In this video, Converge Biblical Diversity Co-Directors Pastor Rod Hairston and Pastor Jim Eaton address the often-heard statement, “I don’t see color.” While well-meaning, this mindset can unintentionally diminish and dismiss the beauty of God’s intentional design.
Drawing from Scripture, Pastor Rod and Pastor Jim remind us that God created every person with purpose, including our skin tones and ethnic identities. From the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, to Simon of Cyrene in the New Testament, the Bible makes it clear that ethnicity and color matter to God.
Instead of being “colorblind,” Christians are called to be color-blessed — recognizing, celebrating, and embracing the diversity of God’s people as a reflection of His glory. This conversation invites us to walk courageously into God’s truth, rejecting cultural narratives that divide and instead living as disciples who value the fullness of God’s creation.
Transcript
Rod Hairston: Alright, Jim, what color are you? No, I’m
Jim Eaton: Well, that is a good question. Our daughter once said when she was about four years old, she came downstairs after playing with her crayons and she said, “Mommy, we are not white. We are peach.”
Rod: She was very specific. She was particular. Right. And if I asked you what color am I, what would you say?
Jim: I would say brown.
Rod: I appreciate that.
Jim: Yeah. Yeah.
Rod: That’s close enough.
Jim: Yeah.
Rod: We say black.
Jim: Yeah.
Rod: But I know you can’t see perfectly.
Jim: In culture, I’d say black.
Rod: I know you’re a little colorblind.
Jim: That’s it.
Rod: So we wanna talk today in this video about what’s the matter with being colorblind.
Jim: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: Right. Because we get this from people all the time. “I don’t even see color.”
Jim: “I don’t see color. Yeah.”
Rod: But what’s wrong with being colorblind?
Jim: Well, I think, I kind of think of it as like a two part answer, honestly. I think there are many white people, well-meaning followers of Christ and even out in the wider community who are like, “I’m so sick and tired of the history of our community, the racialized history. And I embrace Dr. King’s statement about the content of the character rather than the color of the skin.” And so people are thinking, perhaps, “That’s the way I want to go. I wanna stop kind of making everything all about race and all about all the negative things, and I wanna focus on people’s virtues and their personalities. The inside of a person.” So I think that’s a worthy thought. But I think that the other side of the answer I would give is when you go to that place and say, “Okay, what I want to be is colorblind or I don’t see color,” then what you do actually is you unintentionally diminish people of color because God did make us to see color.
Rod: Yeah.
Jim: He did make us of different colors. And so I think that, and I’ve had many conversations with people who’ve told me, people of color who’ve said, “When I’ve heard that, I felt somehow like I wasn’t fully seen.”
Rod: Yeah, I think colorblindness, it not only diminishes, but it dismisses, right? It dismisses the richness and the wealth of the person. Because to dismiss a person’s color is to say, “Well, that’s a big part of you.” Like, you know, your skin is the largest organ on your body. Right, is to dismiss that God intentionally made you this way. Right. Made you this color. And I think we tend to wanna oversimplify things, right? Taking that statement by Dr. King, it’s taken outta context.
Jim: That’s right. That’s right.
Rod: In that regard. Right. I don’t think he meant don’t see color. I think what he was trying to say is, “See the color and appreciate the content of the character.”
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Because the assumption oftentimes is on the basis of color.
Jim: Yeah.
Rod: We decide what a person’s character must be. Because as you and I have talked about so much, these very toxic narratives in America, right, and in much of the western world, and it’s around, you know, it’s in other countries as well.
Jim: Yes. Yes.
Rod: It’s in China. It’s in Saudi Arabia. Right. That if you are a certain skin color, right, then you must be a certain negative way.
Jim: Yes. Yes. And I think, I think as you’re saying this so well that it diminishes all that we are. God has made us with enormous amounts of complexity and texture and aspects to who we are as people made in his image. And so we are quick in our society, in our culture to say, “Oh, let’s talk about what kind of sports you like. Let’s talk about where you like to go for vacation. Let’s talk about what kind of restaurants.” All those things we happily explore.
Rod: Yes. Yes.
Jim: As these are aspects that are different and interesting, but maybe because of our racialized history that so much of that has been negative and it’s been steeped in this wicked ideology that you can somehow place a person’s value on how light their skin is. That is such an anti-God concept and really insults God at the deepest level where he makes us all equal. And the variety is designed for delight and enjoyment.
Rod: Yes.
Jim: And so when we can say we’re color blessed, we’re color enriched.
Rod: Yes. Yes.
Jim: Then we can simply walk together and we can explore together all that God has made us to be.
Rod: Jim, I love what you’re saying and you’re reminding me, I don’t think we can be fully who we are supposed to be, who God made us to be, if we don’t appreciate other people’s skin color.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Right. How can I fully be a disciple of Christ? Right, how can I fully be engaged in and immersed in the truth of scripture without recognizing color? If God is a creator God and he intentionally made us with color, he intentionally designed with color, to dismiss that is to miss God.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Right. He made Shem and Ham and Japheth and he identified them according to their skin tones, right? We see in the scripture where he talks about the Ethiopians and their beautiful dark skin. Right, in the New Testament there is Simon of Cyrene.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Right. Which appoints and assigns him to Northern Africa by virtue of his skin color.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: And so skin color matters to God.
Jim: It does. It does.
Rod: And I think it calls for some courage on our part-
Jim: I think so.
Rod: To appreciate the creative genius of God.
Jim: Amen, and I think also we are called as Christians to expose ideas and ideologies that are not from God.
Rod: Yeah.
Jim: We are called to bring them out into the light and dismiss them. We’re to bring everything into the obedience of Christ, it says in 2 Corinthians 10. So for example, I remember one time being in a store walking with Natalie, and here was one whole aisle of hair products. And then there was another aisle of ethnic hair products. And I thought to myself, “That doesn’t make sense because we’re all ethnic, we’re all from different… But what it did was just walking through those two aisles shows us that sometimes in our culture, white is what is normative and unspoken. It’s just the assumed place.
Rod: Yes. Yes.
Jim: And everything else is different or exotic.
Rod: Yes. Yes.
Jim: And I think we need to courageously walk away from that mindset into the light of the glory of God.
Rod: Oh.
Jim: And to say, “All of us are ethnic.”
Rod: Yeah.
Jim: “All of us are valued.”
Rod: Yes.
Jim: “And every color is a beautiful thing that God has designed and God has made.”
Rod: You’re out here preaching. You’re preaching today. He’s preaching. He’s preaching good too. And we haven’t even talked about the mixtures of colors. Right, because the truth is, when we do DNA studies, right, there are not very many people who don’t have some mixture of color.
Jim: That’s right-
Rod: And ethnicity somewhere in our family lineage.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: So God knows what he’s doing.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: And I think if we will celebrate color-
Jim: Amen.
Rod: To say- “Wow, what a beautiful brown skin person. Your complexion is beautiful.”
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Right. “Even I like the tan on you.”
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Right. To appreciate that, to celebrate that, it raises our faith expression to a whole new level where we’re much more consistent with the God of creation-
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Than if we just dismiss color. So if you see skin color, just point it out. “Hey, what a handsome white guy, right? What a good looking black guy, right?”
Jim: That’s it. That’s it.
Rod: Right, let’s point to the colors and let’s appreciate them because God created us intentionally-
Jim: Amen.
Rod: The way we are.
Jim: Amen.