Facebook Publication Date: 7/27/2022 23:07

Reading this, and the comments, brings to mind the SBC’s confession of and apology for their actions (and inactions) during slavery and going into the Civil Rights era. That apology was made in 1996, at their conference here in San Diego, actually.

The effect was different than here, because the polity and theology are different, to be sure, but I feel now much like I felt then–empty.

As a woman with Native/First Nations and African heritage, and for whom racial justice is her vocation, my first consciousness (before I code switch in my head so I remain palatable) Is a salty, ‘Ok, I guess. What do you want me to do with that?’

Because this.

That apology was not for me.

Just like the SBC’s ‘apology’ was not for me (though I did feel a glimmer of hope at the time). Just like the now obligatory ‘land acknowledgements’ which make my back molars itch everytime I encounter one.

Whenever I see or read something like this, I consider its intended audience. I think about what this acknowledgement/apology/mea culpa/’my bad’ is supposed to achieve.

Just as land acknowledgements absent transfer of title mean little, so does this absent the Three R’s: Restitution, Reparations, and Renunciation. For me these are non-negotiable elements of Repentance.

Dominant culture cannot, must not, be the ones who decide what these words mean, and what weight they should carry.

Otherwise this…whatever this is…is to aggrandize the offenders and to paper over past, present, and enduring violence and oppression.

I said what I said.

Quietly but plainly: repentance without tangible action and overt turning away from sin is worse than nothing.

Discuss.

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