Repent and reconcile

[CAPTAINZING2000]

REPENT AND RECONCILE

The idea of 'social repentance' and 'social reconciliation' sounds like a secularist sop, at first. The world loves to take aspects of the faith and take God out of them. But think about it: aren't these societal needs expressed in Scripture, too? The Hebrew prophets called on whole nations to stop doing evil -- and not just Judah, but Edom and Babylon and Egypt and Syria. The apostles practiced reconciliation, though fitfully, with lots of starts and stops, in whatever society ruled theirs. Even most bad regimes usually seek the positive, nation-building effects that help glue a society together, but for those to take place, reconciliation is needed.
So, what kind of sins might a nation, or a party, church denomination, ethnic group, or cultural sector within a nation, have to confess?

• Racism. Classism. Sexism. Or any other lie that lets us treat someone else as being less than ourselves.
• Treating those who spread views other than our own as if they were demons.
• Stifling the Spirit who speaks through others.
• Hindering peoples' growth instead of boosting it.
• Allowing our angers to fester instead of turning those energies to service.
• Profiteering at other peoples' expense.
• Turn everything into a "look-at-me" affair.
• Taking action due to fear or raw self-interest instead of love.
• Building walls instead of bridges.
• A willingness to let people go hungry or without shelter, or even to cause it;
• Creating a cultural climate which weakens the marital and parental bonds and encourages escape over responsibility.
• Creating trick reforms and sham dialogues which serve to evade any real sharing of power and block any real influence on public policy by others.
• Turning political races into sports, entertainment, and/or sales.
• Keeping still as someone stomps all over the freedoms of someone else.
• Seeking new ways to excuse one's own behavior, always trying to see themselves in the exceptions to the laws and moral rules that help hold a society together.
• Denying our common lot, pretending that we're not all on the same ship.

And what makes for reconciliation?

• Listening to the Spirit telling you that you have wronged others;
• Publicly acknowledging these sort of sins as sins, in a clear and repeated way;
• Living so as not to do them anymore;
• Acting, as far as is practical, to undo the damage;
• Working together daily with those we wronged to face the common problems which we all face in life.
• Celebrating what's in common, and at least some of the differences (though there are other differences which may not be so wise to celebrate).
• Seeing our life together as a whole, not just in parts or categories, especially not as 'God vs. Devil' or 'pro-/con-' or 'them vs. us'.
• Learn to be just plain people with each other, beyond whatever roles we might have in this society.

Public Reconciliation

[cmc]

Thanks again CaptZ for sharing another great article. Those are some fairly long lists and all things that require attention if I am to live according to God's ways.

The Levitical judicial system includes restitution to the wronged party. There are many, many cases where all would be better served by having the offending party make things right and/or be made to reconcile and take direct responsibility for their actions. Although it's the best desired outcome, there is no guarantee of true reconciliation as that does not depend on me but instead on how someone else chooses to react.

In the 12 step programs and as I was taught in my faith; making things right by repentance, restitution and reconciliation is 'doing the next right thing' and something that benefits everyone involved.