Tag: Politics

Using “Critical Race Theory” to Share the Gospel

One of my favorite parts in the Bible is Acts 17:16-34. In this passage, Paul is in Athens and exploring the city. He is distressed to see all the idols, and begins to preach about Jesus around the city to both Jews and Gentiles. Soon Paul is invited to share the Gospel with the Greek philosophers in the Aeropagus, the center of Greek intellectual thought as well as the center of their pagan religion. In his sermon, he lauds the Athenians for their religiosity—despite their worship of idols— and quotes pagan philosophers instead of the Bible. Paul uses pagan theology and philosophy to preach the Gospel, and while some scoff at him, many others are interested, and some even convert and become followers of Jesus! I love this passage because it shows that Paul is not threatened by a non-Christian ideology, and in fact he uses it to preach the Gospel. What would it look like to preach like Paul today?

Saint Paul delivering the Areopagus Sermon in Athens, by Raphael, 1515

In present-day America, there are no Stoic or Epicurean philosophers, but there are many other non-Christian philosophies, theologies, and worldviews. One secular worldview that many conservative Christians seem especially frightened of is “Critical Race Theory,” a concept that has been so twisted and misused that it is almost impossible to clearly define. (I learned the basics of “CRT” eighteen years ago when I was a high school debater, and find it darkly humorous how such an esoteric academic theory has only now gone mainstream on Fox News and on Baby Boomers’ Facebook feeds.) Some Republicans are even trying to ban all references to this philosophy from media, colleges, and government!

Like any ideology, there are parts of CRT where I would disagree in part or in whole. Yet to me it is so obvious that there are also elements of CRT that clearly point to Jesus, and if one is willing to be wise and clever, one could use CRT in order to preach the Gospel just like Paul did with Greek paganism. So that’s exactly what I’m going to attempt to do below. 

CRT Main Point #1: Racism influences all Americans. It is not a matter of personal choice, but instead is present in everyone to some degree. 

Whether it’s in ways big or small, supporters of CRT argue that racism is present in each individual in America, even if it’s unconscious. Most advocates of CRT would argue that it’s not just white people, but even ethnic minorities who can internalize white supremacy, leading to self-hatred, colorism, or other forms of in-group biases. As one small example, as a teacher in Baltimore City I observed a few African-American students make fun of a darker-skinned African immigrant. Or I remember a study that showed that children of all races preferred to play with white baby dolls instead of black baby dolls. CRT advocates would say that racism is “America’s original sin,” and is present in pretty much everyone*. 

If I were Paul, how would I use this point of CRT to preach the Gospel? I would generally agree with this tenet and argue that yes, every individual is broken in a host of ways, whether conscious or unconscious, and for most Americans that includes that sin of racism. “For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.” Because of Adam and Eve’s original sin in the Garden of Eden, all humans are born with a propensity to sin. Jesus tells us that even having a single lustful thought makes us guilty of adultery, so by the same logic having a single racist thought makes us guilty of racism. I myself would identify as a “recovering racist”: just like a recovering alcoholic still struggles with brokenness regarding alcohol, I also still struggle with racist thoughts, inclinations, and desires. I have to pray for God’s grace and forgiveness for that sin—among other sins—quite frequently. But instead of just beating myself up, or being terrified of being cancelled, or gritting my teeth and trying to be perfect on my own effort, the Gospel gives me an answer in Jesus: “Oh what a wretched man am I! Who will save me from this life of sin? Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Holy Spirit can empower me and others to live forgiven lives of repentance, with a mind that is being transformed day by day. I won’t ever be perfect, but I can try to seek to live more and more like Jesus every day.

(*Is it possible that there’s someone out there who doesn’t struggle with the sin of racism whatsoever? Sure, perhaps he or she exists, just like there are probably people out there who have never once struggled with one or more of the seven deadly sins. But everyone struggles with at least one sin or another, and by and large I think most Americans, if they’re being honest, has had at least one teensy tiny racist thought at one time or another. Additionally, even if it’s not intentional, we are all participants in a system that often has racist outcomes, perpetrated by the government we pay taxes to and the corporations we buy stuff from.) 

CRT Main Point #2: We should not be colorblind, but instead should pay attention to inequities between the races. 

Advocates of CRT point out that ignoring the problems that happen at the racial group level mean that we are not going to be able to adequately solve them. We cannot use a “race-blind” approach to every solution and expect that everyone is equally able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Instead, we should look at their group circumstances and see if there are group needs that should be addressed in a special manner. For example, we may discover that Black neighborhoods have fewer trees than white neighborhoods due to a history of redlining and underinvestment by city planners, and so going forward we can try to plant more trees there to improve air quality and reduce rates of asthma. 

