The Anglican church should reconsider the way statues and other representations of Jesus portray him as white in the light of the Black Lives Matter protests, the archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Justin Welby also said that the church must look very carefully to see if they should all be there.
In an interview on Friday, the head of the Church of England said the west in general needed to question the prevailing mindset that depicted Christ as a white man in traditional Christian imagery.
Asked if there had to be rethink on the white image of Jesus, Welby said: “Yes of course it does, this sense that God was white … You go into churches [around the world] and you don’t see a white Jesus.
“You see a black Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a Middle-Eastern Jesus – which is of course the most accurate – you see a Fijian Jesus.”
Welby told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Jesus is portrayed in as many ways as there are cultures, languages and understandings. And I don’t think that throwing out everything we’ve got in the past is the way to do it but I do think saying: ‘That’s not the Jesus who exists, that’s not who we worship,’ it is a reminder of the universality of the God who became fully human.”
He said that statues in Canterbury Cathedral would be under review on the back of the worldwide Black Lives Matter campaign to bring down monuments to controversial figures such as those engaged in the slave trade.
On the recent calls for statue removals, the archbishop said people should forgive the “trespasses” of people immortalised in the form of statues, rather than tearing them down.
Welby said: “Some names will have to change. I mean, the church, goodness me, you know, you just go around Canterbury Cathedral, there’s monuments everywhere, or Westminster Abbey, and we’re looking at all that, and some will have to come down. But yes, there can be forgiveness, I hope and pray as we come together, but only if there’s justice.”
But challenged if this meant some statues would be taken down from inside Canterbury Cathedral, he said: “No, I didn’t say that. I very carefully didn’t say that.”
He added that it was not his decision, and told the Today programme: “We’re going to be looking very carefully and putting them in context and seeing if they all should be there … The question arises. Of course it does.”
