Ted isn’t religious but he does, however, believe in the existence of a supreme being; a creator. “How can he not belong to a religion but still believe in a creator?” you might ask, and the answer is, he did. After eight or so years that is, but no prior religious exposure. He’d believed in something... first.
The religion’s tenets, (beliefs religions accept as truths), as espoused in the weekly sermons, had no effect on him. They couldn’t; he didn’t hear them, because they were so boring. Torturous. The aspects of the religion’s tenets came from his parents, who were new to religion themselves, and it was a glob of the actual beliefs mixed in with their own interpretations.
Young Ted never heard a suggestion Jesus was black, but with his upbringing, he wouldn’t have believed it. His parents were rather racist, as were a whole lot of white Americans back then. They would have called a suggestion that Jesus was black, a blasphemy, and say anyone spreading such “baloney” would go to Hell.
As he matured, Ted became somewhat interested in researching the other major religions of the world. The incentive for the research, was a personal desire to see how different those religions were, compared to the religion with which he was most familiar. Somewhere along the way while in college, Ted read an article, which stated that Jesus would surely have been black.
He was skeptical of this claim, considered it questionable, and in the same class with other claims saying that blacks were actually first in a myriad of achievements. Such claims became routine, and were being made just about anywhere one looked during that point in time; a new awakening.
Love everyone! Love not war! What the world needs now is love! There was a nice feeling inside of Ted. There’s only one race of people; the human race! The shackles of his family’s values, as pushed by his parents, had essentially been eradicated from his thoughts by this time, and he then studied little-known religions.
Ted’s knee-jerk rejection of black Jesus suggestions, was based on his knowledge of Jews, who all seemed to be white, except Sammy Davis Jr. Later, Ted found out that the original Jews weren’t white. Why, Moses himself was likely black. The story of Moses, floating in the basket, the Pharaoh's daughter finding and rescuing him, and then being accepted by black Egyptian royals implies it.
One day, Ted found out that some Ethiopians are Jews, from biblical times. He also found out that Jesus is described in some places in the bible as being “burnished bronze” in color, and burnished bronze isn’t white, with long, flowing blonde hair.
I guess it’s understandable to some degree; the world was still naturally segregated then. There was no migration. To think someone living in Europe, who’d never seen a black person, would paint a portrait of Jesus as black, would be unlikely; black Jesus just wasn’t ready yet.
Sentence order:
This is my entry to The 31 Sentence Contest Round 24 by 
Thanks for reading!
Sources for images used in this post:
(Public Domain photos are from Wikimedia Commons)
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