Questions for Racial Healing

Like many other women I know, I consider myself a “part of the solution, not part of the problem” kind of woman.

Our values include not complaining or pointing fingers. Not sitting back and whining while others do the heavy lifting to right wrongs or to address problems in our world. Jesus modeled a face-to-face, pull-up-a-chair, lay-down-your-life love, and we want to follow his lead.

But as a white woman, I was stymied when it came to my role in addressing racial conflict. I wonder if you’ve felt that, too. I struggled to find my on-ramp in the work of healing and reconciliation between people of different ethnicities and skin colors.

Part of that is because, for most of my life, I thought I was doing the work.

Asking God to search my heart and root out any hidden prejudice, any hint of hate for those who don’t look like me.
Raising children to value people because they’re made in God’s image, not because they share our skin color.
Using my skills, education, and talents to serve others in Jesus’s name, no matter what their country of origin.
Seeking to worship with people of other backgrounds and ethnicities.

Though the town where I was raised and still live is 93.5 percent white, by God’s grace, our small-town church has worshipers who hail from the Philippines, Nigeria, and Venezuela. In the New England churches where I grew up and raised my children, love for all races has always been the message.

But in recent years, the greater conversation around racial conflict and pain has left me feeling that what I’ve contributed falls far short. I was sure there was more that I could do to advocate for justice and participate in healing, but I received a lot of mixed messages that discouraged me from taking real action.

One message I received was that it’s my time, as a white person, just to listen. But I also heard people of color insist I shouldn’t be asking them to provide answers about how I should change or help facilitate change.

I allowed the complexity of getting involved to put me off. I’m ashamed to admit that, because it was hard, I chose to sit back in silence for too long.

And yet, I sensed the Holy Spirit nudging me, asking why I believed that participating in the work of reconciliation was an “elective” course in faith for me, being white. Wouldn’t I push through the complexity if it was my children facing daily challenges related to the color of their skin? Don’t all our children benefit from the ministry of reconciliation?

Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (ESV).

Through Jesus, we’re reconciled to God. That is a far greater work of reconciliation than creating unity among people of varying skin colors. As we reflect Jesus, we’re entrusted with the message of reconciliation. It is the message of the gospel that must be demonstrated through our lives and in our congregations.

As I prayed about this and wrestled with God over it, he nudged me into action, finally, through an email from a retired pastor and former college instructor. I write a weekly blog, and during a period of intense rioting and racial tension, Doug wrote this two-sentence challenge to me, “Lori, we need you to write a blog/post sharing your wisdom on how to have the hard conversation about race. Hope to read it this week. THX.”

There it was. Like flashing lights pointing to my on-ramp. I’d written a book about having hard conversations, and now, I had one with myself. Suddenly I could see that all my “reasons” for not finding a way in were just excuses masking my fear.

I was afraid I’d hurt someone. I was afraid I’d be clumsy and ineffective. I was fearful of having my participation rejected. I was scared I might inadvertently expose something within me that still needs transformation and sanctification.

But what if the work and the call to obey were actually bigger than all the reasons I’d found to hesitate and remain silent? What if my calling was to let my love for Jesus and my love for others grow bigger than my concerns for myself?

As I accepted the truth of this, I realized that one problem we all have is that, too often, we begin the work with a very faulty question: “Am I a racist?” It turns out, this is not a very helpful question because, often, those who are racist are blind to their own condition.

We tend to compare ourselves with the most extreme racists and then determine we aren’t racist, but where does that leave us? As if absolving ourselves of that one sin then excuses us from the ongoing work.

That’s when I began to explore better questions—questions that led me into productive conversations with people of all skin colors.

How do we listen to someone’s story of pain and minister to them even if we didn’t directly cause that pain? What does biblical justice look like in my community? How can I love people of color better?

What legacy am I leaving those who come after me in the work of racial healing? How can our church reach out and minister to angry young people of all ethnicities? How do we create worship services that reflect the variety God loves and is represented in our faith community?

What if, through the work of Jesus, we can harness the power of spoken and written words to further the work of ending racial conflict? What if simple conversations can open doors, eyes, hearts, and minds? I believe they can because I’m seeing it happen.

We live with the vision of Revelation 7:9-10 in our sights, “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (ESV).

How can we not let this inspire us, every one of us—every skin color, every ethnicity, every race—to work toward seeing his kingdom break through now, in our hearts, friendships, conversations, congregations, and communities?

It’s hard. The work is hard. But Christians do hard things—we have hard conversations.

Love compels us to forget about ourselves and abandon fear to live the message he’s entrusted to us of hope and reconciliation. Whatever our skin color, we can be part of the work. It can be as simple as sitting down just to chat.

Lori Stanley Roeleveld is a Christian coach, writer, speaker, and disturber of hobbits who enjoys making comfortable Christians continually late for dinner. She’s authored four award-winning books, including The Art of Hard Conversations, and co-authored a new release with Saundra Dalton-Smith, Colorful Connections:12 Questions about Race that Open Healthy Conversations. She speaks her heart and mind at www.loriroeleveld.com.