Racial. Healing.
The mothers are gonna pray your kingdom down.
The mothers are gonna pray your kingdom down.
You've been building your kingdom all in the house of God.
Satan, We're gonna tear your kingdom down.~ Shirley Caesar, Black Spiritual
election, 2.
This week’s post comes from my friend Cameron Duncan, a pastor in Niagara Falls, NY, and a colleague in our doctoral program.
As a black pastor serving in a predominantly white congregation, I carry a weight that extends beyond emotional pain—it’s a burden that lives in my body. This experience isn’t just mine but shared by many in the BIPOC* community. Racial trauma is a weight held not just in our minds but deep in our bones, muscles, and breath. It’s the tightness in our chest when we hear another story of violence against our communities, the tension in our shoulders from constantly being on guard, and the exhaustion of explaining and justifying our pain in spaces that often don’t understand.
The story of the Gerasene demoniac in Luke 8:26-39 resonates with this experience, revealing how spiritual, physical, and social suffering are intertwined. In this passage, a man is tormented by a legion of demons and isolated among the tombs. His pain is embodied—felt deeply in his body—just as many of us experience racial trauma. His isolation mirrors the loneliness of being the only person of color in a room or feeling unseen despite being surrounded by others. His suffering captures the physical toll of racism—elevated heart rates, stress carried in clenched jaws, and the weight of history that lingers in our bodies.
Yet there is hope in how Jesus meets this man. He doesn’t avoid his suffering or dismiss the physicality of his pain. Instead, Jesus crosses boundaries—cultural, social, and spiritual—to enter into his place of suffering. For the BIPOC community, this is a powerful reminder that God is present in our physical struggles. God meets us in our embedded trauma. Jesus’ willingness to enter the spaces where our bodies carry deep wounds testifies to God’s commitment to our complete healing.
When Jesus asks the man his name, he responds, “Legion, for we are many.” This response captures the overwhelming nature of his suffering—not just one issue but a multitude of forces against him. This resonates with the weight of racism—the accumulation of centuries of trauma, the inherited pain from ancestors who endured slavery and segregation, and the stress that lingers in our bodies from acts of violence. Our bodies remember even when words fail.
In these moments, the hymn “Satan, We’re Gonna’ Tear Your Kingdom Down” rises up within me. Born out of the Black gospel tradition, it declares that the struggle against racism is both external and spiritual. It reminds us that our bodies are part of this fight and that the trauma we carry is real, but so is the hope of God’s power to heal. The refrain—“You’ve been building your kingdom all over this land, but Satan, we’re gonna’ tear your kingdom down”—calls us to believe that systems of oppression won’t have the final word, that God’s justice is deeper than our wounds.
When Jesus commands the demons to leave the man, sending them into a herd of pigs, it’s an act of profound liberation. It reminds us that no matter how deeply embedded our pain, God’s power to bring freedom is greater. This moment speaks to those of us who have carried trauma in our bodies for so long that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to breathe without weight. It’s a promise that our bodies deserve rest and healing and that entrenched systems of oppression can be overcome through God’s love.
After the man’s liberation, he is found “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.” This image is more than spiritual renewal; it’s the restoration of his entire being, body included. For the BIPOC community, it’s a vision of reclaiming our bodies from imposed trauma, of finding rest, space to exhale, and restoring the dignity stripped away by dehumanizing forces. As a pastor, I see how the gospel can restore this sense of wholeness, but I also recognize the challenge of preaching this message in spaces that may not recognize our embodied trauma.
Yet, as the hymn declares, “Satan, we’re gonna’ tear your kingdom down.” It’s a call to keep speaking, to keep showing up, to believe that while the pain we carry is real, so is God’s healing. It’s a call to trust that our bodies can find rest in the struggle, that our stories can bring light into ignorance and apathy. May we find strength in knowing that our bodies are seen, our pain is real, and that God is with us on the path to freedom.
growing your soul
Where do you feel the weight of trauma in your body? What would it mean to believe that God sees that pain and is working to bring you healing?
serving our world
How can you join in tearing down the kingdoms of oppression, trusting that God’s power is greater than any force that seeks to bind us?
takeaway
Justice heals.
*For those new to the conversation of race, the term BIPOC stands for “black, indigenous, people of color.” It refers to those who have been historically enslaved and oppressed, those who continue to be marginalized in our world. Those Jesus would welcome and elevate!