When the religion teacher doesn’t honor the golden rule

Orange or other colors were not tolerated. Jesus had to be “skin-colored”, i.e. white. Just like most of the students who sat in religion class with me in elementary school. But the teacher insisted: For her, the question of skin color was a golden rule.

We had to paint a lot in class. We were often given drawings as homework. Instead of playing outside with friends, we painted pictures of Jesus and his disciples.

Anyone who dared to come to class with incompletely colored pictures actually had to fear the teacher’s reaction. Especially if Jesus was not “skin-colored” in the pictures. Jesus didn’t look like that, they said. To this day, scientists still argue about the appearance of the Son of God. However, in my opinion this is irrelevant to understanding the values ​​of Christianity.

I still remember a slightly ocher pencil that usually passed for “skin color,” but even then only if I was careful not to apply too much pressure. You had to come up with tricks like this if you wanted to avoid the teacher’s hateful comments.

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From today’s perspective, this is frightening. But even back then, it wasn’t just my fear of the teacher that made me uncomfortable. We also had a black classmate in our class. It was only years later that I truly realized how hurtful the teacher’s narrow-mindedness must have been.

The religion teacher with her narrow world view was in stark contrast to the religion teacher I had before. She had a good heart and was loved and respected by her students. From her you learned intuitively to always try to be nice to other people – and for me that is Jesus’ actual golden rule.