What’s the difference between conscious and unconscious bias? In this conversation, Pastors Jim Eaton and Rod Hairston unpack how our awareness, or lack of it, shapes the way we see others. They share real stories, biblical examples, and practical ways to approach bias with humility, curiosity, and a prayerful spirit.

They discuss:

• The difference between conscious and unconscious bias
• How culture, experience, and media shape our assumptions
• Why awareness and humility are key to spiritual growth
• How curiosity opens doors to understanding and healing

Through scripture and conversation, they remind us that bias isn’t just a social issue, it’s a discipleship issue. God calls us to continually grow, listen, and love as we reflect His heart for all people.

Transcript

Rod Hairston: All right, so Bishop Doctor Jim Eaton, we’re back again for-

Jim Eaton: Let me go find him.

Rod: another conversation. The big question today is, “What is unconscious bias compared to conscious bias?”

Jim: Let’s talk about that. What are your thoughts?

Rod: Well, I think they are-

Jim: What do you see is like… What would be like one key difference between the two?

Rod: Yeah. I think one is just a matter… They’re both a matter of awareness.

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Rod: And when you’re unconscious about your bias, you are simply unaware that you have been shaped along the way to be biased, and you just don’t know. Conscious bias is when you simply choose to be biased, and you make decisions based on those biases. You elevate people or not, based on those biases. You welcome people or not, based on those biases. You treat people according to those biases. And those biases can be many. In this case we’re talking about diversity-

Jim: Yes.

Rod: race, ethnicity. But they can be based on height. They can be based on wealth or the lack thereof. They have so many layers. So yesterday, I was talking to a friend who is in the LA fires. He’s in LA fires, and we just checked on him because we’ve known each other for a lot of years, and he’s an older gentleman. He’s probably 80 about now, if not close to it. And so we’re talking, and so he raised this issue about government. I’m not even sure how we got there, except he thought somehow the government was to blame for the fires. And then he went into this whole thing about equity versus equality.

Jim: Ah, okay.

Rod: Equity versus equality. So he says to me, I said, “What do you mean by equality?” He says, “Well, people want equity so that everybody gets the same results.” And I didn’t understand what he meant. So he used this analogy of airlines wanting to get rid of DEI,

Jim: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Rod: because someone says they have to hire Black pilots who are not qualified. And so I had to go back and we had a conversation. And what I realized… He was very gracious when I, you know, corrected, you know, his assumption about not being qualified. But I said, “This is a bias that you have been developed. It’s been developed in you from the news cycle, from culture, from experiences.” And that was when I saw a very clear example of unconscious bias. So there’s another layer to this story, because we go back many years, this gentleman. Our family, he’s been like a… You know, he was like an uncle to our kids. And when we were in ministry in Los Angeles, he was one of our favorite supporters. I mean, he just was big on our ministry and supportive and always praying for us. And he’ll tell me to this day, “I pray for you everyday.” But I had to tell him, I said, I won’t say his name, I had to tell him, you’re talking to a Black man. And then I began to describe to him experiences that I’ve had when people have been biased toward or against me. Does this make sense?

Jim: It does, It does. I think it’s a fascinating area because, you know, we all have unconscious bias. We all have stories, backgrounds, experiences, positive and negative that we’re unaware of how they shaped the way we perceive people. And Malcolm Gladwell wrote that incredible book, “Blink” where he talks about how we make judgments, so we make… Judgment calls in our minds, whether it’s going into a restaurant, or into a church, or meeting someone, sometimes within 90 seconds. It’s very, very fast. And I think that when we’re facing unconscious bias, it’s so fascinating because I find it really interesting when people start waking up to what they may have and didn’t know it. I remember at different times when I was pastoring Mosaic, and we had a lot of diversity in our church. I remember one time, a Hispanic woman came up to me after the service. She says, “You know, Pastor, I think I have some prejudices.” But what she really was talking about was unconscious bias. She wasn’t really sinning. She wasn’t against anyone. She was just starting to become aware that she was making assumptions about people without even really knowing them or knowing the full story. And the more she began to become aware of these things, she could make self-correction. So I think it’s a really interesting and very profitable area. I think where it gets weary sometimes, you and I have conversations about the wearying conversations, is when someone gets entrenched in a conscious bias and then builds their fortifications around it, you know, “This is the way I see it, and you can’t persuade me any differently.” But I think as long as we just can remain open… I mean, I’m constantly learning new things. Everyday, I learn something that challenges, something that I thought I knew.

Rod: Yes. Yes.

Jim: And I think it plays back into how God weaves us with this incredible tapestry of his handiwork. And so, the discovery of humanity, the discovery of people, is just endlessly interesting and sometimes heartbreaking, but ultimately, I think God wants us on this journey.

Rod: I think you’re right. Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. I was thinking about where we see these biases in churches, right? We see in our Christian experience, that might be a better phrase. We see them often in our Christian experience, right? Because conscious bias or unconscious bias, it’s not limited to the secular world.

Jim: That’s right.

Rod: Right? It’s not limited to unbelievers. We bring those things into our faith experience, and then sometimes they are actually promoted within our faith experience, depending on your church, depending on the teaching. So I was having a conversation, this same conversation, and I shared with my friend that some of the things I’m sharing with you you’re not going to hear in your church. And I was taking him from scripture to scripture to scripture about these biases and about systemic injustice. And we talked through Moses in the Exodus as really the first expression of civil deliverance.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

Rod: Right?

Jim: Mm-hmm.

Rod: Where God comes in and He rescues the children of Israel. But when we go to the New Testament, we see God having to break Peter of his bias.

