Since the Kool Kristian Kids now think we should apologize for everything (the Crusades! the Inquisition!) we did not do or things we are thought to be doing even if we are not (sexism! racism! homophobia!), I would like to add a new category. I think we should begin to apologize for people who inflict the world, but who might be associated with us.
This is, of course, useless since we cannot actually be sorry for someone else’s sins. It is even annoying since it might strike a reasonable soul as judgmental, but it seems not so different from apologizing for history or generic sins of our community.
Let’s emerge from old restrictions related to confession and follow the spirit of our age . . . which we know is almost always the spirit of the Christ, missional, or at least Vatican II.
I would like, therefore, to apologize for Frank Schaeffer, the living example of what happens when the angry young man becomes merely angry. Schaeffer manages to move from position to position, but is always the prophet of better living to the infidel. In his latest incarnation, he is a thoughtful, pensive even, barely believer confirming stereotypes of Evangelicals to a left-of-center audience. In this recent version of himself he forgets an early “fundamentalist Orthodox” Frank Schaeffer that so shamed regular members of the Greek Orthodox Church.
I hope this apology is accepted.
October 28th, 2009 | 6:45 pm | #1
I read Frank Schaeffer’s book about becoming Orthodox when I was in college. I disagreed with his criticisms of Evangelicalism and his solution to the problem, but had no idea what a troubled individual he was.
October 28th, 2009 | 6:48 pm | #2
Schaeffer does not “argue” as much as report. He uses his (thirty-year old in most cases) experiences as his main support for his claims. Schaeffer rarely deals with best cases, but worst.
It is sad really.
October 28th, 2009 | 6:57 pm | #3
About ten years ago I began to look into Orthodoxy. Frank’s book “Dancing Alone” was a book I read with great interest. I went on to read more works of his, and it became increasingly clear that he was very bitter. I got very frustrated last year when i read his book “Crazy for God”. In “Dancing Alone” he argued that abortion is a terrible evil, that the Fathers were against it, and that the modern Orthodox Church is against it. Nowadays he argues that abortion ought to be legal, that good people like James Dobson are radicals who want to hurt people, and that he’s not even sure there is a God. I won’t judge Orthodoxy by his works and career, but I hope most Orthodox folks are not like him.
October 28th, 2009 | 7:28 pm | #4
What about Daniel 9, Nehemiah 9, and other places (I’m thinking perhaps in Jeremiah) where biblical figures do in fact identify with sinful members of God’s people while they themselves have not committed such deeds?
There’s certainly an important sense in which we’re responsibly only for what we do, as in Ezekiel 18, but that’s talking about the final judgment. I’m not sure that removes any sense of group responsibility and identification with others of a group you identify with when they sin and you do not.
Also, we seem happy to recognize shared value when it’s positive, e.g. patriotism or team pride. Why should I not apologize on behalf of my team if all of them but me steal from a soda machine (as happened to a Christian friend of mine in high school) if I can be proud of them for playing well? How is it different if the members of my race contributed to great evil in treatment of other races?
October 28th, 2009 | 9:08 pm | #5
Jeremy makes an important observation, and I think there is something to be said for group responsibility, but only in particular ways. One reason would be practical, in that when a group commits a crime it is sometimes impossible to distinguish the innocent from the guilty so you punish the whole. Another would be representative, where you speak on behalf of a brother who has sinned. Or you might be bound the the consequences of another who has sinned, because that person is your authority and representative.
This breaks down, however, in the current debate. The Crusades were fought by people from different countries, with different allegiances than ours (especially if you’re a Protestant), and in any case those situations were resolved (correctly or incorrectly) in their own way, which is to say that those wars ended and there is nothing we legally owe to anyone on account of their actions. With the issue of racism, the “groups” are more of an artificial thing. There is no “tribe of white people” for us to represent. Blacks and whites are all a part of the same United States, and some of our ancestors were not even here at the time of slavery; and at any rate that issue too was resolved through great bloodshed. There is no outstanding debt to be passed on to the next generation.
In both these cases, there is also a large time gap. Can you imagine if we actually started requiring everyone to apologize for the crimes of their ancestors. Every one of us, whatever our race or religion or nationality, would be so busy apologizing that we’d never get anything else done!
Adam’s sin and Christ’s righteousness are imputed to their families, yet God makes it clear that the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual to choose right or wrong, so that we cannot blame anyone but ourselves.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:13 pm | #6
I should add also that the victims of the crimes we are supposed to be apologizing for have died long ago. So who exactly are we indebt to? Is that inherited as well? Theoretically that is possible, but we are not dealing in theory so much as very specific things. And when we look into the specifics, the pie-in-the-sky apologies turn out to be just that.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:37 pm | #7
I’m not sure the point is the apology per se, but rather whether or not Christians are willing to acknowledge our own evil. Christians have a reputation, I think justly, for being excessively and unfairly judgmental. While it’s true that non-Christians can sometimes take the point too far, I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that many Christians are often rude, abrasive, belligerent, and inappropriately severe.