If I were Paul, how would I use this point of CRT to preach the Gospel? I would affirm that Scripture does indeed pay attention to group dynamics. Paul’s own ministry illustrates how the Gentiles needed special welcome and special outreach at the group level in order to bring them into the Kingdom. He points out that he is sent as an evangelist to focus on the Greeks, while Peter was sent to the Jews. And in Acts 6, we also see a beautiful passage where the early Church leaders discovered that the Hellenistic Jews were being overlooked in the daily food distribution, implying that the apostles paid attention to what was happening at the racial/cultural group level. Similarly, Jesus makes special appeals and missionary trips to diverse racial groups such as the Samaritans and the Gentiles living in the Decapolis. If both Jesus and the apostles paid attention to these group differences, then so should we. We ought not to assume that there is a single “colorblind” version of the Gospel. Instead, we should seek to make sure that every people group can meet Jesus in their heart language, just like what happened at Pentecost, or like Paul does with the Athenians by quoting the pagan poets of their ethnic group. The Bible clearly illustrates we ought not be colorblind, but instead pay attention to racial group differences in order to better serve and reach these groups. 

CRT Main Point #3: Racism doesn’t just happen at an individual level, but at a group level.

Advocates of CRT point out that racism isn’t just a matter of our individual thoughts or actions, but is something that happens at a group level, especially through laws, policies, and culture. We can’t understand our present if we don’t understand the effects of systemic laws like Jim Crow, red-lining, urban renewal, the 1994 Crime Bill, gentrification, etc. Once we understand these issues, we may need to seek solutions that specifically assist marginalized groups.

If I were Paul, how would I use this point of CRT to preach the Gospel? I would have two approaches. First, I would emphasize all the ways that Scripture also calls for systemic overhauls in order to see justice happen. Sin is not just something that is done by individuals, but also something that happens in society too, and the Bible has specific commands to encourage social justice. The year of Jubilee calls for the systemic cancellation of all debts in society and the liberation of all slaves. The prophets call for the destruction of unjust scales (economic exploitation) and the end of the societal oppression of widows, orphans, and children. The prophets also proclaim judgement against entire nations (like the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians) that have been oppressing other ethnic groups. In the New Testament, Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown says that he is coming to bring freedom for the captives and liberation for the prisoners—especially outsiders–and he routinely calls out privileged groups of people like the Pharisees who make a show of personal holiness without practicing social justice and mercy to marginalized groups of people such as widows and orphans. 

But secondly, I would remind my hearers that following Jesus is not either-or, it is both–and. We need to both obey him at the individual level and to seek to do so at the group level. If we make it only about individual effort (like some conservatives advocate for), or only about big-picture changes (like some liberals advocate for), we miss out on the full promise of what God has for us. We need to follow Jesus in every way. To take one example, Zaccheaus follows Jesus individually and hosts him for dinner, but he also pays financial reparations to the entire group of people that he has wronged! Obedience is about whole-life discipleship. 

There are other parts I could probably adapt from CRT in order to preach the Gospel, but these are my top three. The main overall point I want to make is that there is no secular philosophy that is so wrong and so broken that it does not have a grain of truth that can be used to preach the Gospel. If Paul can take the words of literal idol-worshipers and, without quoting Scripture a SINGLE time, can convert multiple hard-core pagans to Christianity, then I think every intelligent Christian should be able to take elements of CRT to point people to Jesus! 

PS: “CRT?!? Really Andrew???” Responding to some common objections

Objection #1: America was founded as a Christian nation, and that is especially true of the Founding Fathers! We should never criticize them for anything they ever did, because they were perfect in every way and the Constitution was ordained by God. 

Abraham was also a “Founding Father” of a nation. But that doesn’t mean he was perfect in everything he did, and the Bible shows him sinning in big ways. We should look up to heroes like Abraham for the good things they did, while also criticizing them for the bad things they did. To pretend that the Founding Fathers of the United States or the Constitution were completely perfect is a form of moral relativism at best, and idolatry at worst. The preamble to the Constitution says that the Founders were trying to forge a “more perfect union”, which implies that even if one thinks it was founded somewhat perfectly, more perfection is always possible. 

Objection #2: Teaching how bad white supremacy is will make white children have low self-esteem! 

First off, lots of children already have low self-esteem for lots of other reasons. I think cell phones are a much bigger problem than CRT; should we therefore also ban cell phones? [Hmm…maybe]. But secondly, this is like saying that preaching that all people all sinners will make people have low self-esteem. Deep down, everyone already knows they have sinned in one way or another. To deny that truth is silly, and moreover, for Christians there is a solution—Jesus! Jesus frees us from guilt and shame to live new holy lives where we seek to reject all sinful actions, including racism. Thirdly, if children are uncomfortable learning about all the bad things that have happened in history, then we wouldn’t be allowed to teach about the Holocaust, the Reformation, or the reason the Pilgrims fled to America. I think instead we should teach all of history, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so that our children can deal with present day issues when they grow up and can avoid making similar mistakes that our forefathers made. 

