Make Repentance Great Again

At the beginning of this century, a parent tried to get me fired for declining to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Before it got to that point, we had a phone conversation (in compliance with our handbook which cited Matthew 18:15) which I'd believed settled things. As we concluded, I said I'd love to talk more as time permits. He said he'd be up for that so long as it was “in the right spirit." I realized then that I had very little control over what spirit (or attitude) he sensed in anything I did or said. He was done submitting to conversation as equals. While pursuing his case against me, he would not agree to speak with me about the thing I didn’t do that bothered him again. Meaning, I came to understand, is a consensual activity. I had more than one superior who was committed to protecting me, and I kept my job. I know that millions of people around the world who are targeted by those who hope to bring them down do not have that advantage.

I hadn’t thought of that conversation in years, but it’s come back to me since last Wednesday. We live in clarifying times. I believe a number of people I know and love are waking up and wondering if something they’ve said or played along with can be meaningfully (or legally) tied to the white nationalist terror putsch which, it seems, is still underway. I’ve contacted a person or two to let them know that I want what’s best for them and their families. This doesn’t mean that I support any person who’s proven to be abusive continuing to exercise power over other people.

“What’s best,” often involves standing down. Declining to platform, support, fund, or partner with citizens and elected officials who have incited or participated in a white supremacist terror putsch isn’t divisive, hateful, or an instance of cancel culture. It’s baseline moral seriousness. Every fact is a function of relationship.

Repentance is changing your mind and letting your words and actions follow. It isn’t a defeat. It’s a moral breakthrough that benefits self and others. It might mean less power to control your fellow creatures, a slight dip in income, or even a prison sentence, but true repentance is never bad news. “Repent,” is the first word of Jesus’ gospel. No one gets saved without changing their minds and bearing fruit in keeping with the change. It’s in the details. Faith without deets is dead.

“Make Repentance Great Again” is something of a nonsense imperative, because I’m not sure anyone’s ever felt great at the starting line of repentance. It’s a necessarily meek practice. But there’s no greatness, no human future—no salvation—without it. Repentance is the final human seriousness. I hope it catches on in a new and unprecedented way in the land of the free and the home of the brave.