What does racial healing really look like? How can the church move beyond just talking about reconciliation? In this video, Converge Biblical Diversity Co-Directors Jim Eaton and Roderick Hairston offer a compelling discussion on the practical steps toward racial healing. They unpack the story of the Good Samaritan to illustrate key principles like empathy, intentionality, and tenacity, and challenge viewers to consider their role in addressing systemic injustice.
Pastors Eaton and Hairston provide guidance on how to listen to the Holy Spirit, cultivate meaningful relationships across racial lines, and champion justice within their spheres of influence. This video is a must-watch for anyone seeking to understand and participate in the vital work of racial healing.
Transcript
Jim Eaton: So we would like to talk now about going from second base to third base, and from home plate to first base was empathic listening, first base to second base was cultural intelligence. Second base to third base is racial healing.
Rod Hairston: That’s two powerful words, racial healing. I don’t wanna go too fast on that one, because they are meaty, they’re substantive words. And together they introduce us to a dynamic that we don’t talk about very much in the church. I haven’t heard very many pastors talking about racial healing. I’ve heard racial reconciliation, which is very different than racial healing. The phrase itself, Jim, implies that there’s an injury, there’s a wounding that has happened. And it’s absolutely true. It’s all across the dynamic of our nation. And it is oftentimes, unfortunately, accelerated in our churches and by our churches. And I don’t know if we really wanna embrace that, ’cause it’s difficult, but it is true. I couldn’t help but think about, as we were talking about this segment, this video, I couldn’t help but think about the story of the good Samaritan who, you know, Jesus meets this lawyer. He wants to know what must I do to inherit eternal life? Like, “How do I get in, How can I be sure I’m right with God?” And Jesus says, “Well, you know the law. You know the Word. How, how does it read?” He says, “Well, you know, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.'” Jesus says to him, “Well, go do that, you’ll be good.” If you just do those two things, you’re straight, right? You’ll be great. And the gentleman, the lawyer, asked the question, “Well, okay, well, can you define my neighbor for me?”
Jim: Who is my neighbor?
Rod: Who is my neighbor? And so, Jesus, of course, tells this story of the person who had gone, was coming down from Jerusalem and had fallen into the hands of robbers. I think we talked about this in another video. But what stands out to me is the healing that takes place. And I think that’s a good place for us to focus, right? How does racial healing take place? What exactly is racial healing? And why is racial healing necessary?
Jim: You know, I think, I think of that passage in Revelation where, right at the end of the book, the last book, and it describes life in the new heaven, the new heaven and Earth, right. The future destiny of believers. And it says, “There will be a tree of life, and the leaves of that tree,” this is in heaven, “are for the healing of the nations.” That’s profound. That speaks to the fact that this is also something that is very close and very dear to God’s heart. And once again, I think like so many other areas of life, we have allowed the world and the systems of the world to co-opt us, rather than first going into the Scripture and not simply proof texting, or not simply saying, “Let me get a verse for my day,” but to really get close to God’s heart and let him speak out his heart to us, and then form what we are to think what does it mean for the nations to heal racially? What does that mean?
Rod: Wow. This healing is imperative. And it’s clear from Scripture that it’s what God desires for restoration to take place. Right, we’ve talked about creation, fall, and a redemption in an earlier video. We understand what God created, a big part of that being he created us in the image of God. The fall is pretty self-explanatory. When sin entered the world, it impacted everything, not only our planet, but also the people on the planet. So that relationships became severed and contentious in our family lives and in our societal living. And so redemption is intended to help us get back to where God desires. And so, but redemption must be lived out from day to day so that there can be restoration, so there can be healing. There are three words, Jim, that come to mind for me when I think about healing, and I see in this text in Luke 10. One is we come back to our word empathy, because this gentleman who heals the guy, right, he begins with empathy. He starts out empathic. He sees this man beaten down, left for dead, and rather than discard him, walk by, he doesn’t even blame him for the situation he’s in, which I think is huge. Because I think empathy has to… I said to our church recently, I said, “Compassion is so much more powerful than criticism.” It’s so much more necessary than criticism. Jesus doesn’t criticize, and he didn’t criticize in this text, right? There’s a powerful display of compassion, empathy. So it’s the empathy, but it’s also the intentionality. He didn’t make it somebody else’s problem.
