A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of communal repentance, particularly as we work against idolatry, nationalism, and racism. Now, I want to give a concrete example of what a modern-day act of communal repentance might look like; not just a performative act but one that takes ownership of the past and seeks to make amends. In Plough (a quarterly magazine), Pastor Helmuth Eiwen wrote an article titled “The Sins of the Fathers,” sharing why and how he led his Austrian church to publicly repent of anti-Semitism past and present. (While I am unsure if Eiwen is specifically familiar with Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, his articles accurately reflects the same points that I shared in my blog post.) I encourage you to read his whole piece, but in the meantime I will quote a few parts:
“Forgiveness of sins, in the sense of the cleansing and salvation of the sinner, is a personal experience between God and the penitent. No one can step in to be cleansed or forgiven in the sinner’s stead. Yet the Bible describes another important aspect of guilt: the reality that the so-called “sins of the fathers” may have lasting negative results. In other words, even if we do not bear the sins of our ancestors, we may not be able to escape the consequences of their actions….Such an inheritance may not be personal but collective; God’s history is marked not only by relationships and covenants with individuals but with whole groups – families, cities, tribes, and entire peoples or nations…
“The ongoing aftereffects of “sins of the fathers” may be temporal: political oppression or subjugation, or economic woe. They may manifest as wars, famines, and natural catastrophes, or as pandemics and plagues. Just as grave, if less visible, are the spiritual fruits of such sin – the blindness that can lead to unbiblical or faulty theologies being passed from one generation to the next; they may be wrongheaded (and even deadly) traditions, worldviews, and attitudes. Antisemitism is one such malign legacy; its insidious invincibility has poisoned countless souls and continues to do so. Ungodly decisions, stipulations, and legal decrees by government officials or clerical leaders preserve injustice.
“When a dark cloud hangs over a city, region, or a church, its origin does not matter: it will hinder the breaking through of the gospel. More often than not, it will show itself in splits and divisions within Christendom that can be traced back to instances of persecution, hatred, and ostracism.“
In the late 1990s Pastor Eiwen realized that the legacy of anti-Semitism had left a curse on his small Austrian town that had left it strangely resistant to receiving love and grace from God. Interestingly enough, the most recent Atlantic cover article makes a similar point, that centuries-old acts of evil can have tangible, measurable impacts in our modern world: “[William Bernstein says] You can actually predict anti-Semitism and voting for the Nazi Party by going back to the anti-Semitism across those same regions in the 14th century. You can trace it city to city.” Wow! I am reminded of the ways that you can still see the tangible effects of redlining, urban renewal, or other past racist policies in many American cities today.
As Pastor Eiwen and his church wrestled with the implications for their specific city in Austria, they realized:
“We cannot repent on behalf of somebody else. But we can identify with them and ask God to lift the curse – the negative consequences – that we are suffering under; we can even be so bold as to pray that he turns it into a blessing.…Daniel does not pray [in Dan 9], “Lord, forgive our fathers, cleanse them of their guilt.” That is something they could only do themselves. When Daniel prays for forgiveness, he is asking God to lift today’s curse. And so we too pray for God to break today’s curse so that the chain of destructive consequences of “the sins of the fathers” might come to an end – and so that there will finally be real freedom, once and for all….Daniel was given a clear recognition regarding the sins of his ancestors. He did not seek to remove himself from them, sweep them under the rug, or say they were not his business. Rather, he clearly acknowledged and named sins, and confessed them “before God’s countenance.” He could do this because he knew he was a member of a people whose ancestors had sinned, and he himself was thus ready to bear the consequences of their sin in his exile – perhaps almost as a guarantor for them.“
Eiwen emphasizes that confession is just one part of communal repentance.
“A confession of identification is a beginning, but to bear fruit, it must lead to concrete action on the part of individuals and the community at hand – to deeds that demonstrate the authenticity of the confession by bringing about real change. Examples might include the correction of false theologies; reconciliation, which encourages new behavior and new attitudes; compensation, which, to some degree, returns what has been stolen; and the solidification of new attitudes and paradigms by the passing of new insights to the next generation. For repentance by identification to be fruitful, it must include as many of the individuals and groups who represent the collective body in question as possible. Not only solitary men and women, but whole families, congregations, churches, neighborhoods, cities, and peoples, must be willing to identify with the guilt of their fathers and step into the fissure.“
For Eiwen’s church, they felt led to take a number of actions:
- Learned about the guilt of their city, particularly in mistreatment of Jews
- Gathered church leaders for a prayer
- Confessed ancestor’s guilt as their own, and asked God’s forgiveness
- Implored God to turn his face to the city once again, and turn the curse into a blessing
- Do a public act of external remorse, which involved seeking out Jews that had left Wiener Neustadt and seeking forgiveness and connection
Eiwen closes:
“One remarkable fruit of this process of “repentance by identification” has been an increased openness to the gospel in Wiener Neustadt. As far as we have been able to observe, God has revitalized not only our congregation’s spiritual life but also that of other churches in the city. Many spiritual leaders and congregants gather regularly to pray for revival. I do not know what the future will bring, but I can say this: the spiritual atmosphere has changed, the cloud has lifted, and the skies above Weiner Neustadt are now open to God.“
I continue to be immensely inspired by Pastor Eiwen’s article and recommend you read it. But in the meantime, it leaves me with many questions:
- What are the open wounds still open in America that must be repented of? Or let’s get more local — What about in Central Pennsylvania? What about here in Carlisle? And what would repentance look like?
- Of what communal sins should I and my family and church identify ourselves? Of what communal sins are we still guilty of? Are there ancestral or generational curses that we must become aware of in order to break cycles of brokenness?
- What if the revival that we Christians are seeking in America can only come through communal repentance? How does one even being to help American Christians see the truth about history when they are enthralled by semi-fascist narratives of a perfect nation under God that can do no wrong?
- Is communal repentance a “once-and-done” activity, or something that must be pursued for decades (or even longer)? How can you know when a communal crime has been sufficiently repented of? And how far back do we go; must modern-day Italians repent of the crimes of the Roman Empire?
- How big a community is necessary to truly do communal repentance? Ideally the entire social group that is implicated in a crime would be willing to repent, but if that’s not the case, is it enough for just one church to do communal repentance? One family?
These are not easy questions. But they are important ones. I hope that you’ll join me in continuing to wrestle with them.