(program opening chatter)

– It's the holiday season when all the world comes together in peace and joy to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. Except not this guy who's suing them. I'm John Phillips and this is the Rundown. Yes, one man is suing the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City claiming he was traumatized by walking through the galleries and seeing Renaissance paintings of Jesus. Let's take a look at what caused him so much terrible anguish. I warn you, the following images may be disturbing. If you have the little ones there, cover their eyes. Here's the scandalous painting, "The Crucifixion" by Francesco Granacci.

Pat my self on the back for pronouncing that correctly. That seems fine, what about the traumatizing "The Resurrection" by Perugino Look at that one. Or the terrible, awful "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes"

by Tintoretto. I think I ordered that once at El Torito. And here's the worst of all, the ultimate horror, "The Holy Family With Angels" by Sebatiano Ricci. Pronounced like Christina Ricci. We all probably need counseling after seeing all this, so what's this guy's gripe? If you haven't guessed it, yes they all depict Jesus as a Caucasian, a white man, a honky.

In his lawsuit, Justin Renell Joseph claims that the paintings are offensive aesthetic whitewashing and he suffered personal stress from viewing them. He's demanding the Met take them down. In an unrelated but similar incident, a Columbia University student and panelist at a recent discussion on race ethnicity at the University of Life named Nissy Aya claims that she's been so traumatized by having to read so many books by, about and for white people that she's gonna need an extra two years to graduate. These arguments, of course, are silly. But there's also a larger narrative here, and that's the consistent ongoing attack on the basic foundations of Western civilization is not relevant to, or supportive of, people of color. Do ethnic minorities have a legitimate gripe with our culture, or are overly-sensitive people just looking for excuses to be offended to fuel the fires of misplaced racial rage? Joining me to talk about all the controversy is author and political satirist Scott Ott in Dallas, Texas. And here in Southern California, stand-up comic and PJTV contributor Stephen Kruiser. Stephen Kruiser you grew up Catholic, you are a Catholic, you go to church, you celebrate Christmas. How traumatized have you been throughout your life that you've seen images of a white Jesus? And I have told Jared to keep a box of Kleenex nearby in case you break down. – It's tough and he sounds like he's from Connecticut in my head when I hear him preach, too. It's just, it's absolutely, you know this is, I gotta tell you right now this is, first of all this is like me wanting to go back to high school and be a better athlete. You know, this whole wanting to rewrite the 1400s the 1500s the, if you wanna do away with that kind of art, that's most of the art in the world from that period. The museums of the world are going to be very empty if you wanna get rid of religious art from the Renaissance period, from back then. So it's like, it's this rewriting to make things better now that's not gonna work. But I am a guy who's not easily offended and I can tell you living in a big city that when I drive here I see billboards that offend me. When I walk down the street people say things that offend me. I still get offended a lot everyday and it lasts 40 seconds tops. If it's something about Obama it'll last 40 seconds. Beyond that I get like, oh that's irritating and then you shrug it off. Because that's what grownup, I would say well adjusted but I'm certainly not that, that's what grownup, even partially well-adjusted people do. – You know Scott, I was thinking the only people more racist than these painters are Hollywood executives. for casting Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra. That I have a serious problem with.

– (laughs) Well, you know Elizabeth Taylor could be whoever she wanted to be back then. And if she wanted to be Cleopatra that's okay with any studio head who was alive at the time and wanted to make money from the movies. Look, let's be a little Biblical for a moment here and establish nobody knows what Jesus looked like. There is no description of Jesus's hair, or his, you know the length of his beard, or the color of his skin, or anything like that. There are prophecies in the Old Testament that basically say that there was nothing about the appearance of Jesus that would recommend itself to anybody. The coming Messiah would not be particularly attractive so that people would behold him and be in wonder about how he looked. There is nothing in the Scriptures. And in fact, there is an injunction in the Scriptures that basically says don't make graven images or don't make images of God. And the reason for that is a good one, it's because any attempt to portray God visibly, physically, is going to fall short. And is gonna be, in essence taking glory away from God. So when you look at any of these paintings what you're really seeing is a cultural reflection of the people within their time and in their setting. By the way, there are also a lot of pictures out there of Jesus as a much darker skinned person. It depends on what culture they were painted in and if you look at pictures of Jesus painted by Asian artists, you will find eyes that aren't quite as round, maybe as you might see in the middle of Europe. – Its great that Scott made that point because when you look at a lot of these paintings of Jesus, when you look at the Sistine Chapel, or any of the others that we've come to know and love, the main purpose for having so many paintings of Jesus was that a huge percentage of those populations were illiterate. And if you wanted to teach them about Jesus, if you wanted to teach them about the Bible, you had to do so with pictures. And if you're in Italy and you're trying to teach Italians about Jesus, then you paint him that way. – Yeah, there was one Bible in town and usually only the local cleric could read it, nobody else could read so this is the way they conveyed messages. And the point that Scott makes really goes to the heart of suit where they're saying their whitewashing Jesus, that like presupposes that there's this one standard image of him that we know is real that they're going against. Which there isn't, as Scott pointed out. This is just, it's you know we can bemoan the overly litigious nature of American society which I think Ben Franklin was doing hundreds of years ago, saying the same thing. So, silly lawsuits like this are usually easy to just say "Oh, that's ridiculous." But this is also part of the whole new safe space, feelings generation thing, too. Which has really gotten out of hand here, where everybody, you know Ben Shapiro gave a speech the other day at a school and the school administrators let, it was a high school, they let kids leave the room to keep their feelings safe. As long as we let this feelings nonsense, I don't think people should have feelings. I'm like, I'm not big for government solution, but I would legislate against feelings were I in power. And this is just a manifestation of the absolute silliness of American society with regards to offense and feelings and safe spaces right now. – You know Scott, last year we had virtually the same exact debate over the race of Santa Claus. I think next year we're going to hit the sexual preference of Frosty the Snowman, that's I think where we're headed. (laughing) – Totally bi. – Well, you know I think, and to put the best possible spin on what the artists were doing here, I think a lot of 'em were just artists. And frankly, some of them probably didn't even believe in God but they just knew that that was a popular subject and if they wanted to get a viewing for their art, and if they wanted to please whoever were their patrons, they would paint pictures like this. But some of them were profound believers and I think that they were trying, in a sense wordlessly, like Stephen Kruiser suggests, to evangelize their culture. They were trying to basically say hey ya know this God with us, this Emmanuel, which is what that term means in the Bible, God with us, he's with you, too. He's with you Italian. He's with you Frenchman. He's with you Asian. He is with us and so, if you look at pictures painted by Africans, you probably will see a predominantly darker shade of Jesus. And there's nothin' wrong with that. And frankly, these people who get upset and alarmed about stuff like this, this is a projection from within them. Because inside of them they know that if they painted a picture like that, they would be doing it for harmful purposes. They would be doing it to try to hurt somebody, to try to minimize or marginalize somebody.

– White Easter Bunny is the devil. (laughs) (laughing) And with that, Stephen Kruiser gets the least word. That's all the time we have for today, but now it's your turn. Are you traumatized by white Jesus? Leave your comments in the comment section below. From the Rundown, I'm John Phillips.

(upbeat bongo music)