Repentance to the 9th Degree
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this! I must be dreaming! I never thought I would hear an American say such things! For years we have been treated like slaves by Americans. This changes everything.”
Those words came from a brother from the Ivory Coast in a regional leaders meeting in western Ghana nearly a decade ago. They were spoken after an apology I made for the way some Americans have treated our brothers and sisters in Africa through the years. I assured them that we had come to learn from them and see if there were ways we could help them with the dreams and visions God had given them to advance the mission of God in their part of the world. We had not come to sell our vision but to understand theirs and seek partnership without control.
The brother who made the dramatic statement at the start of this article went on to describe how he had been treated by Americans who didn’t respect him and wanted to control him. Others chimed in with stories of hurt as well. They talked of Americans who came, took pictures of their work, and then used those pictures to raise money for themselves but did nothing to help the Africans, though they were claiming credit for their work. They told stories of Americans who showed up uninvited and acted as if they brought God with them and didn’t listen to any Christians already in West Africa. Americans often came selling their own visions and programs while seeking Africans to implement ministry plans that didn’t make sense to them.
The reservoir of hurt was deep, and the distrust that had built up over the years would not be easily overcome. The leaders in the room were grateful for the good things Americans had done and wanted partnership, but not if it meant being treated as less than or being exploited by people who didn’t respect them.
I learned from Sam Shewmaker in my early years at MRN that one way to build trust in Africa is to openly acknowledge mistakes Americans had made in the past and apologize for them, even if we had no personal involvement in those mistakes. The same applies to countries around the world. As Americans, our relationships with nationals in every country are impacted by the history of Americans in that country whether we like it or not, even if it goes back centuries and those who committed the mistakes are now dead. As individualistic Americans, this is hard for us to accept. But in communal societies, this only makes sense.
More importantly, it is Biblical. The Bible was written by and for communal societies. Corporate confession and repentance for the sins of “our people” is common and important. It’s all over the Bible, but the quickest place to see it is in the 9th chapter of three Old Testament books (Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel). In all these books, mighty men of God repent for “our sins” as God’s people going back generations. They lead Israel to own their historic sins as a people and accept the justice of God in placing their nation under judgment. Yet, none of these three men personally engaged in the sins they acknowledge. Daniel, in particular, is one of the only people in scripture who has no recorded sins or mistakes. While he was not perfect, he was not guilty of the sins he confessed on behalf of his people. He was not even alive for most of them. Yet, to face reality, tell the truth, and reset the relationship between Israel and God, confession and repentance for God’s people over generations were required. They still are today.
American Christians, especially white Americans, are often extremely defensive when it comes to acknowledging our communal sins as a church, as a nation, and as descendants of Western civilization. We don’t want to see, much less apologize to, people in other countries or marginalized people in our country who have been targets of discrimination and oppression in the past. We want to say, “I had nothing to do with that.” But we are all parts of larger stories and are either beneficiaries or victims of past injustice. Telling the truth is essential to setting things right, resetting the relationship, and moving forward together in the grace of a God who makes all things right. It is biblical, right, and necessary to tell the truth about past wrongs, acknowledge the harm done, express regret and repentance, and convey a humble desire to move forward differently.
This is what I call repentance to the 9th degree in honor of the three chapter 9s where this is practiced in scripture at a time when God’s people needed to start fresh and experience a move of God’s grace and empowerment. American Christians should read our Bibles and then move forward to model the same humility and honesty in our relationships with people worldwide and in our own country if we want to see God move among us with power in our day as he has at other times and places.