Jim: He disrupts his schedule, he delays his business trip. He gets the man on it, he binds up the man’s wounds. He goes to the inn where, this is where he’s going to care for, he spends all night caring for the man. He leaves for the next day on his business trip, tells the innkeeper, “Here’s some money to care for him. And when I come back, whenever this is, a few days, a week, whatever, whatever further costs you incur, I will reimburse you.” Jesus paints this Samaritan in the most incredibly positive light to depict for us, not only for this lawyer who is prejudiced against Samaritans, not only to say, “He’s your neighbor,”
Rod: He’s your neighbor.
Jim: the Samaritan, right, but also to say, this is what godliness looks like. This is how We do the healing. We not only start with the empathy, but then there have to be intentional acts that incorporate into our lifestyle.
Rod: Oh, my. I love that. That incorporate into our lifestyle. That’s a great phrase. You mentioned his effort. He said, “When I come back, if I owe anything else,” I think of that as a tenacious posture. So there’s empathy, there’s the intentionality, but there’s also the tenacity.
Jim: That’s right. That’s an excellent point.
Rod: He refuses to let himself off the hook, right? He’s gonna see this through. That’s what tenacity does. We’re gonna stick with this until it’s made right. What are the implications?
Jim: It’s just like, I just had this quick thought, it’s like Martin Luther King so many years ago said, you know, the question we tend to ask is if I reach out and help this, what will happen to me? And he says, “The question is, if I don’t, what will happen to him?” And that is, again, at the heart of what it means to love our neighbor. To walk with one another is to say if I find a person or a cultural ethnic group that’s going through intense pain and suffering, then it’s incumbent upon me, as a Christ follower, to move toward the suffering and orient my life so that I can be put in a place where, if God’s spirit so moves, I can help with that.
Rod: Wow. Okay, Jim, we gotta bring this to some everyday real events in our nation. I can’t help but think about George Floyd when I think about this man who’s fallen into the hands of robbers.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: And unfortunately, so much of the conversation around this brutal murder of George Floyd was, “Well, what did he do wrong?”
Jim: Right.
Rod: It was much like with Eric Garner in New York. Well, he should not have done this without the empathy that says no one should ever be treated like that, without the intentionality to say we must see to it as the church that in our society policing doesn’t happen in that fashion.
Jim: That’s correct.
Rod: We have to be the ones who are tenacious. Right, we got the Word, we got the power of the Holy Spirit. We’ve got the compassion of Jesus, right, to say,” We won’t give up on this idea that racial healing should be a priority in our nation.”
