As if called on my secret red phone in the Mattcave, I appear in the Christian Commissioner's office. YOU RANG?

1. Jesus isn't white. One, our modern categories of race did not exist when he incarnated, and two, he is almost certainly a brown person, just like his mom. https://twitter.com/ericmetaxas/status/1287829767753019393

2. If he IS white, then yes, he would be recipient of white privilege. And no, that doesn't make him a sinner, because having privilege isn't sinful... though what you do with it can be!

Jesus is, for instance, male. Does that mean he has male privilege? YUP. Not a sin though.

3. Most Christians use the present tense when talking about the existence of Jesus. "Jesus is" not "Jesus was."

That's because a core teaching of Christianity is that Jesus is not dead. He was dead, but then he came back to life.

He continues to be a living, embodied person.

4. Here's one of our earliest depictions of Jesus. Found in Syria, it's from about 235. He's healing a paralytic. As you can see he is... uh... basically a stick figure.

5. Here's a Byzantine Jesus. He's got some melanin. This is mid 4th c? Trivia: this is one of the earlier moments when Jesus gets a beard.

6. Here's a Russian Jesus from 1100ish, based on the Byzantine models.

7. Here's a 10th century Jesus from a Manichean temple (so I'm told, I'm not as familiar with this religious tradition). That's from what we'd call east central Asia.

Jesus was middle-eastern, not middle-european, and this is about as "accurate" as white Jesus.

8. Which is part of the beauty of the incarnation. Jesus (God) became *human*. Became *like us* and the human instinct to portray him like us in ethnicity comes from good theological instinct.

Here's part of @kehindewileyart's beautiful "The Lamentation Over the Dead Christ."

9. This is an *evangelistic* theological instinct, too. I love the art of Fr. John Giuliani, a traditionally trained painter who represents Jesus as Native, with entire series of paintings of Jesus incarnated in different Native tribes.

10. This is part of the beauty of Jesus. Insisting that "Jesus is white" to score political points is to deny the gospel.

11. And in the US, the story of Jesus being Black is a narrative that moves us deeper into understanding the historical Jesus, a, innocent guy who was murdered by state violence and religious intolerance.

12. When it comes to artistic representations of Jesus we all may have some that speak to us more powerfully than others.

I love this painting by James Janknegt that shows the flight from Egypt... Jesus and Joseph playing in the pool while Mary suns in her bikini.

13. And when it comes to Mr. Metaxas, here's another Janknegt painting that I believe should be reflected on.

Following Christ is not a game of commerce and politics.