Objection #3: The Bible says there is “neither Jew nor Greek,” so we should not be focusing on the differences between races.

Those same passages in the Bible also say there is “neither male nor female”, but does that mean that sex and gender differences do not exist? Of course not. What these passages are saying is that for the purposes of inclusion in God’s Kingdom, these walls have now disappeared in Christ Jesus, who brings unity in the midst of former divisions. But it does not mean there are no differences between men and women, or between Jews and Greeks. In fact, we need to pay attention to these different parts of the Body of Christ and give special treatment and honor to certain parts of the body if needed (Romans 12). While there may arise a problem if we focus too much on differences between races, or between the sexes, there is also a problem if we pretend those differences don’t exist at all. 

Two Massive Missed Opportunities by the American Church

In my childhood church growing up, I remember hearing our senior pastor speak about a massive missed opportunity by the American Church (he was speaking about evangelical Protestants but I’m sure it would include other groups too). According to him, the 1950s and 1960s were a time where many Christians were fervently praying for revival, especially among young people. This is when evangelists like Billy Graham and organizations such as Campus Crusade were really gaining momentum. These Christians, especially members of the “Greatest Generation,” longed for another Great Awakening and for millions of Americans to wholeheartedly turn to Jesus.

Then, my pastor explained, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, arose the Jesus Movement–a massive wave of young people passionately pursuing Jesus! But these weren’t buttoned-up, clean cut Christians like their parents; these were long-haired, barefoot, jeans-wearing hippies. They listened to rock-and-roll, went to Woodstock, cared about Civil Rights, and also loved Jesus. I count both my parents and most of my aunts and uncles as participants of this movement, and many of them were first saved in “Christian Coffeehouses” that functioned as the informal headquarters of the Jesus Movement. All of them are still practicing Christians today.

My dad, c. 1970

But unfortunately, the broader American Christian Church was not ready to receive these Jesus Freaks. If these guitar-strumming radicals weren’t ready to conform to what “Christians” were supposed to look like, then they weren’t fully welcome to join the existing churches. Eventually some members of the Jesus Movement assimilated to the mainstream church culture, others started their own churches, and others slowly faded away from Christianity altogether. [Thus perhaps the 1980s Moral Majority movement can be seen as a mostly successful attempt to capture these young, unorganized Christ-followers within a more focused political and culture effort: the Reagan-era Republican Party.]

I don’t fully know why this story from my church’s pastor has always stuck with me. I suppose because it helped me to simplify and make sense of some generational dynamics that I had already noticed, as well as because it was one of the few non-triumphal stories I had heard about American Christianity. It was a story of where American Christians had messed up, a missed opportunity, of pride and selfishness getting in the way of the movement of the Gospel.

My uncle and other members of the Jesus Movement. No ties or suits in sight.

As I sit writing this in 2023, I am convinced that there has been another major missed opportunity made by the American Church, this time in the past two decades. You see, around the year 2000 I and many other evangelicals were part of many discussions, conversations, and seminars about developing a “Christian Worldview.” I even went to a Worldview Academy summer camp! A Christian worldview was one which thought critically about the world and responded to issues by asking insightful questions, sharing biblical truths in comprehensible ways, and gently probing at unchallenged assumptions by the non-Christian culture at large. There were a few aspects to this that adjoined a bit close to rightwing politics–such as when it came to economics– but for the most part my experience was that of a philosophy class. I think it was worthwhile and helped make me a sharper thinker.

At this time, the greatest threat that Christians saw to our worldview was that of “relativism”- the idea that there is no such thing as an objective truth or objective right and wrong. Relativism was seen as the root of sexual promiscuity (“if it feels good do it!”), selfishness, greed, violence, atheism etc. Relativism said that all humans were fundamentally perfect as they were, and just had to follow their hearts to discover their own paths forward. In contrast, a Christian Biblical worldview clearly stated that there was such a thing as objective truth. All humans were fallen and needed redemption from their sinful ways, which could only come through repenting from evil and following Jesus.

I believe there was a kairos moment in recent years, when it seemed to me that secular culture had all of a sudden turned away from the concepts of relativism! Instead of seeing humans as perfect, there suddenly arose an awareness that each of us bear some connection to and culpability for systems of greed, racism, imperialism, misogyny, and other manifestations of sin. There spread the idea that there is in fact such a thing as timeless truths and universal right and wrong–ex: The Founding Fathers were slave-holders, and slavery is wrong. We must not excuse them simply because it was common behavior or think that they didn’t know any better. “Social Justice Warriors” were everywhere, pointing out sins both big and small, both on the group level and individually. This secular culture has had numerous good outcomes across society, but wasn’t without its flaws. Some people were ‘canceled’ with little hope of redemption, while others cowered in fear, afraid to make a mistake.

