BLC is an author, speaker, scholar, and global traveler, who holds graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and received his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller. He is the author of Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus, and Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith.
If we haven’t lost all reason to avoid Fox News at all cost, this is it…
Fox News is on a new mission: keep Santa and Jesus white. As reported by Megyn Kelly today in a story about keeping Santa white, Kelly reminded viewers of an important “fact”– that in addition to Santa being white:
“Jesus was a white man too”.
Who needs an education when you have Fox News?
BLC is an author, speaker, scholar, and global traveler, who holds graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies from Gordon-Conwell, and earned his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller.
He is the author of Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith, and Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus.
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21 Responses
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Megyn Kelly is just another demonstration of why the GOP is in critical condition. It is time for people to turn off FAUX News and not support their advertisers. If you have an elderly parent who becomes upset by their interpretation of the news, a group that seems to be a major target demographic for Faux then maybe you can get him or her interested in another station.
If Jesus came back as a black Democrat Faux News would recommend an immediate execution.
All good Republicans are conservative Christians and white, so of course God is too. Nice how well this fits in with the recent declaration by the Mormon church that it is now ok for their priests to be black. Used to be it was a cause for being disfellowshipped if one married and African-American. As for Santa, well it depends on where you are from.
Jesus was a Jew…so he was more than likely white.
But who cares? The color of his skin is unimportant…but that he died for and forgives sinners of every color.
A vast number of Jews in the modern world aren’t white. And the Jews living in the Levant in the time of Jesus most certainly weren’t white. They were middle-eastern, Mediterranean, BROWN. besides, religion is not a determining factor of skin color in the slightest
Friendly Atheist on the same topic. Some good insights from Reza Aslan. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/12/12/tabula-reza-foxs-megyn-kelly-insists-jesus-was-a-white-guy-reza-aslan-responds/
Okay… here we go… stepping in…
I watched the clip and yeah… Megyn… you screwed that one up, big time. Totally off kilter, ahistorical, etc… Boy, what an embarrassment to intelligent folks.
But, a few of things:
1) As natsera mentioned, the “Santa Claus” of western mythos is no longer the St. Nicholas of Christian historical tradition. So, to declare “Santa Claus” as Greek (as some other commentaries on this same clip have mentioned) is as false as stating St. Nicholas is white. Santa Claus is whatever he needs to be for the culture. Heck, I’m trying to remember, but I’m not sure in Puerto Rico, when I was a kid, we even bothered with Santa Claus… Los Reyes, yes, complete with camels that came into the house and ate grass from the box under your bed… but not Santa so much. I’m with Aisha (the focus of the clip) that we shouldn’t box Santa into a particular ethnic pattern… he’s mythological and, as with the many Cinderalla retellings as there are in my public library (Indian, African, Dutch, German, Mexican, etc), I think it’s perfectly legit to recast Santa to be relevant to the culture.
2) As much as Megyn is an embarrassment to intelligent folks with her commentary here, I’m remembering another article I read somewhere… she might, honestly, really, not know any better. What was it… it was a commentary using the movie “Pleasantville” and the father figure… folks get so buried in the “normal” that they really can’t see anything else. It’s not that they are explicitly racist, it’s not that they are really idiots, it’s not that they are looking to put white people above anyone else… they may simply not know anything different and so are acting from their ignorance. This does not make her statement any more right… but it should give us who are listening to her a bit more of a sense of compassion… how many of us have been stuck (or are still stuck) in our own “normality” that we really can’t see how abnormal it really is? Like Frodo, looking at Gollum, we realize that we have as much potential for such ignorant statements as she does and, instead of derision and anger… perhaps pity is a better response.
3) Finally, I’m not sure your statement is necessarily fair that it is Fox News who is specifically doing this “campaign” to make Jesus and Santa white… Each person stands on their own and there are a lot of different opinions and so forth presented on Fox… much like CNN, MSNBC, and other cable channels have their own people with opinions that don’t necessarily indicate the primary message of the channel. I’m betting that Megyn did not run her statements past her bosses before she said them… most likely it was an off-the-cuff statement. This does not, also, make her statement any more right. But it instead should give us pause… we don’t judge MSNBC by the statements Martin Bashir makes about Sarah Palin… I’d suggest we make sure we don’t judge Fox by the statements made by their talking heads.