Jim: That’s right. That’s right.

Rod: Right? So he says to him in Acts while he’s on the rooftop of Joppa,

Jim: Yeah. Yeah.

Rod: right, don’t call anything unclean that I’ve called clean. And I wonder if God did not appeal to him while he was asleep, because his bias was entrenched for one.

Jim: Yeah.

Rod: But it was also entrenched, perhaps unconsciously.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s really important that we deal with these things in the church. Because I really think it’s a critical part of discipleship, of spiritual formation. And you know, how we, as pastors, we encourage our people to grow in their marriages, to grow in their submitting to the Holy Spirit, to grow in their love of the word of God, to grow in how they interact with their children, it’s all matters of discipleship. Nobody just comes preformed.

Rod: Yes. Yes.

Jim: We’re always-

Rod: Except you.

Jim: No, no. Definitely not me. But you know, we’re always being challenged to go from this point to this point-

Rod: Yes. Yes.

Jim: in our walk with God. And this is another one of those areas and I know you’ve encountered it. I’ve encountered it many times where people will come to me and say, “Can’t we just keep those topics out of the church? Can’t we just not talk about this?”

Rod: Yes.

Jim: Whether it has to do with race or it has to do with cultural differences. And I think the better way is simply to say, “All right, the scripture does speak to all these things.” And we do have sort of an allergy in the American culture, I think, of being reluctant to talk about these things, often, frequently in the white community. But I think the better posture is just to say, “We’re not going into these conversations looking to condemn anyone or to put someone in a corner like you’re the only person who can’t learn, or you’re the only one who needs to grow. We’re all growing in these things. And I think once we take that posture of humility, you know, the spirit loves that because then he just helps us all grow.

Rod: Well, I think that’s a tremendous point, this whole issue of humility. What I saw with my friend, by the time we got to the end of a 30-minute conversation, was him saying, “Hey, I’d really love if we could talk some more about this.” Because I said to him-

Jim: That’s a beautiful story.

Rod: I was like, I said, “Hey, man, I’m not angry with you.” I said, “We’ve known each other for years. We’ve been friends for years. We’ve walked together. You prayed for me and for my family. I know you love us. I know you care about us, man, and we love you.” I said, “So I’m saying these things to you because I think it’s important for you to expand your understanding of God.”

Jim: Amen.

Rod: “And how He works in the lives of people, and how this bias is very prevalent and so much of the Christian experience, in America.” And then he went on to say, “You know, you’re right, because in my church, we don’t talk about these things.”

Jim: Ah. Ah.

Rod: He says, I’ve never heard it taught in my church. And so he said, “I’m open to another conversation, similar conversation.”

Jim: That’s so good.

Rod: Yeah.

Jim: That’s so good. I love that. I know often at Mosaic, we would describe our biblical discipleship like rooms of a house. And we’d say, so when you come into Mosaic, you’re gonna be in the kitchen, and that’s gonna be your Bible study room. And then you’re gonna be in the family room, and that’s gonna be how to grow your marriage. And then you’re gonna be in the living room, that’s how to grow your family. But there’s a room that’s gonna be race and culture and diversity. That’s just a room in the house.

Rod: Wow.

Jim: You don’t live there. But we all move in and out of that house free, in and out of that room freely and nobody panics, nobody says, “Well, we’re just gonna live in that room the rest of the time.” But neither are we gonna avoid the room.

Rod: Yes.

Jim: Because if you need something to eat, you go into the kitchen, get something to eat, and go back to your family room and watch the movie.

Rod: That’s right. That’s right.

Jim: And that’s the thing I think that we need to be doing, is say, “Let’s just normalize this.” We don’t have to take the posture of the rest of the world where everybody’s upset, they’re yelling at each other and they’re getting in their corners. We can say, “The scripture calls us to come together. And we have a lot to grow together.” We have so much to be blessed by, I think.

Rod: Yeah, no doubt. So if we’re talking about practical measures, right, so we got a great audience here. People who wanna learn, they wanna grow, they wanna break out of some of these things, what’s one or two things you would suggest for people to do to grow out of unconscious bias or even conscious bias?

Jim: I think the first thing I would say, obviously, a prayerful spirit, because God teaches.

Rod: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jim: But develop a curious mind. I think too often, we welcome curiosity in so many areas of life. And then we come into this area where God has so much to say to us and we shut our curiosity down. Instead, as you get to know people, and obviously, you need emotional intelligence, sometimes you don’t need to ask questions, sometimes you just need to listen and wait, but I think often, people, they enjoy it being around people who are curious about their lives. I’m fascinated by how you just looked at that, or how you describe this, or the place you lived for those five years. And I think if we have curiosity, that opens the door to a lot of things.

Rod: That’s good. That’s good. You mentioned the word curiosity, and it made me think about asking God, right? As believers with the Holy Spirit living in us, can you show me what I’m being biased? Well, can you point it out to me what am I being biased right now? Is this a cultural, racial bias that I’m living with?

Jim: Amen.

Rod: Am I making assumptions? Because I think that’s a part of it, right? We talked about awareness, but also assumptions. Ask God, show me.

Jim: Amen.

Rod: Show me.

Jim: Amen.

Rod: So, hey, thank y’all for being a part of this. We wanna encourage you, keep taking this journey, and be mindful… Become curious. Become curious. Ask God to show you, and ask yourself, “Am I being biased?” “Where does this bias come from?” “How long have I lived with it?” And, “How can I change my perspective?”

Jim: Amen. Amen.