And this is where the opportunity should have been for the Church to jump in– to say something like: “Yes! You are right! There is such a thing as right and wrong, and those sins you have mentioned are evil and condemned in the Bible! And you’re right that every individual and indeed every group is fundamentally broken in one way or another. As the Bible says, ‘for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’ We Christians are also guilty of these sins–sometimes especially so– and have to constantly repent of them. Even just looking at someone lustfully Jesus counts as adultery–and we could say that is part of rape culture and misogyny. To name just one example. However, Jesus offers not only forgiveness of all our sin, but power to free us from shame and to live new lives of repentance and righteousness! By the power of the Holy Spirit we can live differently-not that we’re ever perfect, we’ll still make mistakes-but we can seek to continually be transformed day by day, loving God, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and praying for God’s perfect kingdom to be more and more present on earth as it is in heaven. Would you like to learn more about this Jesus?”

If the American Church had taken this route, we would have not only been able to speak into the social issues of our time, but would have offered a realistic path of redemption forward for those who struggle with fear of making a mistake or being forever ‘canceled.’ We might have seen more unexpected alliances forge across party lines to face real problems in society–like homelessness, AIDs, hunger, and more. We might have seen millions of young people once again take the words of Jesus seriously, wondering if he might indeed be the Way, the Truth and the Life.

But on the whole, what we saw was precisely the opposite. Instead of acknowledging the persistent existence of sin in America and pointing people to Jesus, we saw denial and self-justification by most conservative evangelicals. Too often the response has been: “I’m not a racist! I’m the least racist person you’ve ever met! And besides, Marxism and those George Soros globalists are far worse anyway. Also our Founding Fathers were chosen by God, how dare you criticize them! And how can I be a sexist, my daughter is a woman! We just need to cling ever more strongly to our country and to our Christian leaders. In fact, it’s probably a good thing if they swear, if they mock, if they lie, if they are willing to get their hands dirty–that’s what politics is you baby! Suck it up you crying libtard. All you’re doing is encouraging me to buy more ammo so I can get ready to waste these traitors. Let’s Go Brandon!” Now perhaps I’m getting carried away, but anyone who’s spent any time on social media in the past 10 years knows it’s not far from the reality. Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden, it is far easier to point the blame at someone else than to acknowledge our own failings, and American Christians are no different.

And interestingly, this is almost a complete inversion of the cultural situation from the year 2000. In many liberal secular circles, you can now see a Puritanical, almost religious culture that requires perfect behavior, language, rites, and rituals (e.g. land acknowledgments, “Latinx”, confessing one’s privilege, etc) that may indeed be worthwhile, but are sometimes performed out of fear rather than faith because there is little opportunity for forgiveness if you screw up. And on the flip side, among some conservative Christians, you can now see a reveling in grotesque language, actions, and ideas that are decidedly unlike Jesus but that are justified through self-oriented discourse. Gone is the concept of timeless, objective evils that must be condemned regardless of who does them; now it’s wrong if “they” do it but justified if “we” do it. It’s relativism all over again.

In consequence, millions of young Americans are fleeing this version of Christianity as fast as they can. I don’t think most of them are necessarily trying to flee from Jesus, but if no one has told them the full truth about Him, then how would they even know what He’s like?

Ultimately, I think the kairos moment has mostly passed for the American Church. We faced a test of our integrity and failed. To be fair – there were indeed some churches and ministries who faithfully integrated Christianity and social action, and saw some good fruit. (And again, this is mostly speaking of the part of the American Church I know best–white evangelical Protestantism. I welcome insights that come from other denominations and backgrounds.)

But I think the writing is on the wall (a biblical allusion that fewer and fewer Americans will understand each year!). In all likelihood Christianity will continue to expand in leaps and bounds in the Global South and East, while it slowly shrinks in North America except among certain immigrant groups. Perhaps it is for the best that faithful Christians one day exist here in the US as a small holy remnant, rather than as an idolatrous concubine to capitalism and empire. But in the meantime we can pray, and ask God for yet another revival, even if it’s not what we might expect. Pastor Tim Keller recently wrote in The Atlantic what such a revival might look like, and I think his analysis is spot on. We may not deserve revival any more than the Church deserved it in the 1970s. We might not like who God brings to our church doors any more than they liked the Jesus Freaks. But we can pray nonetheless. And prepare.

Bonhoeffer’s Antifascist Theology – Part IV. We Need Communal Repentance for Communal Injustices

[Read all posts about Antifascist Theology by clicking here.]

