Leaders on Race: Healing Comes Through God Alone
WASHINGTON -- Recent riots that followed the deaths of black men at the hands of police showed that racial wounds still linger.
Now some of the country's spiritual leaders are trying to help in the healing, and one such effort came Wednesday evening at an event in the nation's capital called "Rekindle the Dream."
Those attending cried out for God to heal and awaken the nation, remembering that the Lord made only one race -- the human race -- and it's only in league with Him that America can heal its racial divides.
The lead organizer was Bishop E.W. Jackson of STAND, an acronym for Staying True to America's National Destiny.
"We want to send a message to the country that we need to come together, across racial and cultural lines, and the only way to do that is through the power of God. That is really the point: to love one another -- black, white, brown, yellow -- and to be one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," Jackson told CBN News.
Jerry Boykin, with the Family Research Council, agreed.
"It's always darkest before the dawn and we're really at one of those very dark periods right now with what's happened in Ferguson and New York and other places," Boykin said. "But I really believe that God's will is for us to be reconciled. God's will is for us to be united."
Vivian Dudley, an evangelist from Ferguson, Missouri, said, "What the enemy meant for bad, God has turned it around for our good. And we're seeing things in Ferguson that have never happened before historically."
Dudley told CBN News what happened just after the first Feguson rioting.
"The ministry that I'm over is called One Church Outreach," she explained. "And we put out a cry to everyone that believes in the power of prayer right after the August 9 event, and about 80 different denominations, races, creeds, colors came together -- about 800 people. We've been worshipping and praying together ever since, people who never even knew each other."
The Rekindle the Dream event was originally going to take place in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center just feet away from where Congress meets. But not everyone among Capitol Hill staffers agreed that Rekindle the Dream's plan to cry out to heaven for help was appropriate for the Capitol Hill location.
Some of these congressional staffers grew hostile and were demanding changes, and the pastors felt they had to move the event rather than compromise.
Bishop Harry Jackson, with Beltsville Maryland's Hope Christian Church, blamed partisan politics for the hostility the Rekindle the Dream organizers faced.
"An event like this -- that should be a healing moment for all of America -- is seen through partisan lenses by some people," Jackson said, expressing disappointment in the way congressional staffers treated the evangelical group.
Main event organizer E.W. Jackson said he was "disappointed, but not surprised."
"I think that government has gotten far from the Judeo-Christian values of the founding fathers, and there's a certain hostility now to the things of God that is unfortunate," he explained.
It's unfortunate because man or government alone can't solve what plagues America, fellow organizer Rev. Bill Cook said.
"Our country is in a situation where we've put ourselves into a conundrum of problems that really aren't going to be solved by the brightest minds in the nation," Cook said. "They're going to be solved by the grace and mercy and intervention of God."
