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.
Revelation 22:3-5 (NASB)
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.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Some of these links are affiliate links that allow me to earn a small commission with no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.
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:
- Children of God Storybook Bible
- My First Bible for Children of Color
- Children of Color Storybook Bible (girl cover)
- Children of Color Storybook Bible (boy cover)
- The Tiny Truths Illustrated Bible
- I Will Follow Jesus Storybook Bible
- When God Made the World
- Psalm Twenty-Three
- Samson Mighty Warrior (Bible Pathway Series)
- When God Made You
- The Lord’s Prayer
- He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
- Three Kings and a Star
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!
It’s so helpful to hear how you thoughtfully explore these important issues with your children. I also appreciate that you treat it as an ongoing process unfolding. Thankyou so much for sharing!
I appreciate that, Jen. Sometimes it’s difficult to write about these things because I’m sure every parent will approach the conversations in different ways, and I know for sure that I may not always be saying the perfect words, but I do try hard.
Absolutely lovely! Thank you for your honest humility in sharing. What a beautiful thing you’re doing for your children— as well as for others as you share your thoughts and experiences in this wonderful journey we call parenting.
Thank you so much for your encouragement! Comments like yours are what keep me going, and I really appreciate it.
Do you know where I can purchase Bible felts that don’t depict white people? Need them for a children’s class at church. White person teaching black children…awkward.
That is a bit awkward, isn’t it? I have never seen those before, but I bet you can find them on Etsy. I like ordering there because even when they have things that aren’t shown with brown skin, they’re almost always willing to make them.
I love this. I have often thought about this issue. One thing I really love is a huge Creche exhibit my church hosts for the community every Christmas – except 2020 : (
This exhibit includes nativities made from every material imaginable from so many different countries all around the world. My kids see nativities with people carved out of ebony, or dressed in traditional Navajo clothing — nativities with skin of every hue, and all kinds of clothing and from every continent. I absolutely LOVE it, and partly because my kids see the holy family depicted in all different ways. They sometimes have asked me what Jesus and Mary and Joseph REALLY looked like. And I tell them, well, as far as we know, they probably looked like Middle Eastern people. But I tell them that the story of God belongs to everyone, and God wants us to see ourselves in that story, and to understand it, and so it makes sense for people to use their own culture to depict it. I have no problem with a fair-skinned Jesus, as long as it doesn’t crowd out all the other Jesuses, as long as we are open to including all the other hues of Jesus, and as long as we understand that he probably wasn’t ACTUALLY white at all when it comes right down to it. I personally feel so happy and hopeful that all people everywhere can see Jesus as one of their own.
That exhibit sounds so wonderful. I would love for my family to see something like that. Aside from just being beautiful, I think images like that go a long way towards expanding our children’s views (and our own).
Oh, what a beautiful thing for your church to do! Some friends of mine did that same thing in their home–they collected nativity sets and put them up all over their home at Christmastime.
I have benefited from so many of your booklists, but this is my first comment. Have you ever seen Ethiopian Orthodox icons? Unsurprisingly, many of them have people with darker skin! I have always loved them, both because of that (I’m Russian Orthodox, and while I love Russian icons, they are, also unsurprisingly, fairly light-skinned! Not as strikingly as American Jesuses, though), and because of their vibrant colors and bold lines. I just thought you might be interested! Unfortunately, the only children’s bible that I know of with Coptic/Ethiopian illustrations is not very dark…
It’s so funny that you bring this up! My uncle was Ethiopian, so I grew up seeing these images from his culture, but I honestly forgot about them for a long time. We only recently received a couple of small pieces from a friend who is living in Addis Ababa. My daughter was so moved by one of them that she keeps it on the shelf right next to her bed. They images are so incredibly colorful which I love. Thank you for bringing this up! A children’s Bible with the darker images would be stunning.
Thank you. Just thank you. ♥️
You are so very welcome!
Thanks for sharing these, Amber! We have read a few but many I haven’t heard of. I love your book lists so much!
You’re so welcome. I’m glad you were able to find some new titles. Your library is so good. I’m sure you’ll find a few there!
I think you nailed the conversation Amber! Beautiful books and I love the artwork!!
Thank you! With these conversations, I always feel like I’m walking very slowly, trying to figure out exactly where to place my next step.
This book list may be my favorite of yours yet! How I wish I’d had the awareness and resources like this when my own kids were little! I may just have to invest in some of these anyway, because they look wonderful.
Oh, I’m so glad that you like it! I always find the perfect books riiiiight after my kids have passed that stage, so I know what you mean.
