[...] Melissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, is the author of an academic paper titled "Liberation to Mutual Fund: The Political Consequences of Differing Conceptions of Christ in the African American Church," soon to be published in the journal Religion and American Political Behavior. It analyzed responses from the National Black Politics Study to gauge how blacks view the race of Jesus.Using data collected in the study, a telephone survey of 1,200 black households, Harris-Lacewell discerned that 22 percent of the respondents pictured Jesus as being black. Forty-seven percent gave a more ambiguous response, saying they believed Jesus was neither black nor white. The remaining 31 percent said they believed Jesus was white or didn't know.
Young black men with higher levels of education are more likely to perceive Jesus as black, as are black Baptists and people who live in urban environments. Those who frequently attend church are less likely to see Jesus as black, which Harris-Lacewell suspects is due to the prevalence of church icons that depict him as white.
Yet half of the respondents said black churches should display images of a black Christ, "basically because it is culturally important," Harris-Lacewell said. [...]
| That's the data hook that caught my eye in Ed Beeson's Herald News article "The color of Jesus"
posted in articles on October 12, 2006 9:34 AM | t (0)
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