McDonald Lecture I with Brian Blount

“Before He Was White: Jesus, Mark, and the Politics of Inclusion”

April 16, 2025

McDonald Lecture with Brian K. Blount, the 2024-2025 Alonzo L. McDonald Family Chair on the Life and Teachings of Jesus and Their Impact on Culture.

In this lecture, Blount analyzes cultural location and its impact on biblical meaning. How do readers configure Jesus when he is perceived through the ongoing and unfortunately obstreperous American dialogue about race? One of the most controversial components of this discussion has to do with Jesus’s own race and what his racial identity means for our understanding of his ministry. For what reason did God intervene in human history in the person and ministry of Jesus? And in what way does the racial lens through which we view Jesus shape the answer to that question?