Hallelujah! Booklist: Bible Stories With Images of Black People

Hallelujah! Booklist: Bible Stories With Images of Black People | Heritage Mom

source: https://heritagemom.com/index.php/2021/01/12/hallelujah-booklist-bible-stories-with-images-of-black-people/

My path to including black Biblical images in our home started with a treasured photograph that I keep on my desk. It's an up close picture of me and my dad, and it was the last photo we took together while he was still healthy, before cancer claimed his life. I only have a hard copy, so I've held onto it like the gem that it is. When my son was a little guy, he climbed onto my desk one day, and he ripped the photo. And as drama would have it, he ripped it right down the center, separating me from my dad.

I cried when I saw what he'd done, and my kids were there to witness it. They also witnessed my tears of joy when one of my best friends, who knew what the picture meant to me, gifted me with several copies of the photo that she had pieced back together, touched up, and recopied.

When my daughter saw the new and improved photo she said, "Mama, you have your very own angel dad." I was basking in the sweetness of her innocent thought when everything came to an abrupt halt with my son's next words:

"Poppy can't be an angel! Angels are white!"

I seriously couldn't believe he said that.

Whenever I share these crazy things that my kids say, I have people tell me that their kids have never said things like that. I've now heard from enough people to think that perhaps I'm being punked or something. Where's Ashton? (Some of you may be too young for that joke) because I have several similar stories about my kids' observations on skin color, race, and ethnicity.

Why meeeeee???? [in the whiniest voice possible]

In any case, I started off talking to them about angels and what really happens when people die. That part was easy. But as I began to unpack my son's words and feelings, I got very tripped up along the way. I strongly believe that our experiences in Heaven will transcend race, ethnicity, skin color, etc. There will be one culture, and that is God's culture. Given this, I felt stuck as I tried to navigate this minefield. I needed to correct his misplaced beliefs without giving power to the idea that there will be any type of racial consideration in Heaven. I wanted to take race off the table completely, but ignoring the ideas he picked up from the earthly images he'd seen wasn't going to do that.

There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.

Ultimately, I decided that the one-sided societal images he was seeing were making him feel as though there are distinctions in God's kingdom. He understood the Truth, but the images were tripping him up, so I could either allow him to embrace the myth of all-white angels and other religious figures, or I could flood his mind with other images to help dilute the water (or milk, haha).

My premise: When a mixture is the norm, the differences become less of a thing.

I obviously wasn't going to have him walking around feeling like God uses only white people for His work, so in addition to verbally correcting him with the words below, I made more of a point to put images of brown-skinned Biblical figures in front of my children on a very regular basis. There is an argument that darker images are likely more realistic in many cases, but how dark? And with what features? I certainly am not about to open that can of worms because I have no idea.

What I do know is that it is unrealistic to say that there won't be any images in our earthly lives. And if there are going to be images, my kids need to see - not just hear - that they belong in God's kingdom.

And if the images don't matter, then it won't matter if a bunch of the images in my home have brown skin. Just like it doesn't matter that the images nearly everywhere else all over the world, including every store, museum, movie, book, greeting card, postcard, candle, magnet, and anything else you can think of shows every person, angel, or Biblical image as white.

I think a little balance is in order,

for the children's sake

Does that mean that I'm swinging to the other side to say that God only uses black and brown people?

Absolutely not.

What it means is that my home is pretty much the only place my children will see any people of color represented in the Bible. My home is where Black angels can soar. My home is where a picture of a Black Madonna will not seem odd or even noteworthy. And my home is where a little Black boy can come to understand that his God sees him and knows him and considers him family - not any more than any other person but certainly not any less.

This is what I said to my son:

"Honey, people whose earthly bodies have every single type of skin that you can possibly imagine will be in Heaven. I know that most of the images of angels, Biblical figures, and Jesus himself are so often depicted as white that it may feel like that is the way it is, but I can assure you that it's not. Artists render images based on their own feelings and imagination, but feelings and imagination are not fact. People tend to portray Jesus as someone from their own race, but God chose to be silent in the Bible regarding the color of Jesus' skin. God loves everyone and can use anyone He pleases on Earth and in Heaven. When we get there, we will be overcome with adoration and worship of our Lord. Race and ethnicity as we experience them now will fall away."

Did I nail this conversation? Probably not. But it was the best that I had to give. It reminds me a lot about our difficult conversations on colorism. I have prayed about my inadequacies and asked the Lord to fill every gap. I've asked Him to close my children's ears to any teaching from my mouth that does not align with His infallible truths.

And I know that He will do just that.

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If you'd like to add children's books to your home library that depict black Biblical images and Black children who love and are loved by God, I've pulled together some of the ones we personally own into this new booklist:

Below are other books we own that are not pictured above along with books I've saved but haven't read or purchased yet:

I hope you found something new here that you might want to add to your shelves. If you like this list, you can check out some of my other booklists featuring Black history and stories. You can find me on Instagram @heritagemomblog. See you there!

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