Reviews, Interviews, News, Commentaries, Excerpts, My Top 5 Books, Wilson's Bookmarks, Book AwardsBoost Your Cultural IQ
Many Colors talks about the need to acknowledge past mistakes of the dominant culture. You don't say as much about the role of forgiveness on the part of minority-culture believers. As a pastor, have you ministered to minority believers who find it as hard to forgive past sins as it is for many white believers to accept them?
We've got to take it one step at a time. Before grace can be extended, forgiveness must be asked. I think maybe that's something we need to look at as a community: What does authentic forgiveness look like, the requesting of forgiveness and the granting of forgiveness? I touch on it a little bit when I talk about this idea of lament. What does it mean for us to lament together? That's not just the oppressor towards the persecuted, but it also the oppressed lamenting along with the oppressor, that we've lost something together in our shared negative history. And that's part of the process of forgiveness.
Some would suggest that this idea—that an offender has to ask forgiveness before the wronged party can extend grace--goes against the biblical concept of a Messiah who said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" while hanging on a cross.
I would expand on that comment a bit more. There is a process for the forgiveness of sin. The onus is on the offender to seek forgiveness. While grace could be extended unilaterally, that does not absolve or excuse the offender from seeking forgiveness.
How do Christians with a genuine interest in ethnic diversity overcome distrust or skepticism in those they're trying to connect with?
The church [is] the institution that can do this so much better than any other institution, because we have a theological language of forgiveness, of working through difficulties together—of the body of Christ interdependent in such a way that we can't live without one another.
Honestly, in some sense, it is much easier to stick with our own. Go to our own type of churches, go to our ethnic-specific or socioeconomically specific churches. Your faith and your way of looking at the world is not going to be challenged as much. But as I look at it in my own life, the Scripture is calling me to engage with the gospel message in such a way that it transforms not just who I am, but also what's happening in our society and our culture.
Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Many Colors is available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.
Soong-Chan Rah blogs at ProfRah.com and tweets at @profrah.
A Fractured and Beautiful Faith
Streaming This Weekend, May 24, 2013
(on articles open to the public, you must at least register for a free account).
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Newsletters
Google
Comments
Displaying 1–3 of 9 comments
See all comments
Reading Even More Closely
I am not upping the ante, but responding to the claim by "reading closely" that "You're Kidding, Right?" misread Rah. Rah DID say, in print, "Before grace can be extended, forgiveness must be asked." When pressed that this did not address the heart of the offended person and Jesus's command to forgive, he continued, "The onus is on the offender to seek forgiveness." The "concrete historical reality" is namely this: the command to forgive on the part of the offended is as central to the Christian message as the command to seek forgiveness on the part of the oppressor. While many theologians address this reality directly, Rah only skirts it, even when pressed by an interviewer. The criticism lodged by "Your Kidding, Right?" is legitimate as it is based on Rah's published words. The charge of creating a "straw adversary" and intentionally misprepresenting the book is misplaced. The comments are on the interview.
reading closely
The comments here reflect that there was not a close reading of Dr. Rah's statements. In clarifying his comments, Rah said that grace can be extended unilaterally, however, that this does not remove the responsibility of people asking for forgiveness. In short, there are 2 reflections here; A) transcendent theological truth-- grace is unilaterally and unmeritedly extended, B) a historical concrete reality- forgiveness and repair should also be sought for us to live in "beloved community." These are not 2 irreconcileable truths. In short, he is saying something true about grace while simultaneously challenging people to confession and repentance. I think this was part of what worked in Truth Commission in South Africa. Commentators, please do not take sentences out of context to make a straw adversary. At best, it is poor reading of nuance and at worse it is intentional misrepresentation of the book as a whole.
grateful believer
I haven't read Rah's comments, but I would like to comment on this one: "Before grace can be extended, forgiveness must be asked." It is true that God made provision for our forgiveness at the Cross; He stands ready to forgive. It is also true that we must be willing to receive His forgiveness, that we must be humble and confess our sin, our need of Him. In human relationships, we should always forgive others who harm us, whether they ask forgiveness or not, and we should be ready at any moment to graciously extend forgiveness to them if they desire it. At the same time, if they are filled with ill will, hatred, malice, etc, toward us, if they refuse to admit any wrongdoing, there can be no real peace between us. I think this is reflected in Paul's admonition, "As much as lieth in you, live at peace with all men." There are men (and women) who simply won't live at peace with us. But we should always return good for evil at all times. ONLY the Holy Spirit can effect this in us