When telling the story of America, where do you begin? Did the story of America begin in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence’s statement that “all men are created equal”? Or did it begin in 1619, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to our shores, ushering in the start of a decidedly unequal society built on the backs of marginalized people groups? The answer to that question has been hotly debated in recent years, and I don’t plan to address it today, except to say that “it’s complicated.” However, it is crucial that we do think deeply and critically about the past — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Real history requires the study of nuance, of complicated people groups doing complicated actions for complicated reasons. 

In contrast, one of the hallmarks of fascism is an oversimplified, often mythologized celebration of a nation’s founding story, which may have little basis in fact. In the first century BCE, the Roman poet Virgil wrote The Aeneid , which linked the founding of Rome to the glorious heroes and demigods of the Trojan War stories. Virgil’s writings helped to prop up and justify the new order of the Pax Romana, the empire led by Caesar Augustus after the fall of the Roman Republic. All past evils and uncomfortable truths were washed away in the glow of the founding story. 

Fascists over the centuries have followed suit. Mussolini linked his vision of Italian fascism to the Roman Empire, nearly 1900 years prior, while Hitler’s Nazis concocted a pseudoscientific story about “Aryans” that linked to Norse and Germanic legends. For both Mussolini and Hitler, these stories required a timeless villain that they described as the globalist, unrooted, corrupt, disloyal Jew. We all know what horrors would soon be justified by these fables. 

Norse imagery used in Nazi propaganda : Source

Now, I don’t think there is anything automatically wrong with telling semi-mythical origin stories about one’s people group; humans have been doing it since the invention of language — see the Babylonian Enuma Elish, or the book of Genesis. To the extent that Americans are inspired by a fake story about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree tree, that is probably fine. However, it is bad when those stories are misused to justify evil, oppress marginalized groups, and/or to puff up a sense of false pride and supremacy. What’s even worse is when Christians, who ought to hold ourselves to a higher standard, refuse to acknowledge wrongs done and instead continue to justify sins and evil done in our nations. 

So what is the answer? How can we as Christians move forward to tell the truth about previous generations, repent and make amends as needed, and pursue justice in our own time? 

Bonhoeffer has much to say about this in his Ethics (pages 134-145), written in the 1940s under the specter of Nazi fascism. As I have written previously, while Bonhoeffer does not use this term, what he is essentially creating in Ethics is a work of antifascist theology. The tendrils of fascism have been creeping up in many places recently and we would be wise to heed Bonhoeffer’s warnings, lest we fall into similar errors. 

Bonhoeffer’s Theology of Communal Guilt

I have written before about the idea of communal guilt and communal repentance. It is a deeply biblical idea, but in the West it is often ignored because we are overly focused on individual culpability. In contrast, as Bonhoeffer writes in Ethics, “The church today is [supposed to be] the community of people who, grasped by the power of Christ’s grace, acknowledge, confess, and take upon themselves not only their personal sins, but also the Western world’s falling away from Jesus Christ.” Even if we ourselves do not think we have done wrong, or have done very little, we still must confess: “Even the most secret sin of the individual soils and destroys the body of Christ. Murder, envy, strife, war—all arise from the desire that lies within me (James 4:1). I cannot pacify myself by saying that my part in all this is slight and hardly noticeable…I am guilty of inordinate desire; I am guilty of cowardly silence when I should have spoken; I am guilty of untruthfulness and hypocrisy in the face of threatening violence; I am guilty of disowning without mercy the poorest of my neighbors….what does it concern me if others are also guilty? Every sin of another I can excuse; only my own sin, of which I remain guilty, I can never excuse.”

Bonhoeffer points out that this is not merely something to be confessed by individuals for themselves, but by Christians on behalf of the whole church. “The church was mute when it should have cried out…the church has looked on while injustice and violence have been done, under the cover of the name of Christ.”

Bonhoeffer shares a litany of sins of which the German church was guilty. How many of these are similarly true of the American church today?

  • Using the language of “resisting Bolshevism [communism]” to legitimize violence against leftists
  • Not resting on the Sabbath
  • Exploiting working people beyond the hours of the workweek
  • Disrespect towards elders
  • Not speaking out against the arbitrary use of brutal violence
  • Looking on silently while the poor are exploited, and the strong were enriched
  • Not condemning slanderers who tell lies about other people

Clearly, all of these sins have both individual and communal manifestations. In our day, one person’s private sinful inclination can quickly become very mainstream — witness the rise of slander as we share unfounded conspiracy theories and lies on social media — “Oh I’m just asking questions; it’s my freedom of speech.”  Or witness the coarse joking of Christians who eagerly express the not-so-hidden desire to kidnap, kill, or rape their political opponents (#FJB anyone?).

