People who think Jesus Christ was white are more likely to endorse anti-Black attitudes, a new study found, suggesting that belief in white deities works to uphold white supremacy.
The researchers argued that a Jesus who has the same race as the dominant group helps that dominant group maintain power and legitimacy.
"It's associating godliness with whiteness," lead author Simon Howard, an assistant professor of psychology at Marquette University, told The Academic Times.
He said that some white people may cling to an image of white Jesus because a God who is not white undermines racist ideologies, and thus, "It threatens white supremacy.".
Howard embarked on the research after writing a review paper on psychology studies examining the link between religiosity and racial prejudice.
Howard's study was just the first step toward better understanding how racism, white supremacy and a white perception of Jesus interact.
"People don't know what Jesus specifically looked like, but the most widely disseminated images of him are white," he said. »
