When I was in third grade, my parents moved to a new neighborhood and I entered a school that was about three-quarters white. That ratio didn't last long, as white families left that part of town like it was ground zero for a nuclear test blast. But for a couple of years I had the enlightening experience of being a black kid in a mostly white school. It is ironic how being on the outside can lead to insight.

In my second year in this new school I was chosen to be one the three wise men, or Magi, in the school Christmas pageant. The luster was quickly dulled when my father revealed that the casting was probably influenced by the belief that one of the wise men was "Ethiopian." I got the role because of my race! It was an odd feeling to know that my race limited me to being a bit player, even in this dramatization of what was said to be a singular event in human history. I began to have my doubts.

Aside from the paint job, I was miscast as a wise man. I had a hard time getting into the role. My few lines came forth without purpose. My portrayal was wooden. I couldn't make the part come alive. I was totally unable to come to grips with my character's motivation. The whole story made little sense to me.

You figure it out. The wise men followed a bright star to make a long journey to a distant land. Along the way, they thoughtfully stopped by to tip off King Herod about the birth of this latest savior god, thereby precipitating the "slaughter of the innocents." When they reached their destination, they presented precious but virtually useless gifts to an infant who, aside from the positioning of the star (which no one else seemed to notice), appeared in every way totally average. They were never heard from again. To describe them as enigmatic would be too kind. They could have just as easily been the Three Stooges.

The plum role in that production obviously would have been Joseph, but the race thing stood in the way. Jesus and Mary were always portrayed as white, so Joseph had to be white, even though Joseph wasn't Jesus' real father. Oddly enough, Jesus' "father" was the Holy Ghost (Matthew 1.18), who is usually depicted as a dove - a white dove, of course. So a fowl could be Jesus' dad, but not a black person. That's the traditional Christian pecking order.

So who wrote this story, anyway? If you look closely, you can find African roots for the tale of Christmas. At the time when Jesus was said to have been born, there were already Egyptian nativity scenes carved into the walls of ancient temples dating back almost two millennia. These Egyptian gods were born in almost the same fashion as Jesus - with an Annunciation, Holy Spirit, and even Wise Men. Maybe the way the Egyptians told it, it made more sense - it sure couldn't have been any worse. In any event, if my school had chosen to celebrate the birth of an Egyptian god rather than a Jewish one, I could have been a star!

I didn't spend a whole lot of time thinking about these issues at the time, but eventually the experience of being a wise man was going to make me smart. Maybe Jesus could be believably portrayed by a black person. After all, the best scholars in the world are in disagreement over whether he even existed, so who can to say what his race was? In recent years, Afrocentric researchers have pointed out that there were Africans all over the Middle East, and that the Old Testament predicted that the messiah would have hair like wool and feet like bronze. Slim evidence, to be sure, but there is at least the possibility that Jesus, if he existed, used Afro Sheen instead of Brylcream. In the absence of facts, faith works just fine. Go ahead, make God in your image. Everybody else is doing it.

But why stop there? Why even begin there? Before we speculate whether Jesus was black or white, maybe we should answer that question of whether he lived at all.

The evidence that Jesus was merely one in a series of similar savior gods is difficult to refute. All the major themes of the Christmas story were present in numerous older accounts. As mentioned above, the visitation by the Magi and the presentation of gifts were story elements lifted from earlier tales of divine, or near-divine, births. At the time the gospels were written, many previous figures, such as Socrates, Krishna, Osiris, Mithra and Zoroaster, to name a few, had already been honored by wise men as newborns. They were typically born in caves or stables. And usually their births were also heralded by the appearance of some fabulous celestial display. The three wise men were a tired cliché, even in ancient times.

If I had known at the time that the Magi and even Jesus himself, or, at least, the more spectacular elements of the Jesus character, were constructed mainly of bits and pieces of various folklore, perhaps I would have been able to come to grips with my character. Then perhaps the bizarre aspects of the story would have been less distressing. But what about the mythical, standard white Jesus? Could youngsters such as I hold some hope of portraying a black Jesus? Can the myth that included walking on water, raising from the dead, and even ascending into heaven be stretched to include, wonder of wonders, a black son of God?

The depiction of African Jesuses becomes a minor issue each Christmas. People have grown to accept black Santas, but Jesus is a tougher nut to crack. It's more than the costume and the jolly laugh. Ethnic identity is central to the whole story, no denying it. Proponents of the black Jesus point to the hair-like-wool-and-feet-like-bronze passages, insisting that these vague references mean that Jesus was a person of at least some African blood. Various black Christians assert that Jesus at the very least did not fit the traditional European depiction of a fair-skinned Nordic type. It's funny how something like Christmas, supposedly a time to observe the "brotherhood of man," can become a point of contention among different groups. This is a rather odd scenario, debating the ethnicity of a figure who may or may not have existed. But to believers, it matters a great deal, since Jesus was said to have been born to a race of "chosen people." If there were such a thing as a chosen people, then being among that group could not be bad. Jesus' Jewish identity is central to the whole plot. Jesus could not have fulfilled ancient prophesy had he not been born of the house of David. People such as Canaanites, Cushites and Philistines had very well-defined roles in this story, mostly as bad guys or foils for the leading Jewish characters. If Jesus was black, then he must have been a black Jew, for Jesus, if he existed at all beyond the realm of a mythic figure, was definitely Jewish. If one can build an argument that at least some of the Jews of biblical times were ethnically African, then to those for whom the Bible is the word of God, black people suddenly are elevated to a central role in God's relationship with humanity. It is a big deal, even better than crowing about "proud African kings."

Unfortunately for those black people who place their faith in the Bible and seek to enhance their ethnic identity in that context, assertions that black people were in the inner circle of Jewish society, and that Christ himself was black, have little support in the scriptures. Certainly there were black people present in the ancient Palestine, and they, most often Ethiopians (although that term probably meant something different than we understand it today, even if you refer to the meaning at the time that the Bible was translated into English), are mentioned many times in the Bible. But these references also reveal that the authors regarded blacks as different and unusual, and, sometimes, inferior. Jeremiah 13:23 asks, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" While such a reference is not directly insulting, it does reveal a perception of blackness as not the norm. Obviously the author of that passage did not consider the Jews and the Ethiopians to have the same color.

Christ's ethnology is a strange subject for speculation, since by his nature Christ, in his modern interpretation, is intended to be a universal figure, and, in fact, he is, more so than most would admit. Jesus is almost a cultural universal, representing, as pointed out earlier, a class of savior God that transcends numerous societies. Jesus' story of virgin birth, a living god among men, and an unjust death to save mankind - or at least a select portion of it - from damnation is a common theme virtually around the world. When the Spanish explorers studied the native American religions, they were astonished to find the major themes of Christianity. Africans found familiar themes when they were exposed to Christianity, including water rites, a hierarchy of deities, specialization of minor gods (saints) to specific purposes, and the utilization of charms and icons. Christ fit right in, his supposed race notwithstanding.

Christianity has a universal character because it was, in fact, almost universal in its origins. Of course, the fact that it was patched together from many diverse parts is a fact believers are loathe to acknowledge. That recognition would largely unravel central tenets such as "chosen people," redemption, the superiority of Christianity, and Christ's divinity, or even his existence. The survival of Christianity is linked to the claim of cultural isolation, uniqueness, and superiority. It's virtually indistinguishable from racism. I could be a Wise Man, but never a god.

Copyright 1998 by Patrick Inniss.  All rights reserved.