Of course in our day, like in Bonhoeffer’s, there are those who would argue that these sins are not so bad, or at least, not so bad as the sins of our opponents. Bonhoeffer responds to these people and writes sarcastically, “Is this going too far? Should a few super-righteous people rise at this point and try to prove that it’s not the church, but all the others are guilty?…to be called as judges of the world, proceed to weigh the mass of guilt here and there and distribute it accordingly?” To these people who engage in such Whataboutism, who argue that the Church’s confession of communal sin is unnecessary when the other side is also bad, Bonhoeffer thunders at them— “Free confession of guilt is not something that one can take or leave; it is the form of Jesus Christ breaking through in the church. Whoever stifles or spoils the church’s confession of guilt is hopelessly guilty before Christ.”

Wow! He is not holding back. For the church to be the church, it must be willing to confess the sins of its people, and its nation. Anyone who tries to oppose such communal confession is “hopelessly guilty!” I think of all the pundits and politicians who are so quick to deny that American Christians have ever done anything wrong, and say that we have nothing to apologize for. Bonhoeffer thinks such people are not only deluded, but practitioners of a false gospel. To deny the existence of any guilt is to deny any possibility of forgiveness, repentance, or redemption.

However, if we do choose the right path, progress is possible. Bonhoeffer writes: “The nations bear the heritage of their guilt. Yet by God’s gracious rule in history it can happen that what began as a curse can finally become a blessing on the nations…to be sure, the guilt is not justified, not removed, not forgiven. It remains, but the wound that is inflicted is scarred over. For the church and for individual believers there can be a full break with guilt and a new beginning through the gift of forgiveness of sin. But in the historical life of nations there can only be a slow process of healing…Continuity with past guilt, which in the life of the church and the believer is broken off by repentance and forgiveness, remains in the historical life of nations…

“What matters is only whether the past guilt is in fact scarred over. If so, then at this point, within the historical conflicts of nations both domestic and foreign, something like forgiveness takes place, though it is only a weak shadow of the forgiveness that Jesus Christ gives to believers. Here the claim to full atonement by the guilty for past injustice is renounced; here it is recognized that what is past can never be restored by human power, that the wheel of history can no longer be rolled back. Not all wounds that were made can be healed; but it is critical that no further wounds be made….Where this does not happen, where injustice rules unchecked and inflicts ever-new wounds, there can certainly be no talk about such forgiveness. Instead, our first concern must be to resist injustice and convict the guilty of their guilt.” 

Bonhoeffer clearly makes the distinction between wounds that have slowly been left behind by the passage of time, and wounds that continue to remain open and gaping. In both cases, however, there is the need be a need for Christians to seek forgiveness and healing, not to simply sweep the past under the rug.

Some Case Studies

The idea of communal guilt is a bit vague. What might this look like practically? Let’s take a few case examples. 

There are some sins of our own nation that have indeed “scarred over,” and are mostly in the past. For example, Anti-Catholic sentiment used to be one of the biggest forms of discrimination in the US, with legal, social, and ethnic prejudice embedded throughout the nation. Recall that it was a big deal that JFK was the first Catholic President. However, as writer and speaker Eboo Patel has pointed out, anti-Catholic sentiment is very rare nowadays, and systemic and social barriers to Catholics have virtually disappeared. This feels like a good example of Bonhoeffer’s “scarring over”— it doesn’t justify the sins of the past, and the pain may still be there in some ways, but for the most part it is in the past. There are no new wounds being made against Catholics except in the absolute rarest of occasions.

Anti-Catholic cartoon from 1913 depicting the church and the pope as a malevolent octopus (source)

Or take the response of Germany after the Holocaust. After being forced by the Allies to reckon with the evils perpetrated in their name, Germany has embarked in a multi-generational, long-term effort to make amends. Germany has sent reparations checks to individual victims of the Holocaust for decades, as well as billions of dollars of military funding to the Jewish nation of Israel. They have constructed memorials to the Holocaust in ways both big and small, both national and local. And in terms of foreign policy, Germany has accepted over one million refugees fleeing violence, and has been very hesitant to resort to armed violence (as seen in the recent hesitation to get involved in the war in Ukraine). The repentance after WWII in Germany has thoroughly remade both that nation and Europe as a whole-for the better! [In comparison with Germany, Russia never made a serious attempt to repent or make reparations after the collapse of the USSR, and instead allowed bitterness and jealousy to take root. The contrast between modern-day Germany and modern-day Russia is vast.]  

