Pastor E. V. Hill* used to tell of a time he received a death threat from the Black Panthers because they didn’t like his preaching about that “white Jesus”. This was his reply:
“I don’t know anything about a white Christ – I know about Christ, a Savior named Jesus. I don’t know what color He is. He was born in brown Asia, He fled to black Africa, and He was in heaven before the gospel got to white Europe, so I don’t know what color He is. I do know one thing: if you bow at the altar with color on your mind, and get up with color on your mind, go back again – and keep going back until you no longer look at His color, but at His greatness and His power – His power to save!” [Hill, 2002, A Savior Worth Having, Moody Publishing, pg. 33-34].
*E.V. Hill (1922-2003) was the pastor of Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. He rose from poverty in Texas to become a confidant of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., a close friend of Billy Graham, and a power within one of the nation’s largest African American denominations.
I remember when my father invited Dr. Hill to speak at Eastern Nazarene College where dad was president and I was a sophomore (1972). He was one of the most exciting, engaging, and empowering speakers I have ever heard.
[For more information about E. V. Hill, see https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-feb-26-me-hill26-story.html, and http://www.bpnews.net/15322/ev-hill-remembered-as-conservative-african-american-pastor-civil-rights-leader.]