Tag: racism

21Feb

Harper Lee Taught us to Stand for What is Right

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One of the memorable educational moments of my junior high years was reading Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, then watching in class the 1962 movie with Gregory Peck. The powerful portrait of racial division and the intricacies of southern life were fascinating then and remain so today. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has been called “The novel of the century” in a poll by The Library Journal.

Her portrait of Atticus Finch resonated through the culture and created an archetypical modern hero. Atticus is an object lesson in integrity, and inspires us to stand up for what is right despite the cost. A great quote has Atticus telling his daughter, Scout, “This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience-Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”

After writing her great novel, Harper Lee shunned publicity and lived a life of semi-seclusion. We know little about her private life and thoughts, other than what she chose to share. One of the reasons she gave for not publishing more novels is “I have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again.” (Interview available here).

She died this week at age 89. She was a lifelong Methodist.

27Jun

Cheap grace

In the aftermath of the tragic shooting in South Carolina, a shockingly racist hate crime, this bit piqued my interest:

What too many whites seem to demand from these families’ statements, however, isn’t really grace. As the journalist Jamelle Bouie pointed out, people like Santorum insist on what the German theologian and anti-Nazi freedom fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” — the “preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance” from those who have sinned. The forgiveness they want is so cheap that I can only call it “Wal-Mart grace”: low-priced but shoddy, destructive of real community and built on exploitation.

Source: LA Times editorial online at: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0625-baptist-charleston-forgiveness-20150625-story.html

The author goes on to suggest a theological error–that whites need to atone for their years of racism.  As if they could do so.  In fact, the heart of the gospel is this:  We cannot atone for our own sins.  Only Jesus can pay that price.

However, while we can’t atone for the past, we can choose a better future.  We go forward trying to live differently, and making what amends we can out of love and gratitude.  The word that the author should have chosen here is the word “repentance”.  This is the word that Bonhoeffer chose. For even as Jesus says “I forgive you”, he also says, “go, and sin no more.”  To do otherwise is indeed to cheapen that precious gift of grace.