Or to look at a negative example, we can look at certain people groups in America and see that some harms never scarred over, or, even if it partially healed, the scar keeps getting picked at and infected. Witness the genocidal removal of Native Americans from their lands and continued overlooking of the problems they face now, particularly in Native reservations. Witness the longstanding mistreatment of African-Americans at all levels of society, from the lack of reparations and justice after slavery, to the continued under-investment in and over-harsh policing of their communities. Or witness the coddling of wealthy corporations while consistently overlooking small farmers and blue collar workers. None of these are new phenomena in America, but we have never truly seen the Church at large confess sins against these groups, nor has the nation sought long-term justice, healing, and progress in them. 

Now, it is tempting in some liberal circles at this point to blame “white supremacy” or “capitalism” for all systemic sins in America and in the entire world. However, a view that blames Western ideology for all problems in the entire world actually falls prey to the same Eurocentric mindset it is critiquing. It removes agency from non-Westerners to choose their own paths, and treats them like children whose every choice is ultimately based on the foundations laid by Westerners. Can we blame white supremacy and capitalism for the genocide of Uyghurs in far-west China by the Chinese Communist Party? Should we lay the blame for 1930s Japanese militarism and violence in Korea and China at the feet of Western Europeans, or is it instead appropriate for descendants of those victims to seek justice and apologies from modern-day Japan (as they actually are doing)? Or what about evils that happened around the world centuries ago, before European colonialism started, that still have a legacy today? At the final judgment of the world, the sins of Europeans are indeed vast. Western Christians must deal with them all as quickly and thoroughly as possible lest we ourselves receive judgment. But at best it overstates the case, and at worst engenders unneeded opposition, to lay all the sins of all history at the feet of modern-day Europeans and North Americans. Each community must take proper account of its own actions, right or wrong, justified or unjustified.

On a related note, Bonhoeffer himself is hesitant to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” by rushing straight from the evils of empire into a different mess. He writes, “By renouncing the crown or by surrendering what had been conquered, a ruler could cause even greater disorder and incur even more guilt.” In other words, we must be careful that the unjust systems we seek to tear down are not replaced by something even worse. The French Revolution started with lofty goals but ended with the guillotine and Napoleon. The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 Arab Spring both sought the ends of evil dictatorships but both resulted in bloodshed and violence worse than before. We must not be slow or scared to act against social injustice, but we must be wise in how it gets corrected. 

Me at at an Arab Spring rally in Ramallah, Palestine, 2011.

Conclusion

There is a LOT to think about here. And I am still learning and having my theology shaped on the topic of communal repentance. But in the meantime, it leaves me with many questions. 

What are the open wounds still open in America and around the world 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 me 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 messy truths about our nation? 

Race, Patriotism, and the Nation State

[Originally published on my old blog on April 25, 2011, this essay was written partially in response to a class assignment. I have reposted it here without edits.]

Yesterday I was sitting in the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Italy. It was a warm and lively evening, as hundreds of people milled about with their beer and gelatos. Meanwhile, the dominating white edifice of the Duomo Cathedral hung over everything, its stained glass windows lit from within. My attention was distracted from it, however, by the bright rocket/helicopter toys that street vendors would launch into the night sky to attract the lustful eyes of children. Over and over the toys flew through the air like shooting stars…(or like flares announcing the start of war? I can see the soldiers leaping from their trenches into the maw of the machine guns, their blood spilling upon the soil that is undistinguishable but for the fact that it is their soil, for their nation…).

Over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of race and nationhood. The mythology of the Romantics and fascists alike is powerful: that people form discreet groups or ethnicities based upon a homeland (and therefore usually also a language, history, and set of stories). Germany for the Germans, France for the French, Italy for the Italians, Israel for the Jews… The implication of this is that these people groups each have an essential, eternal, almost spiritual identity, not an artificial one created through normal processes of history.

            This was very clear to me yesterday when I went to an art and history exhibit about Italy’s wars for independence (their 150th year as a nation is this year). While I couldn’t understand all of the Italian in the descriptions, what I gathered was quite patriotic. The Italians fought for their land against the French and Prussians, with a common ethnicity, language, music, and colors binding them together. By blood and force the new nation had been forged.

But after World War II, it seemed that the concept of the nation-state had been dealt a deathblow. The radical fascism of Italy and Germany had proved disastrous, so most of the world united around universal values instead of the nation-state. The Western bloc chose the values of political freedom and sought to promote those, the Eastern bloc chose economic freedom from the claws of capitalism.

But meanwhile, hidden beneath the tide of universal values that rose up in the post-war period, one anomaly entered the system. The nation of Israel was founded, a homeland for the Jews scattered around the world. Finally, after 2000 years, the Jews would no longer be a minority in other lands! The verse I’ve heard applied by Israel’s founders comes from 1 Samuel 8:5, where the Jews want to be “like all other nations” (The fact that this displeased God is ignored). However, established in its founding charter as a “Jewish, democratic state”, Israel has sacrificed some democratic values to preserve its Jewish character, for example by forbidding non-Jews from immigrating and by banning non-Jews from getting married. Thus I believe that while Israel is obviously quite democratic compared to its Arab neighbors, it is not an American-style democracy. It is a Jewish nation-state with many democratic tendencies.