Jim: And I think in my own life, in my own journey, God had planted seeds to move me in that direction because of how I grew up. And I grew up among people who were suffering and who were impoverished. And some of it was due to injustice. Some of it was due to natural calamities, like cyclones, but all of that. So there was something in me that God’s spirit was so gracious to say, and Natalie, “I want your calling is to move in that direction.” But I remember in 2015, 2014, 2015, when those videos were coming out, and how that took me to a new place in my understanding. And I began to realize how pervasive these systemic injustices really are in our society, and other societies too. But in our own, where I had had, and I didn’t know it at the time, but a little bit more of a naive concept of suffering and injustice in America. And that took me on a new stage of a journey, which eventually proved to be very costly to Natalie and me. But it was that as I began to, as every week I’m a pastor, every week I’m in the Word, and all of a sudden, Isaiah 58 just leaped out at me. When God says, “You keep coming to me saying, ‘Why aren’t you hearing in my prayer? Why aren’t you embracing my worship?'” And God says,” But your fasting and your prayer is not what I’m looking for. What I’m looking for is stop oppressing your neighbor, because your hands are covered in blood. But if you would, continue to pray, continue to fast, yes, but help them, help clothe them, help them live, help them have hope for their future.” “Then,” God says, “then you will call and I will answer.” Then you will cry out and God will say, “Here I am.” And what God’s spirit said to me very powerfully at that time, “Jim, you have never gone on this part of the journey before, but you’re now surrounded by people in your own church who are walking in that place, African American families, and they’re telling you their stories. And God has blessed you with friends and ministry like you, Pastor Jenkins, and others, who have shared their stories. I want you now to step further into this journey, because it isn’t only cultural intelligence and empathy, it’s also racial healing.” And I think it’s incumbent. I think on all of us to be ready and willing to say, “God, what do you want me to do?” Like Isaiah said, you know, “Here am I, send me.” And we may not know where that journey goes, but the issue is, like in the story of the good Samaritan, am I going to do something for the Kingdom, or am I just going to stand back and pray, “Lord, send somebody?”
Rod: Somebody, you know. Well, you know, there’s the priest and there’s the Levite in this powerful parable, and they walk to the other side. Like, “This has nothing to do with me. This is none of my business.” Both of them, right? And, so Jesus gives us a picture of those who have the religious garb and the religious titles, and they have been to the religious services. So what Amos cried out about, Jesus sort of depicts in this parable of the Samaritan. And I wonder, Jim, if what you’ve just said speaks to the answer for our nation, if the priest and the Levite will step up and say there is systemic injustice, there is racial pain in our land, and we are responsible.
Jim: Yes, amen, amen.
Rod: We’re responsible because I gotta love God with all my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength. And I must also love my neighbor as myself. And he demonstrates, he gives us a clear, if you will, a picture and a roadmap as to what that looks like. Maybe we’re looking too much to the White House for the healing of our nation and too little to God’s house. Too little to God’s Word. I wonder, Jim, I can’t help but wonder, what would happen in our land. Because, Amos says, God says, “Stop your prayers, stop your services, stop your convocations, your seminars and your conferences and get onto this.”
Jim: That’s right. Well think about what God said in Isaiah 59, where he says, “Look everywhere you look, there’s no justice. Justice is dying in the city streets and everywhere.” And then it says, “And God looked at all of this, and he was offended at the injustice.” So it isn’t just that we go, well, there’s this political viewpoint, or there’s this talk show, or there’s this article or this book, or there’s this pundit. That isn’t the starting point for us as Christ followers. The starting point is what does God think and what does he feel, and how does he see this? And Isaiah 59 says, “God was offended.” And why does he say offended? Why doesn’t he just say grieved? He was offended because he said there was no one who would stand in the gap and help. And so it said God took up his own arms and he exerted justice. But all the way through the Scripture, God is so clear that he’s looking for people who will stand in the gap. And in our tradition, in the white evangelical tradition, we have a very, very strong ethos about world missions. And I thank God for that. My parents followed the call and became missionaries. Natalie and I did. And I have the utmost praise and honor and respect for missionaries. But I think sometimes we have created an artificial distinction in these areas. William Carey went to India several generations ago, and he observed infanticide, the practice at that time was often if a baby girl was born they would throw the baby girl in the river. If it was a baby boy, they would let the boy live. And William Carey said, “That goes against God’s heart of justice.” And he worked hard, not only to be an evangelist, not only to translate the Scriptures, not only to plant churches, but to try to do everything he could to change that injustice. I think of William Wilberforce in England, who became a believer and said to his friends, “I’m going to become a pastor.” And many of his friends gathered around him one night in his home and said, “We think God is calling you, but not to pastor a local church, but to be like a pastor in the parliament.” And he devoted his life to the eradication of the slave trade. That was his holy mission to try to say God’s heart is offended. And I think just as you said, that what God is looking for among us as his people is not primarily to say, “Oh, if we could just get the right president.” Politics is politics, and it’s a worthy endeavor, and there are things you need to vote for, and there are things you need to step into the public arena, but primarily, we need to be God’s people saying, “We need the spirit of God to move and help us to correct the injustices and create racial healing in our time.”
