Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith

We all make mistakes, but only some of us admit them and seek to make amends. A refusal to take responsibility compounds the original offense. The Christian Church has made some mistakes as well, one of which is failing to admit fault and to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. Churches, like people, are often more focused on the sins of others than on their own. It’s so much easier and more fun, after all, to criticize someone else. It’s also human nature to more readily recognize faults in those we consider opponents than in ourselves.Four evangelical Christians wrote Forgive Us. They believe the credibility of Christian witness to the world is damaged by Christian hypocrisy, by refusing to remove the log from our own eye first, as Jesus commanded, before calling out the specks in the eyes of others. According to Robert Putnam in American Grace (2010), many young adults, perceive evangelicals as judgmental, self-righteous and intolerant. Mae Cannon and her co-authors propose that the church should offer “a counter-narrative…of authentic confession and genuine reconciliation.”Evangelicals understand well the process on an individual level of acknowledging sin, repenting, and seeking forgiveness. Scripture tells us that it should also be done on the corporate level. Repentance is a recurring them in the Bible because God’s people are frequently called to repent. Nehemiah, for instance, confessed the sins “we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you” by disobeying the laws God gave to Moses. Then Nehemiah planned how to correct the situation by going to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls.The problem is that Christians as a group are not very good confessing collective failure and seeking forgiveness for it. The absence of confession is related to the absence of lament in church services. A lament recognizes the reality of suffering and offers a petition trusting in God’s judgment, but does not propose a solution. Some 40 percent of Psalms are laments. The book of Lamentations contains a lament and confession on behalf of God’s people. In short, confession in scripture is not limited to the personal and private, but is offered on behalf of the entire community.Worship in American churches, however, does not include communal laments about corporate culpability. Modern evangelicals focus on sin in the culture, but not among ourselves. “Corporate confession challenges us to see beyond our individualistic, Western worldview. It recognizes that sin operates collectively, and that the responsibility of the church as a whole is to recognize that it too has sinned collectively.”So what are the shortcomings in the American Christian context? The book examines the history of several:• environmental degradation and the failure to properly steward God’s creation• the genocide of the indigenous people in the America’s and the Church’s culpability• racism and the theological roots thereof• the oppression of women and the justification of sexism in the church• the marginalization of the LGBTQ community• nativism• prejudice against Jews and Mormons.This review will expand on one of those areas – the failure to properly steward God’s creation.The early colonists were primarily Protestants who came to conquer the wilderness in the new world influenced by Genesis 1:28: “Replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Consequently, they cleared the forests, killed animals such as wolves, panthers and bears, and “subdued” the wilderness.When Genesis says humanity is given “dominion” over the earth, the word has been misinterpreted as “domination,” when it is better understood as responsibility or stewardship. That’s how the agricultural Hebrews would have understood it. Their law required that every seven years the land itself must rest. (Leviticus 25:1-7). In short, humanity is to protect the wellness of creation. God creates humans from the dust of the earth. Humanity is placed in a garden and instructed to “till and keep it” (Gen. 2:15-16).The lack of good stewardship did not end in the colonial era. In the 20th century, there was growing exploitation of the land for its natural resources. The after-effect of strip mining, for example, on the land and nearby inhabitants was not a prime concern of the mining industry. Poor communities were more likely to face risks to their health from toxic dumping by deregulated industries.History shows that Christians not only participated in slaughtering wild animals and deforestation, but were silent when environmental degradation was happening. Often churches were strong supporters of the polluting industries. Prominent Christians criticized the environmental movement. Dr. James Dobson, for instance, attacked Al Gore’s climate change message.In recent years, some evangelicals have realized their responsibility to be good stewards of nature, not just exploiters of it. In his book, Green Like God, Jonathan Merritt invokes a Christian theological framework for creation care. In Genesis I:31, at the end of the sixth day of creation, “God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”Biblical scholar Terry McGonigal reads that verse this way: “God is delighting in the totality of all creation, the interconnected web of relationships now complete.” It was not just the parts of creation that were very good, but the relationships between things as well. Humanity is part of creation and has a relationship with the rest of creation, which industrialization markedly altered.“Creation groans” as deforestation continues, pesticides affect the health of animals and us, and the level of carbon emissions cause the seas to warm and rise, alter the climate, and put animals and people at risk. “Human exploitation of the land has led to its mounting destruction and a break in the stewardship relationship that God established.”The book contains some interesting research on the other topics as well:* In 1864, a Methodist minister -- John M. Chivington -- led a famous massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado, which killed more than a hundred Natives and destroyed a friendly village. Rev. Chivington justified his massacre: “Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians…I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.”* Suffragists fighting for the right to vote were accused by pastors of working against “God’s intended order.”* The American Bible Society was founded to distribute Bibles and fight slavery, but it also opposed Catholicism. The renowned minister Lyman Beecher, father of Harriett Beecher Stowe and president of Lane Theological Seminary, also preached about the evils of Catholic immigration.* The revival of the KKK in 1915 was based upon strong anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic biases. KKK members had to be Protestant. Their motto was “Native, White, Protestant Supremacy!”Forgive Us avoids grappling with three controversial issues: abortion, whether same-sex behavior is automatically a sin, and the New Testament verses prohibiting women from speaking in church. Nevertheless, the book is well researched and challenging. Their point is well taken that Christians won’t have credibility in spotlighting the failures of others while failing to recognize their own. ###

