KEWANEE, Ill. — Members of First Presbyterian Church in Kewanee believe they house two extremely rare pieces of stained glass depicting Jesus as a person of color.
The windows were built in 1903. The original artist of them is still unknown, but Pastor Arthur Blegen and his wife Annabelle are continuing to dig for that information.
"Having the windows is an absolute blessing," Arthur said. "The founding fathers of our congregation saw the value in presenting Jesus the way he actually appeared, as a person of color, regardless of what society as a whole was viewing it at that time."
The couple connected with a professor and stained glass researcher in Massachusetts, and what they discovered shocked them. According to the researcher, there's not believed to be more than 10 stained glass windows depicting Jesus as a person of color in the entire world. Two of them are at First Presbyterian.
"We had some visitors to our Presbyterian from Africa," Blegen said. "So here's this black gentleman, pastor from Africa, that was awestruck because even in Africa, Jesus is pictured as a white person."
Blegen touched on why he believes this is the case. He confidently believes that Jesus was a person of color.
"Since the white people were in control, they wanted to make sure that they remained in control," he said. "So there's a deliberate effort then to make Jesus appear white in art."
The couple says members of First Presbyterian had no idea about the rarity of the windows until they began their research in 2020.