BUSTH Master of Divinity Student Chasity Jones Selenga (MDiv’22) Featured in Christian Century Article
This article was originally published by The Christian Century on August 16, 2021, and features Boston University School of Theology student Chasity Jones Selenga (MDiv’22). The full article can be found here. Below is an excerpt only.
This Seattle church’s stained-glass Jesus was far too White
So a local artist found a creative way to cover him up.
Chasity Jones Selenga, who founded Fourth Wave Revolution to help decolonize social justice work, delivered a guest sermon at Church of Hope in which she pointed out that depicting Jesus as White isn’t just inaccurate, it “plagues the western hemisphere with its inaccuracy.” Such depictions can disconnect people of color from God. White people are not “the appropriate context” for all things divine, she said. As White Jesus looked down on her from the window, she asked: “Is it possible that we have created God in our image, not the other way around?” She went on to explain how the idea of the image of God has been co-opted by White people to reflect only themselves, excluding and ignoring her own experience as a Black Christian.
The window was a problem—the congregation agreed. But there was no budget to remove it or to hire an artist to reimagine it. Church of Hope doesn’t even own the building. The congregation leases it from a local social services organization that plans eventually to demolish it and replace it with affordable housing and a new sanctuary space. They needed a short-term solution, something inexpensive and easy.