need to rehash all of this, and the fact that it would take much longer now to describe the present zeitgeist (instead of quickly recoursing to Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther as the two bastions of ‘diversity’) is testament to the encouraging progress western society has made.
I was wandering around the inside of Nantes Cathedral in France during a mission trip in 2018, admiring the architectural genius apparent in the towering pillars and intricate shrines. My eyes instinctively latched on to the artwork, classical paintings depicting famous biblical stories, which I found some small pleasure in guessing rightly: the miracles of Jesus, his crucifixion, the disciples burying his body in Joseph’s tomb, etc. Nothing I’d never seen before; it’s impossible to live in the West without encountering such portrayals of Christian heritage. But then, standing there, gazing up at the paintings hanging above, I was struck by the sudden realisation: all the figures were white.
How ridiculously absurd. Jesus wasn’t white. Neither were his disciples. Of course not. Absurd, it was.
In fact: How might the early Christians have reacted to this? Might they have laughed at the foolishness, pointed out how Jesus and his disciples looked nothing like that? Or might they have been offended at how wrong and even potentially heretical (Greek mythology, syncretism and all that) these Renaissance depictions of their Lord were?
But then: Why was it that whenever I pictured Jesus in my mind, even at the age of 26 (at the time), he was white? It was absurd, yet also entirely normal. Jesus had always been white to me growing up. Had my upbringing really caused white Jesus to be so deeply engrained in my subconscious, caused me to unwittingly envision a white-skinned man whom I was praying to and even worshipped? I was disconcerted.
A few weeks later, our mission studies lecturer showed us this picture:
I was profoundly moved. Deeply. And surprisingly. I had never seen an East Asian Jesus before. And there he was, a Jesus who looked like me (minus the beard), and therefore made more real to me. Notice the details: lush green mountainous landscape with three crosses and open tomb, distinctly patterned clouds on which Jesus sits/floats (reminiscent of the Monkey King), God on the throne with rays of sun emanating from behind. It’s simple yet striking.
It was only later that I discovered, breaking out of my western confines, that cultures all around the world have historically depicted Jesus as one of them. And it’s beautiful. There’s even a Latin Catholic church called the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel that contains mosaics of the virgin Mary and baby Jesus from various countries, and it’s testament to the beauty and power and relevance of the Christian message to all peoples, cultures and countries.2 It's a clear renunciation of the normativity of white Jesus that can make it an obstacle for people to envision the true diversity and inclusivity of the Christian faith.
I’m not condemning white portrayals of Jesus per se, which I’m sure helped Christianity’s spread in the West. I’m more condemning the fact that western missionaries often imposed upon others a white-skinned ‘default’ version of Jesus that looked nothing like them, and with no regard whatsoever for their ethnic heritage and cultural identity. What does it communicate to people of other ethnicities when their Lord and Saviour looks like someone who could have colonised their ancestors?
I love seeing yellow Jesus. I can’t get enough of it. It draws him close to home. (And no, I’m not talking about the supposed Japanese tomb of Jesus – who escaped the crucifixion by swapping places with his brother, Isukiri, and fled to Japan where he married Miyuko, had three daughters and died at the ripe old age of 106 in Shingō, Aomori lol.) Look, I know Jesus wasn’t yellow – and perhaps the same thorny issues of heresy might very well apply here. Yet there is undeniable power in visualising a Jesus who looks like us – it can help us to grasp and relate more fully to a Jesus who represents us, who shared our full humanity, who is able to sympathise with all our weaknesses.
Note: I use ‘yellow’ in an attempt to reclaim what has historically been a racist term to describe East Asians (e.g. ‘yellow peril’). It stems from Swedish taxonomist Carl Linnaeus’ separation of humans into four groups in 1735 including Homo Asiaticus – in addition to European (white), African (black), American (red) – whose distinguishing colour was luridus (meaning ‘lurid’, ‘sallow’, ‘pale yellow’). Come to think of it, surely that must have inspired C. H. Woolston when he wrote the children’s hymn, ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children’ (‘…red and yellow, black and white…’) – some modern versions have even inserted ‘brown’ in between ‘red’ and ‘yellow’.
Speaking of more accurate representation, here’s possible brown Jesus:
In 2001 forensic anthropologist Richard Neave created a model of a Galilean man for a BBC documentary, Son of God, working on the basis of an actual skull found in the region. He did not claim it was Jesus's face. It was simply meant to prompt people to consider Jesus as being a man of his time and place, since we are never told he looked distinctive. (‘What Did Jesus Really Look Like?’, BBC News)
Pretty white boys with your blue eyes and flowing hair, please step aside – no hate to Jim Caviezel or Ewan McGregor or [insert white actor here]. Growing up in the 90s and 00s in Japan, I remember missionaries and churches religiously distributing the pervasive ministry resource that was The Jesus Film (1979 with Brian Deacon; translated into multiple languages) with a white Jesus speaking in a very articulate and posh English accent – as influential as it has been in many people’s lives, I can’t imagine that helping to combat the primary view of Christianity as a white and therefore irrelevant religion by Japanese people. Even the Jesus in Manga Messiah is synonymously white.
