I’m Sorry But Not Really
The Gospel According to America by David Dark has a lot to make us think about such as: Waffle House conversationalism (listening to everyone’s point of view and thinking about their ideas carefully), a Through-a-Glass-Darkly Clause (the way we see things in a cloudy way in this life), a No Spin Zone (realizing we all spin things), private faith, being very carful with our words, authorial authority, unchecked power, hope and sorrow, listening closely and seeing clearer, truthfulness, refusing opposition as opposition, groupthink, imagination, silence and many more things. Out of all the things that are discussed in this book the thing that stood out to me the most is our amazing ability to say sorry without placing the blame on us. Dark says, “The language of confession, of actually repenting of one’s sins of spin and self-love, is replaced by the strange concept of expressing regret that someone failed in his or her attempt to understand your true nature, your true heart, and how your words and actions bear no relation to your pristine, true, only-selfless-intentioned and pure self.” We Americans (and I assume this happens in other places around the world) make statements like, “I’m so sorry you feel that way,” “I regret that you misunderstood me,” and “I apologize if you were offended.” If you look at these statements closely, you will notice that blame is placed on the person that got your character all wrong. With statements like these, we never have to really apologize again.
Dear God, what great lengths we go to to keep our pride and to make people think we are something that we are not.
I think this problem is not only on the individual level but also on the national level too. For example, a conservative estimate of innocent civilians killed in Iraq is more than 654,965 people. Our nation should mourn about this and be willing to give an authentic apology to the Iraqi people. Sadly, I do not see this happening anytime soon.
The church does not do a very good job of doing authentic apologies either. According David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in their book Unchristian, 440 surveyed non-churchgoers think that Christians are; anti-homosexual (91%), judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), too involved in politics (75%), out of touch with reality (72%), insensitive to others (70%), boring (68%), not accepting of others faiths (64%) and confusing (61%). Yes, some of these topics we really have to wrestle with on what we believe about them but some of them it is just wrong that we are this way (judgmental, hypocritical, insensitive to others, etc.) In case I missed it, I have not seen too many Christians (including myself) willing to authentically apologize to Jesus and the rest of the world for the bad, cheesy and boring things that we have done in Jesus name. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Most of the time when I have talked with fellow Christians about why some people do not like us, I usually get an above reproach attitude and sometimes someone will literally say out loud, “Well those people that do not like Christians will be sorry one day” or “One day those people that do not like Christians are going to run out of excuses.”
Dear God, forgive us for our pride and arrogance.
We need to be more like Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) and his friends that went to Reed College and set up a confessional booth so that they could confess to people all the sins they and Christianity has done to society over the years. Only then will people be willing to listen to what we have to say. Only then will we have authentic apologies and authentic Christianity.
Tags: Bible, Blue Like Jazz, David Dark, David Kinnaman, Donald Miller, Gabe Lyons, Iraq, The Gospel According to America, Unchristian
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November 17, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I have read … somewhere … one of the problems with Protestants is that we have lost the desire to or recognition of the need for confession … and thereby, the benefits of confession. Having so thoroughly rejected “the church” in the Reformation, Protestants also reject and ignore the value of confession.
In our “rugged individualism” of the American way, we do not recognize our need for community, and reflecting the trinitarian relationship of building up, giving gifts, and recognizing the “other”, instead of me.
And yes, while we can “blame” our Puritan past, secular America likewise, seems to not be able to recognize the need for forgiveness, nor the benefit of asking for it. Hmmm.
November 18, 2008 at 9:46 am
Mmm, a refreshing and challenging post.
I think you’re on the right track. We are what we’re not supposed to be…closed minded, judgmental, and hypocritical. Looking at these sins, I wonder how much of what we do comes from our environment (being raised and living in America, for me) and how much is simply our sinful nature, present in us all along. Whatever the case, we do need to seek forgiveness for these things and ask for some grace in forgiving others.
And I agree with Becky…the Catholic tradition of confession is a necessary discipline that we have lost. I would love to see our churches get over ourselves enough to be able to pull from the beneficial practices of all different denominations and religions.
November 18, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Becky,
That is some pretty good insight. I do think most Protestants are not willing to confess their sins with people. Our focus on our “Personal Relationship with Christ” makes it hard to connect with someone enough to tell them are struggles and sins.
