We need to repent and we need to do it now. We have a long list of injustices to confess. And you, white Christian American, should be first to your knees. Think of the sins of our people. Now think of how appallingly few of those injustices have ever been formally and publically lamented over, apologized for, or brought to a table of reconciliation. Let’s change that. Where to start? Pick anything. The Trail of Tears, the current treatment and fracturing of deported families, chattel slavery, unconscious bias, white privilege, Japanese internment camps, or state-sponsored torture. Just stop waiting. Or maybe it’s worse than stalling. Maybe we really think there’s no need to raise our voices together about these things and cry out to our holy God. Are we waiting? Or have we not learned one of the most basic lessons we teach our toddlers? “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
The problem in America is that we only know how to say “I’m sorry.” But for the deep wounds we see all around us, something more is needed: Communal repentance. And we’re not good at either repentance or its communal nature. A call to repentance is not the same as being an ally or signing a petition or saying you’ll pray for Charleston. There is plenty of that happening already. Too often, prayer and solidarity have become code for salving one’s individual conscience, but not taking any action. On the contrary, public repentance requires vulnerability. It requires identifying a problem, admitting to it, and “turning toward” something new. The powerful book Forgive Us by Cannon, Harper, Jackson, and Rah, reminds us that “repentance requires an about-face in our actions and a deep change in our way of life.”