This has many interesting implications besides the marriage and immigration limitations mentioned above. A one-state solution in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is no longer on the table because high Arab birthrates mean that there would be too many in the “Jewish” state. This also reveals itself in a well-documented bureaucratic effort to keep Palestinians from ‘taking over’ Jerusalem. Building permits for expansions of housing or schools are usually denied to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, while almost always approved for Jews. The result is over-crowding and poverty for these families in East Jerusalem, or else being forced into the even poorer cities Ramallah or Bethlehem.

 However, any Jew who questions any of Israel’s policies as unbefitting of a democratic state is labeled by many as a “self-hating Jew”. Why? Because by not supporting these policies of excluding non-Jews, they are undermining the concept of a solely Jewish state. Once that concept is gone, the theory goes, Jews will once again have nowhere to be safe and will inevitably face another Holocaust, one that will wipe them out for good. This is the basis I’ve heard over and over of all the fears of losing Israel’s solely Jewish character. So thus the ‘self-hating Jew’ is thought of in Zionist and neo-Zionist thought as an anti-Semite, therefore on the side of those who wish to complete Hitler’s Final Solution.

In fact, merely by writing this blog and other blogs that are mildly critical of one or two of Israel’s policies (such as the Security Barrier built on Palestinian land that economically crushes Palestinians), I have been personally called out for in essence being an anti-Zionist (AKA an anti-Semite). The fact that some people label would place me in the same camp as the Nazis is a bit scary and shows that no middle ground currently exists in the minds of modern-day Zionists. “Either you are with us or you are against us.” In their view, criticisms by leftist Jews or neutral people like me, intended to help Israel become an even better nation, must be completely silenced lest they serve as moral ammunition to the Hitlers who wait at the doorstep.

But perhaps, we see recently that Israel’s nationalist policies are not that deviant. Throughout the West there is now a trend towards preserving the “nation” from those “outsiders” who threaten it. In France and Germany, PMs Sarkozy and Merkel have each proclaimed that “multiculturalism has failed”. Throughout Europe, racism abounds against Muslim and African immigrants who threaten their singular national character. In France Muslim headscarves are banned, while racist parties gain power in Denmark and Switzerland. Goodbye freedom; hello nationalism.

To what extent is ultra-nationalism present in America? We see it in fears against Mexican immigrants and the need to preserve jobs for “true” Americans. That’s interesting because America is one of the few states in the world that was not founded on a singular nation of people. A mix of Europeans created a state built on the theory of freedom for all, regardless of race or religion. But perhaps America is in fact a nation like all other nations; the only difference being the rationale given for waging war. Instead of for a given “nation”, we wage war for “freedom”. Same violent results.

            Is there an answer? Must every group of humans necessarily become violently exclusionary to preserve it’s own identity? How does this apply to me as a Christian? If you’ve talked to me about these types of issues within the past year or so, I think you can guess what my solutions might entail. Hint: they do not involve a Church with political power. Instead, there must be a Church that is anti-political, on the side of the excluded, the lepers, the poor, the shunned. NOT to empower the outsiders politically, as that would ultimately lead to the same problem. But we are only called to love them, free them, and be among them.

(On a side note, I am frustrated by Christians who worry constantly about the direction America is heading politically. They’re afraid of the wrong things! The soul of a single person is infinitely more important than whether America continues to have Christian bling like Ten Commandment displays, “in God we trust” coins, or “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. I hate to say it, but America is not eternal. The soul of every single person is. So unless one thinks that angrily fighting gay marriage tooth and nail will somehow lead people to God, then one is fighting the wrong battles.)

Pardon me for the tangent. The conclusion to this long essay is that there is a way to avoid the temptations of nationalism. Nationalism is beautiful, and patriotism is surely a more beautiful idol to worship than drugs, alcohol, or sex. But for that reason it’s much more deadly. Thus we must renounce the nation state and choose to live in the world but not of it. To always challenge the systems of power that dominate and exclude. To unconditionally love the rejected.

I don’t believe in the myth of the Nation State anymore. And it saddens me to see that the Jews, God’s chosen people, have chosen to go the route of all other nations instead of deciding to be different, a light to the rest of the world. “It is not you they have rejected as their king, but me,” God says to Samuel (1 Sam. 8:7). The desire for a supposedly secure homeland trumps the desire to be uniquely God’s people, showing compassion to others.

May Christians not follow into the same error, and repent if they already have.