I do think the nearer we come to God the more we’re willing to confess who we are, like Peter in Luke 5:8, “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”
November 18, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Mikey,
I definitely think that it’s both our environment and our sinful nature that makes us judgmental and hypocritical. It’s hard to blame one or the other more. I do know for a fact that my small town environment made me pretty judgmental at times. I’m not saying I’m over judging people but I was a lot worse back in high school.
I do think we need a generous orthodoxy where we pull practices from all different denominations and religions. I’m trying to do that with my faith.
November 19, 2008 at 10:35 am
The stats from David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons feel like they must be held loosely. Without excusing sin done in the name of Jesus, the New Testament many times teaches that Christians will be persecuted and won’t be liked by the rest of the world. When I read these statistics, I thought the answers must included a good amount of bias against Christians. So there’s a tension within me. I understand how others can hold such opinions of Christians, but I also see responses that come from not understanding the breadth of God’s kingdom. These stats much me want to be firm in having a biblical basis for my lifestyle and actions so I can defend what I don’t need to apologize for and also avoid the need to make amends for sinful actions.
November 19, 2008 at 2:05 pm
In my church, one idea we keep in mind to help us focus is, “If our church were not in our community, would anyone miss us?” (We are definitely not perfect in this but we are trying.) Reading the results of that survey, looks like many wouldn’t miss Christians. Maybe we as Christians should try to do a better job of making ourselves indispensible in our communities rather than “right” all the time.
November 25, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Greg,
Good point man. A lot of times we look judgmental because we are following the Bible. I also don’t want to make amends for sinful actions either.
I will say that sometimes we look judgmental because we are judgmental and we do need to apologize for that. Sometimes we look down at people because we feel like we are holier than them. I do that, I try not to, but I still do it sometimes.
Also, sometimes we need to apologize not because we are against a sinful action but the way we go about being against that sinful action.
I also believe we need to apologize on behalf of other Christians that won’t apologize, whether we are a part of what they are doing or not.
November 25, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Kelly,
That’s a good point. I think most churches would only be missed by their members, not their communities. Sometimes we Christians care more about being right than showing the love of Jesus. That is very sad.
June 12, 2009 at 8:29 am
I’ve recently found an interest in Dark’s commentary on Christian spin in culture and found this blog through a wordpress blog about blogs about Dark. Mouthful I know. But I think we really need to make sure we take seriously his challenge to be genuinely skeptical about everything. And in this author’s case I’m not sure this has happened…
“For example, a conservative estimate of innocent civilians killed in Iraq is more than 654,965 people. Our nation should mourn about this and be willing to give an authentic apology to the Iraqi people. Sadly, I do not see this happening anytime soon. ”
Now, the tragedy of innocent death occuring as a result of our actions overseas in war should be irrespective of the how many people are affected by our actions. In many ways having a single family tortured through the violence of a fellow countryman of mine should cause just as much grief as a year end body count of hundreds of thousands affected by war. Death is death, this was not how it was meant to be.
But in the interest of integrity, reversing the ’sin of spin’ culture, and truly trying to understand others I have to take issue with calling the 650k+ body count ‘conservative’. If it’s implying that this is the lower end of a body count, then what are we to assume about the ‘real’ nature of violence or tragedy occuring. Have there been hundreds of thousands more of unreported deaths? What of the other more often cited counts numbering less than 200,000? What about the differences in nature between the ground war and air war?
I agree that the consequences of our military’s action should be the concern of every citizen, because it is really our politicians that our dictating what is going on over there.
“Dear God, what great lengths we go to to keep our pride and to make people think we are something that we are not.” By claiming through any statistic that we have a grasp on the evil that is occuring anywhere in the world better than somebody else, aren’t we trying to convince people we are something that we are not?
I’m starting to think that words can be pretty violent things especially when they aren’t truths. In which case, if we are ever in doubt of the truth of a significant piece of information like these casualties we should be extremely careful what we choose to manifest into creation with our words.
I’ve thought about what it would be like if we had a ‘confessional clause’ in our constitution that we would submit to an accounting and accountability for our own actions and an admission of imperfection. Do you think that would strengthen or undermine its perceived sacredness?
June 25, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for reading the blog. I got the quote “a conservative estimate of innocent civilians killed in Iraq is more than 654,965 people,” from the book Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. I do not believe they lied about it. If they did, I apologize. I also do believe that confession can help heal hurt on both ends.