Religion: Is an Apology Enough?

"I'm sorry." We are mostly taught at a young age of the importance of apologizing when you have done wrong against someone else. However, after the apology has been made, it is out of our hands and thus resides in the recipient's heart the ability to forgive us or not. Most common responses tend to be: "Yes I'll accept your apology, or not I will not, or even "no!... it is too late now!" Unfortunately, when we ask for forgiveness via an apology and we are granted acceptance, our past offenses some how are blown in our faces on the next time we do not meet up to the recipient's expectations or when we have wronged them in any way.

After pondering the differences between the way God forgives us to the way we forgive each other, I chose two separate blog entries through the blogosphere that discusses the ramifications of apologies from political figures to the way God forgives humans. In my first post, I commented on Abraham Piper's entry on Listening to God Through Other People about how God shows Abraham through other people who God is and what he thinks of us. The second comment deals with an apology made by Kevin Rudd on behave of Australian's atrocities against Aborigines and the Stolen Generations of Australia.

Comment: "Listening to God Through Other People"
I really enjoyed your discussion on God's ability to not cast us off into eternal darkness-separation from His presence-but He rather accepts us for who and where we are in our faith in Him and he works with us. This is one of the reasons why I have chosen this picture from John Piper's home website because it reminds me how God continues to show me mercy and forgives me even when I do not deserve it. If I'm not mistaken, mercy is giving someone what they do not deserve. Another verse that pairs up with this picture is Hebrews 13:8 " For God is the same as yesterday, today, and forever." The very fact that the Sun has been rising in the east and sets in the west for as long as man can remember, shows me how He is also faithful to forgive us that many times and also to cast our transgressions into a sea of forgetfulness. I do understand that it is much easier to believe in words that we hear than from words that we see, but as you have stated in your entry, the many times God reveals Himself through other people, it is for our advancement in our faith and our realization that I can and should believe the words of God and His promises.

There is one theory that I have in which I would like your opinion on which is as follows: that God really does shows who He is through people-being that He has created us in His image-, through nature and through the way the universe is set up.

One question I have for you is what other witnesses has God given you apart from other people that expresses God's nature and love and worthiness of your praise and faith in Him?


Comment: "The apology and moral significance of guilt"
I was unexpectedly taken off guard when I read your blog post on The apology and the moral significance of guilt. I thought that I was going to be lead through a discussion about how in theology, one's guilt usually leads them to repentance and is then forgiven and acquitted of all wrong doings and never to be brought up again. Thus, I was left opened with a non-assuming role as a reader to hear what you had to say about Kevin Rudd's national apology.

I enjoyed your frankness about the intent of Rudd's apology and learned that no matter what status, creed, or age one is who gives an apology, that not all ears will receive it in the way that you intended it. I do agree with Immanuel Kant's assertion that the moral worth of an act lies not in its commission but in its intention but, however, are even capable at deciphering responses and other people's actions, let alone our own speeches? Jeremiah 17:9-10 affirms, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? "I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." Therefore, I am assume that your take on the apology weighs more on the issue at hand but I implore you to consider at what point do we forgive and never bring up one's past deeds or to cast off one's apology on the accusation of ulterior motives embedded into the intentions/heart of the action.

Furthermore, what would be an apology or how would an apology be read to your standards and would you actually accept it or would you still remember the injustices of that particular race of people?

Religion: Identity

2 weeks ago at the University of Southern California Michael Alexander, from Temple University, gave a lecture at The Casden Institute for the Study of Jews in American Life on Minstrelsy as a discourse on how Jews used this form of entertainment to rise economically as well as to identify with the African American struggle. The term Minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety of acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in black face. Minstrel shows portrayed blacks in stereotypical ways as ignorant Upon researching this method of entertainment, its roots are well into the late 17th century were slaves were portrayed as slow and musical people. When the Jews were under persecution in Europe and were segregated by the known citizens, it was a smart strategy to find a way back into society through the guise of another race while identifying with their own heritage. However, can a group of people or even a few people seem to resist changing their identity in order to fit in and become like the very people they disliked upon entering that land? Can a few people actually hold fast to their heritage and upbringing without selling it out to degrading another culture?

During Professor Alexanders' lecture, he also mentioned that Minstrelsy is a racially unjust tradition that Jews in the late 19th and early 20 th Century practiced to gain a foot hole in American lime light. Which brings us to the discussion about whether our Identities enable us to be fixed and unmovable by societies waves of injustice. The word Identity according Domaine de Nianing - Novara - Oxford - Bydgoszcz - Bern 2002 states that the word comes from the Latin "idem" meaning 'the same' or "identidem" that means 'repeatedly,' 'in the same way.' Referring to a human being, these characteristics do not seem to portray very appealing/interesting traits." By this assertion, even identity seems to be a stagnant and dull reality for this dynamic phase shifting construct of reality that we live in and to go against the grain seems illogical and foolish. However I assert that this is exactly what is needed in a changing environment, and thus our identity can not shift to one thing after another to suit society. Rather it is not so much as how strong our Identity is but instead what it is anchored in. For instance, in the spirit of honoring Black History month, I inject that it was because of Dr. Martin Luther King's resolve, and assured religious background and teaching that kept him grounded in his quest despite the resistance , as well as Harriet Tubman determination to free her people form the slavery of her time.

When situations were unbearable, these two heroes of African Americans staid the course and fought for their agenda without resorting to penetrating the stereotypes of another race or their own. However, I can not say the same for Bill Kersands, James A. Blaud, San Lucas, and Wallace King who became famous African American men in the Minstrel shows as much as any white performer just about sixty years after Harriet Tubman's view of using ones craftiness for the good of her own people.

In conclusion, Religion has sameness and rigidity in quality that allows it to stand the test of time and to allow its followers a path of joy even though they are going through turmoil where they can still, and still fight for what they believe in with out missing a beat. It has a since of a moral backbone that will not falter under pressure from the world and will give their constituents a quality resilience of being hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. Upon what foundation is your Identity built on, sand or on a rock?