This is wonderful!
We just got The Tiny Truths Illustrated Bible, which I was so excited to get because of the brown skin illustrations, only to be so shocked when flipping through to see that although everyone else is brown, the angels are fairer skinned and blonde. I’ll definitely be pointing out that although we don’t know what angels look like, there is no reason to believe that our God who so obviously loves variety would make all angels look exactly alike.
“When God Made You” by Matthew Paul Turner and “The Lord’s Prayer” by Tim Ladwig are two of the most well-loved books in our home. You know – the ones that are held together by tape!
We also like “Who Sang the First Song” by Ellie Holcomb and illustrated by Kayla Harren. My kids go through this and say “This is me because my hair is like that.” (There’s also a picture of a mama wearing her baby in a wrap!)
And, a while back someone lent us a little self-published book called “Open Windows: The Brown Jesus + Saint Francis and Claire” by Sarah Hornsby full of illustrations and paintings from all over the world of Jesus with brown and black skin. I’ve not yet returned it! 😉
It’s so fun to know that some of our favorites are loved in other homes as well! I just looked up “Who Sang the First Song” and the cover is sweet. I will have to keep my eye out for the other book. The title sounds so intriguing!
Thank you!!!
It’s my pleasure!
Thanks for sharing these titles! I am Iooking forward to reading some that are new to us. I saw that Esau McCaulley is writing a children’s storybook bible that I am so excited for when it comes out!
Yes! I’m really excited about that one as well. I’m so happy that more of these books are becoming available.
I have a similar story to your son’s about angels. It’s got some key differences, but I these contextual differences really emphasize the reality that kids do draw conclusions from what they see, and we don’t know they are doing it.
We were a military family living overseas and I was talking about a new guy at church and that he was a doctor at our base in Japan. My six or seven year old was shocked- “Mom, he can’t be a doctor, only women are doctors!” I had not realized until then that the only doctors she had seen on base were female. I never would have thought that was a conclusion she would draw- because there were male doctors, they just wern’t in pediatrics. They were the doctors her father and I were more likely to see. I was really shocked, and then I started to wonder what other conclusions she might be drawing but no occasion had come up for her to talk about them. Assumptions, after all, are things we take for granted, that’s kind of the definition. We seldom bring up the things we take for granted as obvious, accepted truths unless those assumptions are given a bit of a shake.
We’ll never be able to catch all of these, especially since some of them will be sort of idiosyncresies of where we live, but that isn’t a reason not to try and figure out what some of them might be for our kids.
That’s a really good example, Wendi. It is quite interesting to find out about the inaccuracies that may be lurking in their little minds, or our own, for that matter. Thank you for sharing this!
There’s a really cute Christian book on lying called Arlo and the Great Big Cover-Up by Betsy Childs Howard that my kids have really enjoyed.
Thank you for the recommendation. I just looked it up, and the cover is sweet as pie.
Thank you so much for sharing these recommendations! Stumbling across your blog felt like striking gold! My son is only 10 months old right now. Do you have any board book recommendations for babies and toddlers?
Hi Nicole! I’m really glad that you found me here as well. You have a grand opportunity to start your son off right (with a beautiful and varied library) from the very beginning, and that’s such a gift. I don’t have a post on specific board books, but I’ll be posting this year’s Christmas book recommendations later this week, and there are 2-3 sweet board books on there.
I’m don’t at all know how people might feel about this from the standpoint of theological orthodoxy and all that, and I certainly don’t know if people who are black will feel that this movie truly portrays a non-white Jesus (and disciples and followers), but I loved this movie for the fact that the characters were definitely non-European: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/the-miracle-maker-the-story-of-jesus There are also 2 books based on it, one a long one and one intended for younger children.
I’m not familiar with this at all, so I appreciate the recommendation, and I’m sure that plenty of others will as well. Thank you for sharing it!
Where did you find the art that portrayed brown skinned Bible characters?
Hi, the Madonna and Child is from Tim Ashkar, and the crucifixion is from Jesus Mafa. I found both by googling them, and they came right up.
Thank you for these recommendations, and for sharing your story! I especially love the Children of God Children’s Bible by Nelson Mandela. I wonder if you’ve come across the “Whirl Story Bible” and what you think of it? A lot of the Bibles that depict a Black or Brown Jesus still have White angels and so I thought of Whirl right way when I read your post, since the angels in that book are illustrated as Black.
I haven’t seen that Bible, but it sounds like something that I need to check out. Thank you for the recommendation!