A nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window showing a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women has been rediscovered in a Rhode Island church.
A detail of a nearly 150-year-old stained-glass window depicts Christ speaking to a Samaritan woman, in the now-closed St. Mark's Episcopal church, Monday, May 1, 2023, in Warren, R.I. The nearly 150-year-old stained-glass window from the Rhode Island church that depicts Christ and three New Testament women with dark skin has stirred up questions about race and the place of women in both biblical and 19th century society.
The 12-foot tall, 5-foot wide window depicts two biblical passages in which women, also painted with dark skin, appear as equals to Christ. One shows Christ in conversation with Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, from the Gospel of Luke. The other shows Christ speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well from the Gospel of John.
“The skin tones were nothing like the white Christ you usually see,” said Arnold, who teaches architectural design in California after growing up in Rhode Island and earning an art history degree from Harvard University. “When I see it, I see Black," she said. “It was created in an era when at a white church in the North, the only people of color they knew were Black.”
Both women had been listed as donors to the American Colonization Society, founded to support the migration of freed slaves to Liberia in Africa. The controversial effort was overwhelmingly rejected by Black people in America, leading many former supporters to become abolitionists instead. DeWolf also left money in her will to found another church in accord with egalitarian principles, according to the research.
For now, the window remains propped upright in a wooden frame where pews once stood. College classes have come to see it, and on one recent spring afternoon there was a visit from a diverse group of eighth graders from The Nativity School in Worcester, a Jesuit boys' school.
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Stained glass window shows Jesus Christ with dark skin, stirring questions about race in New EnglandA nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window showing a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women has been rediscovered in a Rhode Island church. The artwork is stirring questions about race, the slave trade and the place of women in 19th century New England society. Experts say the window installed in 1878 in the long-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren is one of the earliest public examples of Christ portrayed as a person of color. It also shows Christ interacting with women as equals. An architect turning the church into a private home hopes the window can be put on display in a museum.
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