Critics are up in arms after a faith-based magazine and a Catholic priest downplayed the Jewish origins of Jesus Christ during the Christmas season, calling Him “Asian” and “Palestinian.”
In an article published during the Advent season in Christianity Today titled, “How Asian Artists Picture Jesus’ Birth From 1240 to Today,” writer Victoria Emily Jones claimed, “Jesus was born in Asia. He was Asian.”
“Some may object to depicting Jesus as anything other than a brown male born into a Jewish family in Bethlehem of Judea in the first century, believing that doing so undermines his historicity,” she wrote.
Her piece features nine works of art from Asian cultures depicting the Nativity. Jones contends that the photo essays “bring him back to Asia—but not to ancient Israel” and… “proclaim the expansiveness of Christ’s kingdom.”
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“By representing Jesus as Japanese, Indonesian, or Indian, they convey a sense of God’s immanence, his ‘with-us–ness,’ for their own communities—and for everyone else, the universality of Christ’s birth,” the report states.
The article, first published on December 18, drew ire throughout the Christmas season as
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