What promotes injustice is our failure to make clear to ourselves and other people the difference between the literal and the metaphorical ways of portraying Jesus. We don’t acknowledge that showing him with light skin and hair and European facial features is unrealistic. In addition, by using mainly one portrayal such as the Sallman portrait and putting it in so many church buildings, we create the false impression that it can be taken literally, as if it were a photograph of the earthly Jesus.
Maybe the only reasonable and honest route is either to use no visual images of Jesus or to use a wide variety. What leads us astray is using only one kind, especially if that one is unrealistic, yet that’s what we tend to do.
