By Church Stained Glass Depicts Jesus as a Person of Colour
Church Stained Glass Depicts Jesus as a Person of Colour
By Church News
A 19th-century stained glass window has been uncovered by a Harvard art historian depicting Jesus Christ as a person of colour.
Located at a church in Rhode Island, USA, the picture had previously gone unnoticed as worshippers did not recognise it as depicting Jesus.The art piece shows Jesus engaged in conversation with two women, believed to be Mary and Martha, who are also shown with dark skin and were installed in the former St. Mark’s Church, Warren, 1878.The window may be the first public works to depict Jesus Christ and the gospel women Mary and Martha as people of colour.“It’s a rebel window,” Arnold told the Providence Journal, believing it could be the first public work to show Jesus as a person of colour. Virginia Raguin – a professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts was among those to visit.“This is a radical statement about fundamental equality of persons, and today we are privileged to have this record,’ she told the Providence Journal”.The intentional use of brown is suggested by the use of milky-white glass in many of the church’s other windows.Arnold discovered the 12-foot glass window after buying the former church to transform it into a home.Also, a Missouri church whose stained glass windows reflects disputed racial representations of historical Christianity and don’t reflect the current makeup of the parish is commissioned a new set of windows depicting Jesus and other biblical figures as people of colour.
To commission designs for four new windows, the church reached out to Cbabi Bayoc, an artist renowned in the St. Louis area and beyond for his paintings and murals. Bayoc said he paints “the world that I want to see my children and yours thrive in,” often focusing on Black parenthood and family life. His body of work includes the cover art for Prince’s 2001 album “The Rainbow Children” and the illustrations for Ibram X. Kendi’s new children’s book, “Goodnight Racism.”Many parishioners were familiar with Bayoc’s work; a few collected it and knew him personally.However, Bayoc had never designed a stained glass window before. Fortunately, one of the oldest stained glass studios in the United States, Emil Frei and Associates, has been operating in St. Louis since 1898.ALSO READ: Butch Hartman Launches Cartoon to Teach Kids about the Bible Discover more from Church News
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