I haven’t watched the recent TV series The Chosen but I’m glad even in America there has been a deliberate move towards more accurate portrayals of Jesus (played by Jonathan Roumie who is ethnically Egyptian-Irish) and characters in biblical times. I especially appreciate the fact that many of the actors speak English not in an American or British accent – disregarding the fact that obviously no one spoke English then – because it broadens representation for ethnic minorities in the West who speak all sorts of Englishes.
Why do I think it’s so important to reclaim a brown Jesus? Especially when I’ve emphasised the importance of ethnic fluidity in visual representation?
Bringing Christianity back to its roots – its specifically West Asian roots3 – can have the effect of increased destigmatisation and familiarisation in the West. If people truly grasped that their Lord was a brown man, might they not treat other brown people with the same respect and love? Might not a renewed perspective allow for greater consciousness, and therefore greater love, empathy and compassion towards the so-called 'other'?
There’s a double effect at play here: increased exposure to different ethnic Jesuses will hopefully not just empower non-white people themselves, but also shift wider myopic attitudes of western society towards people of other ethnicities. I want to reorientate the normalisation of white Jesus to brown Jesus (or other Jesuses) so that there might be greater acceptance of people who are not part of the white majority in the West, a greater valuing of non-western cultures. Over time, just as white Jesus was engrained in my mind (and many others), one hopes that brown Jesus will alter perceptions and affect behaviours – more loving ones in accordance with Jesus and his teachings – especially towards the ethnic ‘other’.
I love the project Icons of the Bible by photographer James C. Lewis who reimagines 100 Bible characters with models who identify as West Asian, Native American, Hispanic, African, Black American and West Indian. It’s such a powerful visual antidote to whitewashed depictions of the Bible, vividly bringing the stories to life and making them even more grounded in reality.
James C. Lewis said in an interview:
I think it is very important to see one’s self in the scripture so that it may become real in our eyes. The whitewashing of the Bible has always bothered me. However I’m happy to now have the opportunity to give a different point of view. I wish to exhibit a splash of color onto the biblical pages of history with my creative embellishments. By doing so I hope to open the minds and eyes of the ignorant and create open conversations of how we can learn to see the world through colorful lenses. After all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is intended for everyone. (‘If Icons of the Bible were Black! See Atlanta Photographer James C. Lewis’ Exhibition’, BellaNaija)
For me, deconstruction began with white Jesus in Nantes Cathedral; reconstruction began with my first encounter with yellow Jesus. The process wasn’t instantaneous or overnight; it required proactive and conscious intentionality to retrain my neural pathways to move away from white normativity. And increased and constant exposure to non-white Jesuses, especially historically accurate brown Jesus, was vital in helping me shift. We’re all influenced and swayed by what we see; let’s not underestimate the power of visual representation to inform and shape our lives.
I leave you with a short sketch:
Although I didn’t grow up in the West, I grew up thoroughly immersed and shaped by western culture. And even though I’m fully East Asian by ethnic heritage, I’m neither fully Singaporean Chinese nor fully Japanese culturally. Neither Singaporean media nor Japanese media represented my experience entirely. I had representation on screen to an extent – though don’t get me started about the nuances of looking/being East Asian in another East Asian country – but western media still had the greatest influence in my spheres of life.
I also wonder if it demonstrates just how culturally transcendent/immanent Jesus and his message is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen other prominent religious figures whitewashed or depicted as other ethnicities before.
As much as possible I avoid using the term ‘Middle East’ (just like how I avoid using ‘Far East’) as it has its roots in Eurocentrism and colonialism.
Since my parents were not Christians and I never went to a church school when I was young, I have never thought Jesus as a white person. I thought that Jesus is Jesus. The picture of Asian Jesus you showed in this blog has too much influence on Buddhist tradition to me. I am sure it has some similarity with those hidden Maria or Jesus in Kakure Kirishitan images. White, Black, Brown or Yellow doesn’t matter, but Jesus was the Son of God, who was born to the line of David, a middle eastern Jewish clan. Jesus taking the flesh is important to me.
Don't necessarily agree with all your points. As a white guy, I do feel like whiteness is under attack, and that I'm automatically labeled racist due to my skin color in the woke narrative and have to pay reparations for things I didn't even do. It is acceptable to walk all over white/western cultures, but it is appropriation to admire and honor other cultures. It's a bit twisted up in the modern age, and I long for unity.
This was an interesting read and mostly understandable from your perspective too though. I believe Christians should take a Pauline approach: 'to the Greeks I became Greek, to the Romans I became Roman, etc.'
The Western world has been primarily white for centuries, so we have adopted primarily white displays of our culture to relate to, such as white Jesus. I do not believe that is wrong. I also do not believe we should tear all those displays down. However, when we minister to non-white/non-western cultures, we should become one of the people and display God in a way that is relatable to them, which we as Christians haven't done in the best way over the years.
The spread of the gospel to foreign cultures requires humility, teachability, and adaptability. When we implement new churches in foreign lands, I don't think we should keep everything the same: 3 songs in the beginning, a message, and a closing song. It's not formulaic like we have made it out to be. That seems to me is the real issue. We have missionaries going overseas and creating carbon copies of churches from where they came from. No wonder it's seen as a western religion.