If you've been watching the mainstream news media or scrolling through X this Christmas, you know that the hot take is that Jesus was a Palestinian … even though he died before Palestine existed.
Christianity Today needs to realize that sometimes people just read tweets and don't click through to the articles. A lot of people try to "shock" us by pointing out that Jesus wasn't a white European. Christianity Today tweeted on Christmas Eve that Jesus is Asian and was born in Asia.
Jesus was born in Asia. He was Asian.
— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 24, 2023
The artists in this photo essay bring him back to Asia—but not to ancient Israel.
These nine artworks "proclaim the expansiveness of Christ’s kingdom." https://t.co/qGmeOo79Ak
Nice clickbait. The "photo essay" shows the nativity scene depicting Jesus as Japanese, Indonesian, or Indian. Yes, Christians around the world follow Jesus and often portray him as a native. But he was born in Asia? Come on.
Christianity Today reports:
Jesus was born in Asia. He was Asian. Yet the preponderance of Christian art that shows him at home in Europe has meant that he is embedded deeply in the popular imagination as Western.
The artists in this photo essay bring him back to Asia—but not to ancient Israel. They make the birth a local event, translating the story into their own cultural contexts. And so we see Jesus wearing, for example, the bone necklace of an Igorot chief (the Indigenous people of northern Luzon, Philippines) or greeted by water buffalo at a roadside pavilion in Thailand.
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. But Christian artists who tackle the subject of the Incarnation are often aiming not at historical realism but at theological meaning.
Ah, we're talking not about "historical realism" but "theological meaning." We get it — Christianity is universal.
Blasphemy.
— Samuel Sey (@SlowToWrite) December 25, 2023
Jesus is a Jew. It’s necessary for our salvation that he is a son of David, from the tribe of Judah, and born in Bethlehem.
Stop this nonsense.
He isn’t European, Asian, Palestinian or black.
He’s a Jew—the king of the Jews and therefore the saviour of the world.
Was he gender fluid too?
— Heather Champion (@winningatmylife) December 24, 2023
We recently reported on Michelangelo Buonarroti's Pietà 2.0, featuring a tattooed Jesus Christ and a transgender Madonna.
It’s still not too late to delete this.
— Smash Baals (@smashbaals) December 25, 2023
Please delete your account
— William Wolfe 🇺🇸 (@William_E_Wolfe) December 24, 2023
Next can you please do an article with a bunch of AI images of Jesus if He were Rosa Parks
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) December 25, 2023
The Bible, the infallible word of God, is pretty specific where Jesus came from and where he was born. It was not Asia.
— Jeff (@The_Hope_Report) December 24, 2023
He was a Jew. You should change your name to Heresy Today.
— Dan Stilwell (@realdanstilwell) December 25, 2023
Your profile says you're shaping the church and the culture.
— Ryan Cunningham (@rycunni) December 24, 2023
This account is full of mistruths.
What is your actual mission?
— thatbrian® (@thatbrian_again) December 25, 2023
Such appropriate timing to question Jesus' Jewishness.
— Rural Revolution (@pilgrimboy14) December 25, 2023
Ceasefire now, am I right?
Your bait is bad and your should feel bad
— Author John A. Douglas (@BlkCrownAuthor) December 24, 2023
It's a bad tweet.
This is embarrassing for you.
— Floridian 🇺🇸 FA/FO (@RandomFLDude) December 26, 2023
Just change your name to ‘Paganism Today’ at this point and stop with this utter garbage nonsense. Unbelievable 🤯
— Fyreous (@fyreous) December 25, 2023
What an embarrassing account.
— Martian Surveyor (@MartianSurveyor) December 25, 2023
Heretical “progressive” publication. They’ve been full of unbiblical garbage for a number of years now.
— Cats without Borders (@russ62960450) December 26, 2023
Their purpose I believe is to weaken Christianity from the inside. @megbasham
CTM desired online engagement. They got it.
— Ethan Park (@Ethan_HwamokRpt) December 26, 2023
Pretty petty though.
And sad.
Very sad.
We get it — Asian Christians tend to depict Jesus as Asian. But He wasn't born in Asia. This is not a good time to fool around with clickbait questioning where Jesus was born — CNN's Vatican correspondent apparently thinks Bethlehem is in Gaza.
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