Christology and Colour Symbolism

The image is the “Head of Christ” (1940) by Warner Sallman (1892–1968). It is claimed to be the most reproduced image of all time, having been reproduced over 500 million times by the end of the 20th century.

House, Anna Swartwood, “The Long History of How Jesus Came to Resemble a White European,” The Conversation, July 17, 2020.

Miller, Emily McFarlan, “How Jesus became white — and why it’s time to cancel that,” The Presbyterian Outlook, 25 June 2020.

Kaur-Mann, Cham. “Who Do You Say I Am? Images of Jesus.” Black Theology 2, no. 1 (2004): 19–44.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. “Is Christ White? Racism and Christology.” In Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do, edited by George Yancy, 101–13. Routledge, 2012.

Wilmore, Gayraud S. “Black Messiah: Revising the Color Symbolism of Western Christology.” The Journal of the Interdenominational Theological Center 2, no. 1 (1974): 8–18.

Schreiter, Robert J. “Images of Jesus in Contemporary Cultures,” in Jesus as Christ: What Is at Stake in Christology, edited by Andrés Torres Queiruga, 124–29. London: SCM, 2008.

Yancy, George, ed. Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do? Routledge, 2012.

Posts in this Series

• The Diverse, Rich, and Critical Imaging of Jesus Christ
• Ancestor Christologies
• Asian Christologies 
• Black Christologies
• Christology and Colour Symbolism
• Critiques of Western Representations
• Indigenous Christologies
• Latin American Christologies
• Liberationist Christologies
• Migrant Christologies
• Pasifika Christologies