Brought up as a Lutheran it is natural for me to believe that my salvation is by God's grace alone. He has saved me, a lost and terrible sinner, and by his grace has made salvation glorious. My only act for salvation is a state of contrition.I am an American and have been influenced by the Protestant Work Ethic. I have seen this operate in my country all of my 69 years. It has become a self serving excuse to see works as salvific. I have seen the US become an idol whereby the country was initiated by God fearing, Christian men and women. We would become a Christian nation upon a hill for all the world to see. As Americans we would secure our manifest destiny as God had ordained. We have become a nation under God. Our money says that we as a nation trust in God. Because of our chutzpah we have forgotten that we are sinners before God. We have ordained a certain feeling of our righteousness - an America which you love or leave.It is time for us to see ourselves as we really are -- sinners in need of grace. We have compromised the Gospel into a works righteousness. Perhaps the story of Adam and Eve came first because consciousness of sin is the first step towards salvation. We need to know ourselves honestly and not be deceived that we can be like God. Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith is step in that direction. If read thoughtfully it will bring us back to whom we really are - sinners in need of repentance. The book outlines for us the specifics. Male dominance - an idol. White dominance - an idol. Christian dominance over Jews and Muslims - an idol. Dominance over people who would like to immigrate - an idol. Dominance over homosexuals - an idol. Dominance over nature - an idol.I write as a Christian and an American. I write not to fault America in particular. God knows that all humans are sinners regardless of nationality. I write this review understanding that much of what is stated can be said throughout all of Christendom. Standing not as a disinterested Christian I believe the book to be timely and helpful for all who wish to take Christianity seriously. It is, as Luther noted, the law and our inability to keep it that drives us into the hands of God's saving grace.

The scholarship is uneven in this work - I suppose it is in every composite work - but the message is true. Sadly the Christian church has a lot to repent about. Even more sadly it isn't really about to do so. I think the main value of a work like this is to alert any who might pick the book up that there are Christians who are not bigoted and intolerant. It is impossible to escape the hateful language and behaviors of those who call themselves Christian; it is to ubiquitous in our culture. But it is possible to find little enclaves of Christians who are truly living by the golden rule and the Sermon on the Mount. This book should encourage those who are seeking to scout out such groups. Seldom will they find them functioning as an organized congregation; more often they are a tiny subset of a congregation.

Like most Christian books, you can get the gist of the book by looking at the dust cover, reviewing the table of contents, and skimming the contents. If you want to trudge through the 300 pages so the authors to catch up with what you've already surmised they are saying, have fun.In reaction to the stronghold of Conservative Christianity to frame the issues in the Evangelical world, there has been a spree of reactionary books that following the format "God is not conservative or liberal but he is really liberal". In trying to correct the over emphasis of conservative voices these are largely ignored and the under-served issues that liberals tend to gravitate towards are listed.It only shows the wisdom of C. S. Lewis when he remarked that when we see the Kingdom of God, no one will like it. Some will see it as too Conservative; others will see it as too Liberal. But few if any will get right the things that need to be repented of.