Ethics

A Non-White Jesus? Perish the Thought

By Ed Brayton

I find this rather funny. A small town in Italy put up a nativity scene with a dark-skinned baby Jesus and the locals are up in arms over it.

The Christmas scene -- featuring a dark-skinned baby Jesus dressed in a red shirt and lying in a manger -- was the idea of Mario Giulio Schinaia, the chief Public Prosecutor in Verona.

"History teaches us that baby Jesus and his parents were very probably dark-skinned," Schinaia told Reuters. "This nativity belongs to a universal Christmas tradition that brings together the whole of Christianity in celebration."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on December 16, 2009 (boomark / email).