NEW ORLEANS (BP) – In a late-night session entitled, “Simple Steps to Unity: Walking Together Toward a Better Future,” a chorus of Southern Baptist Convention voices, including five SBC presidents, boldly promoted and prayed for racial reconciliation and unity.
Marcus Hayes, lead pastor, Crossroads Baptist Church, The Woodlands, Texas, emceed the event, which was held June 12 on the eve of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans. The event was sponsored by the Unify Project and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Co-founded by former SBC Presidents Ed Litton and Fred Luter, the Unify Project seeks to equip pastors to initiate racial reconciliation in their churches.
In his greetings, Bart Barber, Texas pastor and current SBC president, said the Unify Project was “terribly important for the SBC” because it is right and biblical, it is the future of the SBC, and it is evangelistic.
“The world wants to know that somebody, somewhere, is actually living out what the New Testament says,” Barber said. “They will be drawn … and we will have the opportunity to share the Gospel with them.”
ERLC President Brent Leatherwood, in his introduction, said he believed the Unify Project embodies what God says to do in Ephesians 4 to encourage and equip the saints and
to build up the body of Christ.
“In order to overcome the past, sometimes you have to confront it,” Leatherwood said. “We have some things to overcome in the SBC.”
Introducing a video story featuring Marshall Blalock and Donald Greene, Litton affirmed that the gospel brings healing to the deep wounds of racial discrimination. “This is far beyond the time we should have done this,” he said.
Blalock’s heart had been stirred as he watched Emanuel AME Church members forgive Dylann Storm Roof, who tragically killed nine believers attending a Bible study at their church.
To publicly demonstrate repentance, Blalock’s church dedicated a plaque outside of that door, which honors “the thousands of enslaved members of the First Baptist Church of Charleston whose names we do not know but are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
He also gave an original brick from his church building, which was built by slaves, to Greene, president of the Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina, to honor this commitment. Greene said the effort was an answer to prayer from his ancestors who prayed to God in the balcony of the historic church’s sanctuary.
“Here’s the evidence,” Green emotionally pointed to the brick in appreciation. Blalock pointed to his heart, “No, this is the evidence,” he said.
The video provided a powerful example of how churches across the SBC can seek to initiate racial reconciliation. Several speakers followed the presentation with short vignettes on how to flesh out the work.
Victor Chayasirisobhon, senior pastor at First Southern Baptist Church of Anaheim, Calif., and first vice president of the SBC, shared about his first experience of racism, which happened in the third grade. Explaining that racism begins at the dinner table, he stressed the importance of protecting youth and children from it. “We can do things in this generation. We can fix this in one generation if we do it right!”
Mike Keahbone, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Lawton, Okla., and a Native American with heritage from the Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee tribes, shared how his efforts to lead the SBC to write a resolution against the forced conversion of Native American, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiian children in boarding schools has led to healing among Native Americans. This past July, he read the resolution from the platform at a “Road to Healing” tour event sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior in conjunction with the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative.
He urged his listeners to acknowledge the racial hatred of the past, understand its impact on generations of people, and understand how repentance and acknowledgement provides a pathway to healing.
Carla Arriola, whose grandparents were IMB missionaries in Guadalajara, Mexico, urged those gathered to see people as God see them: people whose hearts can be transformed by Christ. She related the story she heard about a young white girl visiting her inmate father in prison. Next to her visiting booth, she noticed another woman, ran up to her, and removed her little shoes.
“Look, we are the same,” she exclaimed, showing off her purple toenails.
“That woman was an African American woman,” Arriola explained. “The little girl didn’t see the skin color. She only saw what they had in common.” She urged participants to seek the same unity Jesus prayed for in John 17.
In a panel discussion, Lindsay Nicolet, ERLC’s editorial director, spoke with Jon Nelson and Seané Rice about the importance of teaching others about racial unity. To see tangible progress, Nelson said individuals must make sacrifices.
“To be a bridge, you have to let other people walk over you,” he said, acknowledging that also means laying down one’s idols. “Know it will hurt a bit, but hold on until the Savior comes, because that is our job!”
Rice stressed the importance of standing for the Gospel truth that all are created in God’s image and are created with “value, dignity, and worth.” She urged her listeners to raise their children to be ambassadors of Christ.
Aware of the racial reconciliation being done in his own state, Phil Huggins marveled about the support he witnessed on the Unify Project stage. Huggins, pastor of First Baptist Church of Rochester, Pa., said, “It was so exciting to see five SBC presidents on stage supporting racial reconciliation. God is really moving!”
Bryan Loritts, teaching pastor at Summit Church in Durham, N.C., offered closing remarks by pointing to how Jesus does not shy away from identifying the Samaritan woman in John 4 by her race. Like Jesus, church leaders “need pastoral courage to stand on their convictions and infiltrate their contexts” to work toward racial unity, he said.
The Unify Project provides resources to assist churches accordingly. To learn more or to share your own stories, visit theunifyproject.org.
*Feature photo captured by Brandon Porter of the Baptist Press.