Note… I’m not a fundie, nor an arch-conservative, nor a Tea-partier or a Glenn-Beck Neophyte… I’m just a dude who likes to think around the edges of things and give people the benefit of the doubt… why? Because I DESPERATELY depend upon folks giving me the benefit of the doubt since I screw up so many times myself.
You’re right– if not said somewhat tongue-and-cheek it wouldn’t be
fair. I don’t believe Fox is really on a mission to keep Jesus white…
was just being a bit provocative 🙂
I also agree that it is sheer ignorance… I used to be the same way in my old paradigm– just couldn’t see anything that existed outside my own limited worldview.
As I mentioned in a tweet… I think Megyn is a bit classier than that… if shown to be a bit ignorant, I’d hope she’d retract and restate… if she doesn’t, then she’ll have dropped considerably in my respect. Already, though, the fact that she made such statements has reduced her credibility… although, to be honest, I don’t find many “talking heads” on any news channel particularly credible. Best news I get is from the AP twitter feed, Jon Stewart, and my local all-news AM station during my morning commute. The rest? All suspect, IMO
“Classy” and “Megyn Kelly” should never appear in the same sentence.
*shrug* To each his own… there are quite a few worse folks out there commenting on the news…
Tell you what: If she retracts and apologizes, she’s classier then I gave her credit for. If she doesn’t, she’s not as classy as you thought. Fair?
Fair enough, since I pretty much said that already. 🙂
So, where did we land?
http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1547471
Well, we landed (at least on my part) a bit disappointed. On one hand, Megyn has a point that in that her intent may have been tongue-in-cheek humor at the existence and color of Santa Claus. I know from experience that, at times, something intending to be humorous falls very flat…perhaps such was the case for her. However, the implication is still that the “proper” color for Santa is white… and that probably goes back to that blindness you and I mentioned earlier. Again, probably prompting a bit of pity more than derision.
I am encouraged a little bit that she makes the statement that Jesus’ race is “far from settled”. There’s a bit of an admission there that Jesus color is not necessarily the same as the European majority. But “far from settled” still seems to be in that space of “well, I still think he was white but I’m willing to let y’all have your point.” So, again, disappointed here that she hasn’t gone with the more scholarly discussions of Jesus’ historical status.
Finally, her claiming the victim… on one hand, I see what she’s saying here. Much the same as MSNBC and CNN and the major networks are “targets” for conservative groups, Fox is a target for more liberal groups. Both sides watch and wait for the opposition to slip up and then pounce in it with an almost sadistic glee of “Aha! Got ya!”. As soon as the opposition slips, folks are all over it. Again, it happens on both sides so I’m not defending Fox in this any more than I’m defending MSNBC. It’s a sad state of affairs, really, that rather than listening to the opposition with some sense of grace and understanding, we do so with our pre-conceived arguments ready to shout them down. Conservatives do it to Liberals and vice versa. Personally, makes me a little ill to watch it happen and, more often than not, I close the web browser, turn off the TV, block the twitter feed, etc., when I see that kind of conversation kick off.
HOWEVER, on the other hand… if you’re wrong, admit you’re wrong, apologize, seek forgiveness, and correct your mistake. Don’t play the victim card and try and deflect the issue towards something partisan. ESPECIALLY if, historically speaking, your particular position has not been the victim but the victimizer. Megyn, you screwed up… it would have been better for you to admit it, apologize, and issue a correction than make the lame excuse of being a victim.
So… disappointed and, as I said, she’s gone down a bit in my esteem and, as I mentioned to Terry Firma, she’s not as classy as I thought.
I won’t put anything past Faux. They convinced my mother of the death panels so she would no go into the hospital for surgery. A lady at church who is turning 90 also worries because of them and she is a Log Cabin Republican so they even get the elderly moderates.
Just remember, if Faux could reinstate slavery, it would. And along with it the fairly recent doctrine of the Mormon church that dark skinned people did not have souls or that they were automatically “fallen” because they had been “marked” by the sin of Cain.
Well, Jesus must certainly have looked Middle-Eastern, or Levantine, to be more specific, but since Santa is a mythological, if European, figure, he can be any color you want him to be, including purple. So why NOT have multi-cultural Santas, if you choose to have your children believe in him?