Rod: So I don’t even know where to jump in on that. It was so good. It was so rich, man.
Jim: My heart’s kinda full on this.
Rod: Oh, man, I love it. I appreciate you, man. You pointed, and without maybe understanding the weight of what you just said, you pointed to the truth that there is another important, more important option, than how we vote, which is how we act every day.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: In the interest of injustice and racial pain. I don’t think we can end this video without at least beginning a conversation about why our evangelical ethos has shied away from these real terms, right, systemic racism or systemic injustice, the need for racial healing. Maybe you can speak to that for a moment. What’s been behind this sort of shunning or minimizing these realities?
Jim: It’s a great question, and there are multiple parts to the answer, but I could say just a few things that I have observed, one or two things. One is that we have developed in our society, in our quite Christian church context, sometimes an overemphasis on the individual aspect of the Christian life. So it is certainly a valid thing. We don’t want to just be talking about the group. We need to be able to say, “You need to come to Christ, you need to submit to the Holy Spirit.” That’s true. But the Scripture constantly talks about we, the community of faith, and how we move together in the church and in the society. So there have been times, and this has not always been the case, because several generations back, the evangelical church was actually the moving force for the onset of the move about abolition in America. It started in Park Street Church in Boston. Christians started this movement. So there was a time when Christians, and even to this day, there are other societal ills that white evangelicals are eager to get behind about the evils of abortion, let’s say, or the evils of sex trafficking. Things like that, that we all agree these are injustices and we need to address them. But we need to have a capacity to say this issue of racial wounding and racial injustice is also an evil that needs our addressing. And just, coming back to the individual level, doesn’t quite address that. And I think the second thing that I’ve alluded to is that sometimes what we’ve done is we’ve been selective about the injustices we will acknowledge, rather than say… And we’ve allowed the political system to say, “Okay, one party will take up one injustice, and the other party will take up another.” But the Kingdom of Jesus transcends all of that, so that we as Christ followers should be saying humbly, and we need one another for coaching and insight and knowledge as to how to address them. But we need to say, all right, if abortion is wrong, racial injustice is also wrong. So let’s try to address all of those things. These are just two of the things that I’ve thought through that I think sometimes contribute to why we’re reluctant to move forward in these arenas.
Rod: Oh, man. I love how much you’ve thought about these things, and we’ve talked a lot about them. So it’s not even hard to just bring them up in a conversation like this. What can we say to those who are learning these things anew, right? Some of you’re probably very challenged if you’re still with us on this video. Social ills, right? Systemic injustice, racial, the need for racial healing, because there’s so many racial wounds in our country. What practically can people do today?
Jim: I think the starting point is to go before God and say, “Search my heart and change me.” And include that in your prayer request. We often ask God, “Change my heart. Make me more of a man of moral purity. Make me more of someone who loves my spouse. Make me someone who leads my children lovingly in the ways of God.” We should be praying all those things, but we should also be praying, “God, show me what you want me to do in this moment in the arena of racial wounding. What do you want from me?” Not what am I prepared to do? What am I equipped to do? Not that. That’s never the call of God. God so often calls people that we would say, “What?” You know, Jesus’ disciples, look at them, but just say, “What, God, what do you want me to do?” And then I think a second thing is intentionally develop relationships with people who are in places where they experience racial injustice. And you don’t need to develop 100 friends, but just try to develop one or two friends and let God develop that friendship. And then as they go through circumstances, really practice the empathic listening. And God will take you further than you’ve ever been before. Those are two very basic steps.
