Monday, 01 August 2011
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Social Penance: The Church Accountable?
By Nick-Don at Theopolitical
Torture is part of the Christian past. From a Catholic point of view, the church does indeed have penance to do for the Inquisition. But how? I propose that the way to do penance for the Inquisition is to speak out and resist torture as it is practiced now…. Confession of our sin would require not simply the admission that torture has been done in our name, but the confession that only God is God, and not any nation-state that claims to save us from evil. Christians worship a God who was tortured to death by the empire; it is this God who saves by saying no to violence on the cross. Our penance, then, would take the form of resisting the idolatry of nation and state and its attendant violence. Catholicism should be particularly equipped for this, since it is a worldwide church that transgresses the artificial boundaries of all nation-states.- William T. Cavanaugh, How to Do Penance for the InquisitionThis quote comes from an essay Cavanaugh wrote in the aftermath of a book about the torture of the Pinochet regime and the church’s eventual resistance to such practices. Questioners at lectures often asked him how a Catholic of all people could write a book against torture. And while the conventional narrative of the Inquisition is often distorted, it is true that torture figures into Christian history.
I buy into Cavanaugh’s notion of penance and corporate responsibility. I know that in our fiercely individualistic culture that’s a notion often rejected. But I accept it, because history and tradition are a huge part of what makes us into the individuals we are. So I take the idea of social penance seriously.
Which makes me wonder how the church should publicly react to actions carried out by those who claim to be Christians, but are clearly not Christian actions. Lump into this category the Norway killer, Fred Phelps, Scott Roeder, etc. How accountable should the church be for these kinds of actions/people? What form could such an accountability take?
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Comments (7)
What's the Norway killer got to do with anything?Do we have to bring up him up to "balance" Muslim atrocities?
i don't see it as an issue of accountability. what i don't understand is... if you're willing to say that such acts aren't Christian, why is Christianity as a whole unwilling to speak out against such people? Christians seem to have no interest bashing people who are openly non-Christian. why not treat fake Christians the same? it seems like Christians are trying to protect them, and i can only assume it's because they really do support the atrocities they committed.
@E_muse@xanga - the guy wrote a book comparing himself to a Crusader. he even called himself the savior of Christianity. if he doesn't fit the definition of a Christian terrorist, i don't know who does.
Why should the church pay penance for actions that people did thousands of years ago? Since when did the sons have to pay for the crimes of the father?
If they are Christians, then Christ is accountable, and anyone who they honored as leaders in the church (Hebrews 13:17).
The problem is that what YOU call "church" is actually a divided, dysfunctional situation composed of human organizations that lack nearly all divine authority due to the fact the divine blueprint has been abandoned. I don't see how the Lord is to be held accountable to these human organizations that function in His name, although because they DO use His name (improperly), He does feel obligated, perhaps, to do something FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE, even though it has been hijacked by these groups that call themselves "churches".
As to individual Christians with whom Christ is involved: If there is repayment, He will make it as only He can. Is there such thing as eternal recompense for a wrong? Perhaps there is! Are there other kinds of recompense that we cannot account for easily (Matthew 10:42; 19:29)? Only He knows what is righteous and what is truly compensatory for any loss of life, love, or suffering, and He holds the resources to address all situations. He is on the throne.
How about Stalin (he was, supposedly, a believer in his youth)? Stalin is responsible for more millions of deaths than Hitler! Even if all the wronged, dead ones should point their finger at Christ, as they would regarding Charlemagne or Bernard of Clairvaux (for encouraging the Crusades) or even Luther (who urged in his pamphlet against the Peasants Revolt "Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay or stab, secretly or openly")... Christ would have an answer.
Which is in Himself alone. I cannot see how you expect fractured Christendom to be able to be held accountable for anything... they have heaped their own sins upon themselves and have no resource to give anyone other than the forgiveness they themselves may have found in Christ, and their hope in His inner work that will make them as He is.
Until then, they can only be something else, and that something else often has huge consequences... unfortunately made in Christ's name.
If anyone is truly a Christian, he will always be judged a hypocrite at some level, since no Christian is truly transformed yet. Therefore, Christians will sin. Will the churches (as you refer to them) be held accountable for every sin? Many, if not all, sins have some consequence for others, whether their family members, or others in society.
In your view, thus, the "church" owes an endless debt to society for the countless failures made by all believers through time, since every sin has a negative effect.
You cannot just isolate a few notable instances and "pay back" on those. That would not be fair to all the rest of humanity who can point their fingers at Christians and say, "You did not tell me about Jesus!" or "You gave me an excuse to reject God!"
No, the church exists in the world, but it is not of the world. It is the kingdom of God. Let then everyone bring their case to God, and let Him answer it, perhaps even making use of His believers to do so.
But everyone shall die for his own sin. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:29, 30 ESV)
Sorry, but penance denies the sufficiency of the death of Christ. When Jesus died, His final word from the cross was "It is finished!" There may be some good in reconciliation as happened in South Africa after apartheid. However, with whom would Cathoilcs now go through a Reconcilliation process. The descendants of the persecuted are unrecognizable, and are likely either reconciled with the Roman Church, or else are absolutely unaware of the history in their background.
If we repent and are reconciled to God, what further reconciliation is required? If God is for us, who can be against us.
If we are reconciled to God what penance would He require? There is none.
Social penance is a modern, leftist notion and has no basis in reason or tradition. People, not institutions sin.
So it is impossible for an institution to do penance. Only the person who is actually guilty of a sin can do penance for that sin.