Originally published June 13, 2023 8:00 pm PDT
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin is replacing its stained glass windows with a picture of Jesus as an illegal migrant.
QUICK FACTS:
- The Church of St. Mary the Virgin in England is replacing stained glass windows of philanthropist Edward Colston with an image depicting Jesus Christ as a black, illegal immigrant on a rubber boat.
- The Anglican church, also known as St. Mary Redcliffe, will have new windows portraying Jesus with “multiple ethnicities” to “counter the Anglocentric narrative of ‘white Jesus’,” according to artist Ealish Swift.
- Swift said the “first panel depicts a Bristol ship traversing the raging seas of the Middle Passage during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and references the story of Jesus calming the storm,” while the second panel “celebrates the Bristol Bus Boycott, which paved the way for the Race Relations Act of 1965, with Jesus as a fellow protester and radical.”
- According to the artist, the last two panels will represent Jesus as a child refugee fleeing to Egypt and then a diverse group of “neighbors” facing the future in a display of hope and togetherness.
ARTIST EALISH SWIFT ON THE NEW CHURCH DISPLAY PORTRAYING JESUS CHRIST AS AN IMMIGRANT:
Swift said the “panel portrays the current refugee crisis, and Jesus as a child refugee fleeing to Egypt,” with the “final panel [showing] a diverse group of ‘neighbours’ facing the future in a display of hope and togetherness.”
BACKGROUND:
- In January 2023, The Church of England announced a series of measures in an effort to “compensate” for its links to the Transatlantic slave trade.
- As part of the effort, the Church Commissioners’ board set up the fund to deliver a program of investment, research, and engagement over the next nine years.
- The church said it would not be using the term “reparations,” as the money would not go to individuals but to support projects “focused on improving opportunities for communities adversely impacted by historic slavery.”
- The Archbishop of Canterbury and chair of the Church Commissioners, Justin Welby, said the move “lays bare the links of the Church Commissioners’ predecessor fund with transatlantic chattel slavery. I am deeply sorry for these links. It is now time to take action to address our shameful past.”
- “The transatlantic slave economy played a significant role in shaping who we are as a society, a country and a Church, and we needed to understand it,” the board wrote in their report titled ‘Church Commissioners’ Research Into Historic Links To Transatlantic Chattel Slavery.
- “Nothing we do, hundreds of years later, will give the enslaved people back their lives. But we can and will recognise and acknowledge the horror and shame of the Church’s role in historic transatlantic chattel slavery and, through our response, seek to begin to address the injustices caused as a result,” the church continued.
