Katy McKenna Raymond  
Personal blog of christian writer Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri


Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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Making a (Nativity) Scene

So I'm in Sam's Club, shopping for Doug's birthday (Happy Birthday, babe!)and I can't help noticing that they've got my favorite aisle all re-done.

You know the one--it's one aisle behind the books, and at this time of the year, they switch it back to holiday stuff. Every year, I manage to find something I love in that aisle, usually a giant teddy bear Santa Claus or something equally endearing.

From a distance, among the animated life-sized reindeer, I spy what looks like a really lovely Nativity scene. The figures are large enough that the scene could be set up on my hearth and look great, scale-wise.

Of course, the characters populating the fabricated creche are white, except for the requisite black king. We all know they shouldn't really be white-white, if realistic probable skin color of the original creche residents matters. Perhaps they should be more olive-skinned or, as some say would be most accurate, black.

As I got a little closer to inspect the tag for the price, I got a piece of political correctness I won't soon forget. There, in black and white (so to speak), were the words "African-American Nativity scene available online."

Jesus isn't a liberal or a conservative, I think we can agree. He certainly isn't a Democrat or Republican, as much as we might wish he'd commit. Lately, when we'd like to hope that God is on our side in world affairs, we've been cautioned to remember that Jesus isn't even an American.

An African Jesus is just all right with me, since I'm not sure the jury is in on this subject. But African-American?

Can someone explain this to me?
Posted by Katy on 09/09/04 at 10:32 PM
Fallible Comments...
  1. Just be glad there's no gay nativity scene.
    -----
    Posted by Angus Lewis  on  09/10/04  at  06:45 AM
  2. can't stop laughing...
    Posted by Anne  on  09/10/04  at  08:57 AM
  3. You might be interested in Maggi Dawn's latest blog entry [ http://maggidawn.blogspot.com ] which talks about 'ethnic' depictions of Christ through history.

    And... oh yes ... hi from England!
    Posted by Pilgrim  on  09/10/04  at  05:27 PM
  4. Ha ha ha! :) Well, maybe Jesus did appear to the Native Americans at some point... Then, maybe He could be described as "some race"-American -- but, then again, America wouldn't have been America at that time. Huh.

    Well, despite my poor attempt at humor, I am still chuckling over your post, so that is good.
    Posted by timsamoff  on  09/10/04  at  09:10 PM
    5. Page 1 of 1 pages
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