The Image of God

The attack on people who have melanin in their skin and who are from the continent of Africa by people who are from the land space called Europe actually began when the first Europeans emigrated from the cold climate of Europe to the African continent and discovered that they had to sit at the feet of African scholars and thinkers in places like the University of Sankore in the region of Mali and more specifically Timbuktu.

Europe did not have universities or academic institutions, but Africa did. There are many reasons for the attack on people whose skin has been kissed by nature’s sun, but one I propose here is envy and greed. The delivery system for this envy and greed has been a warped, twisted, toxic religious belief. The bible was thus used by previous Popes in Europe in the fifteenth century to justify the slaughtering, enslaving, and robbing of African people of the resources of their lands, and the evidence of their historical greatness. 

Toxic religious belief had to be concretized through distorted images of biblical personalities. Therefore, images of the baby Jesus and his earthly mother, Mary, were reformed by Renaissance artists who used family members to pose as Madonna and Child, and then circulated those images with the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century and at the end of a gun barrel. 

The objective was to recast the images of Jesus and all the biblical characters as White and then distribute those images via violence and colonization to reinterpret the religion of Jesus from a religion of deliverance of the oppressed to a religion of European nativism, nationalism and colonization of people of darker hues. 

This was a direct contradiction to the biblical images of Jesus and God. In Daniel 7:9, the prophet had a vision of the one he called the “Ancient of days,” who represented the image of God. Daniel describes this Ancient of Days as having hair “like wool.” The representation is in correlation to the hair texture of Black African people. When I grew up in the 1970s, this texture of hair was the kind that we as Black people used products made for us like Soft Sheen, and Afro-sheen. 

In the book of Revelation, the writer John describes in another vision his image of the resurrected Jesus. In Revelation 1:14-15, John describes Jesus as having “hair like wool and feet the color of burnt bronze…” Not only does John describe Jesus’ hair exactly as Daniel did, but John goes a step further to note that Jesus was so dark in complexion that he appeared as bronze that had been baked in a furnace. 

I want to suggest that these authentic biblical images caused a spirit of envy and hate in far too many greedy, envious people who lack melanin because they don’t see themselves in the sacred text.

Therefore in order to control people of color and to prevent them from competing on a level playing field, first Europeans since Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire felt they had to first twist the gospel of Jesus into a hegemonic heresy of White Christian nationalism, next use subterfuge and military violence to subdue and colonize indigenous people of color and finally create policies that disenfranchise, deprive and disinherit people who are of a darker complexion to keep them from experiencing equity.

All of this because the historical record of Africa being the birth of civilization, Africa and Africans creating all of the disciplines of higher education, and the bible’s depiction of God, Jesus, and angels as a darker hue. 

It is not Africans and African descended people who see
themselves as superior it is the very racist who betray that they believe this through the extent they are willing to go and
the billions of dollars they are willing to spend to keep Black people from voting and to keep Black and Brown people at the bottom of the social ladder. 

It is the “fear of a Black planet,” to quote the title to the album by the Hip Hop group Public Enemy that is the motive behind the attacks on D.E.I., Affirmative Action and any policy that attempts to create a level playing field economically, socially and politically for Black people in this nation. It is the very reason the social construct of race was invented by White people in the first place.  

There are however many people of European heritage who are outspoken against the anti-Black hatred and who have abandoned the toxic and cruelly distorted religious belief systems being promulgated by many of their skin and who welcome the divine intention of diversity. 

We thank God for the enlightened ones but never forget that the floor of inequity and greed begins with bad belief systems and toxic religion that was created as a result of envy and greed. 

Be well, Be authentic and Stay Woke! Uhuru Sassa!     

     

 Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.