If we’re then willing to admit when Christians are wrong, it demonstrates a degree of humility that is rare amongst contemporary Christians. The point then is not so much about apologizing for the Crusades as it is demonstrating something Christians often seem completely incapable of – a spirit of humility and repentance.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:40 pm | #8
In keeping with my earlier post, apology not accepted. I want the apology from Schaeffer the younger, himself.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:44 pm | #9
Anthony, there were material benefits gained from the white people who mistreated blacks at the time, and those benefits have been passed on to their descendants.
But there is also the harder-to-notice (at least if you’re white) privilege of merely being white that all whites have benefited from at the expense of non-whites. I’m much less likely to be viewed in a suspicious manner if I walk into a store with jeans and a T-shirt than a black man of my age who dresses in jeans and a T-shirt, and this is true even in the northeast where I live. There are still proportionally more white people in the highest-paying employment positions, especially in the decision-making positions in terms of hiring, and when you combine this with the fact that there’s also a disproportional clustering of acquaintances by race, you end up with an effect that the practice of hiring people you know seriously disfavors non-whites. I could go on, but there are plenty of ways that white people benefit materially, and in terms of even such things as greater peace of mind, from the history of racism, and this is true even of those who haven’t committed a racist act in their lives.
So I, who by some measures am very forward-thinking on race issues even to the point of having married a black woman, think I’m nonetheless caught up in white privilege even if it’s an involuntary process. That makes me part of a group (I don’t prefer calling it a tribe) that benefits at the expense of another group. The other group is harmed and has historically been treated in certain ways that in effect do constitute it as a group because of such social facts.
I’m not a big fan of apologizing for what ancestors did. There’s too much still to fight against now that I think it’s dangerous to live in the past, whether it’s trying to pretend the past is still going on (as the civil rights crowd does or trying to pretend it’s completely over (as the vast majority of conservatives on this issue do). I’d much rather analyze actual motives, actual actions, and actual processes in society (whether voluntary or involuntary) and seeing what we can do to minimize or mitigate them.
But I do think you can justify a reparations argument based on harm caused by the mainstream of society against certain groups. This couldn’t be anything as ridiculous as monetary payments, but using tax money paid mostly by those who have benefited and continue to benefit in the above ways at the expense of those who have been less-privileged for exactly the same reasons and using it to try to remedy these problems makes sense to me (but you better choose social policies that really do remedy it, and I’m not remotely sure that most social programs are very good at that).
October 28th, 2009 | 10:13 pm | #10
I agree about generalized apologies for events long past being unhelpful. We’re doing plenty of things wrong ourselves here and now; usually apolozing for others just seems like a diversion. But as an Orthodox, I’d really rather our little church stores stopped carrying Mr. Schaeffer’s books – they’re not especially helpful either.
October 28th, 2009 | 10:53 pm | #11
Frank Schaeffer… The only additional comment would be, “Apology. no thanks!” How about he simply shut up about any experiences or beliefs that are truly more the territory of his mother than he? Any guy who would write about his well-intentioned mother as he did, and under the same cover brag about his masturbatory habits… I don’t know. Is that funny in New England? Frank, if you are reading this, please, somehow, reclaim some class. Shut the F up or at least write about something that is wholly yours, and not the shadow of your parents’ sincere legacy. Orthodoxy, you can have him.
October 28th, 2009 | 11:57 pm | #12
I have to disagree with you, Jeremy. None of us needs to apologize simply for being born into a certain level of wealth that may or may not have a connection to a past history that involved slavery. First of all, because we personally had no choice in the matter. But second of all, because none of us, white or black, has an inherent right to a particular amount of comfort or luxury or money or an easy life.
In fact, if you look at the reality, most of the plight of today’s American black communities is self-inflicted by their own people. Does that mean they owe each other an apology? No, it means that we need to start worrying more about loving each other and less about deciding who is guilty of what. At the end of the day, all men are sinners in need of apologizing to God alone.
I also disagree that Christians need to make amends for some perceived caricature of them being harsh and judgmental. We should spend less time beating our own backs over our flaws (which are largely exaggerated by non-Christians who don’t believe in sin) and more time showing solidarity with one another for our growth as the body of Christ. Don’t get me wrong: I’m one of the first people to complain when a person who claims to represent Christ does something very un-Christlike. But at the end of the day, we need to be telling the world how God transforms lives and celebrating our victories, rather than crawling before the world on hands and knees as if the people we are trying to convert might be better off (and more righteous) if they stay away from Christianity altogether. That’s why they love it when we apologize for our supposed corporate evils. It makes them feel like they’re perfectly ok where they are.
Instead, if you are going to apologize, apologize for your own personal sins, and tell them how God is delivering you from them. That is a conversation that will make a difference.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact