Description:
When Western Christians think about God, the default image that comes to mind is usually white and male. How did that happen?
Christianity is rooted in the ancient Near East among people of darker skin. But over time, European Christians cast Jesus in their own image, with art that imagined a fair-skinned Savior in the style of imperial rulers. Grace Ji-Sun Kim explores the historical origins and theological implications of how Jesus became white and God became a whitemale. The myth of the white male God has had a devastating effect as it enabled Christianity to have a profoundly colonialist posture across the globe. Kim examines the roots of the distortion, its harmful impact on the world, and shows what it lookslike to recover the biblical reality of a nonwhite, nongendered God. Rediscovering God as Spirit leads us to a more just faith and a better church and world.
Brief description:
Grace Ji-Sun Kim (PhD, St. Michael's College, University of Toronto) is associate professor of theology at Earlham School of Religion. She is author or editor of twenty-four books, including Embracing the Other, Christian Doctrines for Global Gender Justice, and Intercultural Ministry. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Review Quotes:
"Evangelicalism has nothing to do with the message of a Brown rabbi living on occupied land at the margins of the empire. Grace Ji-Sun Kim's book serves as a corrective to our current white-Christian nationalism that in the name of this white God is death-dealing to all who fall short of the white male ideal. Through recounting her own journey, Kim bears witness against a white religious supremacy that must die--and let the dead bury the dead--if the gospel message is to have any relevance forour own time."
--Miguel A. De La Torre, professor of social ethics and Latinx studies at Iliff School of Theology at the University of Denver