Focusing on how Jesus is portrayed with European features, due to the artist’s subject for the mural being a Russian Jew, Christerson addresses the historical and psychological implications for having a white Jesus as a centerpoint to Biola’s campus and marketing campaigns. The perpetuation of a European Jesus links the Word mural and Biola to the history of oppression of Africans, Asians, and Native Americans by white Europeans and Americans, bringing the past to the present without room for reconciliation or change. Christerson also examines the psychological effect of having a European Jesus both for minorities and white Americans who view it, due to the association of whiteness with purity and good and blackness with evil and ugliness. In the end Christerson’s only solution is to not restore the mural.
The Institute for Cultural Engagement, an official program of Multnomah University and Biblical Seminary