“What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other,” he said.

“I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity,”

King’s, a Christian liberal arts college in New York City, invited Bailey to speak at the beginning of Black History Month. Bailey indicated his God-given mission is to help bring racial reconciliation to the Church. He is founder of Arrabon, a ministry that prepares Christian leaders to engage with reconciliation. He’s also the co-author of “Race, Class, and the Kingdom of God 101 Workbook” and he is executive producer for the documentary “11 a.m.: Hope for America’s Most Segregated Hour.”

Issues such as race and class can be a hard conversation, he acknowledges.

Having a “mercy umbrella” will allow for a comfortable environment for Christians from all racial background to have those conversations.

“When we talk about race and class, and things of that nature, it can be very tough and a sensitive topic for all parties involved. And so, one of the things that we do is we set expectations and expect someone to say something either stupid and or racist,“ Bailey said. “So then, when it happens, you aren’t disappointed, and it could be you. So, you know, this is why we give each other mercy umbrellas. So, then we can show grace and learn because you can't learn anything if you're afraid to fail.”

Bailey explained that many Christian people want to have a “colorblind” approach. But he suggests that may not be the best approach. Rather, he argues that believers of all races should step closer, talk with each and acknowledge color to give a better perspective.

“Why is it that we don't know that much about our shared story that is non-Eurocentric?” Bailey asks. He noted that words and tensions in the 1960s that upset the status quo led to assassinations of people such as President John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. He explained how the trauma and stress of the 1960s led to the well-intentioned idea of a “colorblind society.”

He gave students, staff and faculty at King’s a history lesson in how “brothers and sisters” who immigrated from China, Japan and Korea to the U.S. sued the Supreme Court to be categorized as “white” so they could have a voice in society and own property. He explained how the Naturalization Act in 1790 gave citizenship to any free white person who was in the U.S for two years. This set the predicated for Ozawa v. United States in 1922, which denied citizenship to Japanese’s immigrants.

Bailey also addressed how the Declaration of Independenceused distasteful language against Native American’s, referring to the King of England using them as “merciless Indian savages, who's known rule of warfare is on the screen undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Even in our founding documents there is a narrative that indigenous people aren’t truly human.”