If you are white you have probably struggled with it. “I didn’t do it.” In a sense, you are right. I was raised in the northeast, and Roman Catholic, and born during the dismantling of the Jim Crow laws. When we are asked to confess and repent of sins that aren’t personally ours we struggle.
I get that. But we can’t stop there. When we hear these words in our own minds, or from the mouths of our church members, officers and fellow Presbyters we can’t just go, “okay.”
Monday morning I opened my Bible. In my personal reading I was nearing the end of 2 Samuel. There in chapter 21 is a story from David’s reign that addresses this for us.
Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
There was a famine in Israel. It stretched on long enough for David to seek God about it. I’m pretty sure he didn’t like what he heard back. It was all Saul’s fault. Way back in the days of Joshua the Gibeonites had tricked Israel into making a covenant of protection. Instead of voiding the covenant, they kept it but the Gibeonites became their servants. During his reign, Saul slaughtered most of them.
God was not happy at Saul’s covenant breaking and murder. He did not immediately judge Saul for this. In fact, He apparently didn’t include this when Saul died in battle for his various sins. The bloodguilt remained.
David was the new king after a period of struggle. This is probably many years into his reign. But God said it must be dealt with NOW. It must be dealt with by YOU. David didn’t do it. Saul did. Saul who was long dead.
When it comes to the covenant community God apparently doesn’t care that you personally had no involvement in the corporate sins of the community. Just as you share in Adam’s sin, you also share in the sins of leaders of the covenant community.
2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. 3 And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”
David sought out the remnant to see how this could be made right. Note how Saul’s sin is characterized. His zeal was for “his people” and he struck down the Gibeonites. Sound vaguely familiar?
In my previous post I laid out some of the ways the Southern Presbyterian Church, including what would become the PCA, had sinned. Kevin Twit noted that at its founding the leaders of the PCA stressed they were the continuing Presbyterian Church. This is why Sean Michael Lucas’ book is about the Continuing Presbyterians, aka the PCA. They viewed the PC (US) as having departed from the faith, but they were continuing in it. They also continued in some sinful ways. Travis Hutchinson lays out some of the evidence for this on his blog. He points to a book, written in 1987, that is a history of the PCA up to that point which espouses racist viewpoints. This book was given to the denomination so proceeds of its sale could go to the denomination. Yeah, let that sink in. He also shares some personal stories that reveal that racists be among us.
Will we continue to say “It’s not our problem” or will we be like David and say “How can we make this right?”
Ultimately the seven men descended from Saul put to death point us to Christ who bore the full burden of our sin, including racism, indifference and hardness of heart. We can admit we have done wrong, that we share in the guilt of our fathers (like Nehemiah did!) precisely because Christ bears our guilt. We can be honest instead of pretending. The doctrine of justification matters! We can say “We failed you and we are sorry. How can we move forward?” Like David we should seek the blessing of the heritage of the Lord through repentance.
Here is the protest that many of us signed.
We the 43rd General Assembly of the PCA (the undersigned) understand that repentance is not merely a statement, but steps of faithfulness that follow. Allowing that more time is needed to adequately work on such a denominational statement, but also the need for action now, we recognize and confess our church’s covenantal and generational involvement in and complicity with racial injustice inside and outside of our churches during the Civil Rights period. We commit ourselves to the task of truth and repentance over the next year for the glory of God and the furtherance of the Gospel. We urge the congregations of the Presbyterian Church in America to confess their own particular sins and failures as may be appropriate and to seek truth and repentance for the Gospel’s sake within their own local communities.
Cavman Considers 