Rod: Let me say that second one, especially, I think it is not only important, but it’s important that we get this one right. Because so often what happens is these relationships begin to be formed in the interest of, “Hey, can you show me what to do?” And so now it places a further burden on the person who’s been wounded.
Jim: Yes, that’s a good point.
Rod: The Samaritan didn’t go to, you know, he didn’t go and say, “Well, can you help me figure out how to heal you? Like, what am I supposed to do?” He just went intentionally and did what needed to be done. Man, we got so much to talk about on this matter, but I think it’s important, if I were gonna give practical steps, it would be to listen for the voice of the Spirit. We were in a conversation yesterday, and what was brought to the forefront was the whole matter of spiritual formation.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Jim, we’re missing these very painful dynamics in our society as a church, because perhaps we are not listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. We’re listening to the news, right, we’re reading the news, we’re listening to the political debate, but I’m not sure that we are listening to the heart of God and the voice of the Spirit. Because we oftentimes will read over words like “justice,” right? We read over these painful stories like The Good Samaritan, and we don’t even see these racial or ethnic differences that are playing into it. But I think if we’re listening to the spirit, like,” Holy Spirit speak to me, show me where I’m wrong.” And I think if we listen to the Spirit, there’s gonna be a call to repentance. And my prayer is that as a church, we would repent in the interest of God using us in this nation, so that we can turn around what is really in need of a mover God.
Jim: And I would just add too, I’ve walked a long time on this journey, and Natalie and I often call it the sacred journey, because it’s a God journey, all these dimensions. And as I’ve interacted with people of my own ethnicity, my own background, sometimes what people will say to me is, “Well, Pastor Jim, it sounds almost like I just need to go around feeling guilty all day long. Or I need to exit out of the conversation because I have nothing to offer.” And I would simply say to my brothers and sisters who look a little bit like me, that is not the call of God on your life. The call of God on your life is not to somehow feel like you personally did these things. Instead take on the posture of Ezra and Nehemiah when they prayed, and they talked about the collective guilt of Jerusalem and Israel. And they went before God with that. God wasn’t looking at Ezra or Nehemiah and saying, “Yeah, you guys messed up.” No, he looked at them as people who had a heart to recognize that God’s heart had been wounded for generations. And they stood in the gap before God and said, “Would you please use me to do something?” And that’s the posture to take. Say, “God, how could you use my life to do something for the Kingdom in this arena?” And I think when you take that posture, God blesses you. And realize that people all around you, yes, there will be times you’ll experience rejection, yes, there’ll be times you’ll experience setbacks. That’s part of life. But just realize there’ll be many more people in communities of color who are going to take heart and be encouraged because you’re taking this journey, because you’re coming alongside them saying, “I wanna walk with you on this journey.”
Rod: Oh, so real, so real. I think of a friend of our family’s who, she’s white, she’s from an Italian background, and we’ve gotten to know each other over the years. Our kids went to school together, our sons more specifically, and our sons became really close friends. And it became clear pretty early on, and especially as the boys got older, right, that we’re all from very different political leanings. But what our friend, the mom, has done is she has sought to open doors for people that she knows would not have those doors open for them easily. And so she tends to recommend people, because she sees the quality of people and the capability that she knows they would add so much to the environment but people are overlooking them, sort of walking around them, and missing their gifts. And I think this is a call to our leaders, our churches. We’re overlooking the amazing gifts and potential in people,
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: when we don’t work toward racial healing. So I just wanna encourage people. One practical step is to see the gifts in other people.
Jim: Yeah, so good.
Rod: And be willing to champion them.
Jim: Absolutely.
Rod: Because there so much of what the systemic injustices have done has reduced people in a painful way, as though we don’t bring
Jim: That’s powerful.
Rod: great abilities to the table. So man, thanks for this discussion.
Jim: Thank you.
Rod: I appreciate you.
Jim: Thank you.
Rod: Appreciate you.
Jim: It’s a God journey, amen.
Rod: Amen.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Amen.