Delayed apologies can still mend the soul (spiritual reparations)

Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX ^ | January 23, 2004 | Bob Ray Sanders

[schaketo]

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found;

Was blind, but now I see.

These lyrics were always among my mother's favorites, long before she ever heard the composer's name or knew that he had once been the captain of a slave ship.

While the knowledge of the writer's background may have given the song, Amazing Grace, a little more meaning to this black woman who was the descendant of slaves and the victim of years of discrimination, I doubt it.

You see, she already felt it so deeply that I find it hard to imagine that she could have been moved any more by knowledge of the conversion, the confession and the repentance of John Newton.

But maybe.

I am convinced that she had a great respect for a man who could stand up and acknowledge the error of his ways, and for the rest of his life mark the anniversary of the day he saw the light.

Reportedly, it was May 10, 1748, as Newton's homeward-bound ship was being tossed in a ferocious storm and almost certain to be lost, that he cried out, "Lord, have mercy upon us."

It was God's grace that delivered him, he believed, causing him to change his life, go into the ministry and, of course, write one of the most-sung hymns in Christian history.

What my mother could never understand is that while it didn't take Newton very long to understand how un-Godly slavery and discrimination were, it seemed so many latter-day Christians singing his song didn't get it.

Well, I suppose it's never too late to see the light and ask for forgiveness, and in recent years -- very belatedly, I might add -- we've been seeing that happen.

Governments, institutions and especially churches have been doing some soul-searching and apologizing for their parts in, or their silence on, one of the most evil things ever done to humans.

For more than a dozen years there have been a stream of apologies coming from religious organizations that for more than a century basically had ignored the institution of slavery and its effects on a large portion of the nation's citizens.

In 1992, while on a journey to Senegal, Africa, Pope John Paul II apologized for Roman Catholicism's role in aiding the colonial-era importation of African slaves and the subjugation of native people in the New World.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant group, which was founded after splitting with Northern Baptists over the issue of slavery in 1845, apologized in 1995 for the denomination's past and present "sins of racism."

The world community came together in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 and condemned the barbaric slave trade.

In 2000, it was Abilene Christian University's turn. The Texas school, sponsored by the Churches of Christ, publicly confessed "the sins of racism and discrimination." The school was closed to African-Americans during most of its 94-year history, admitting blacks for the first time in 1965.

President Bush, in a speech on Goree Island, Senegal, in 2003, stopped short of apologizing for the nation but did give an accurate and heart-wrenching account of slavery and its impact on Americans of all races.

Then last month the Tarrant Baptist Association, offering what one pastor called "spiritual reparations," unanimously approved an apology for slavery.

Some black members of the association, and other black leaders in Tarrant County, want to see a push for an official apology from the state of Texas. A bill to that effect is likely to be submitted in the next session of the Legislature. Don't hold your breath waiting to see it pass.

As I said, apologies -- if they are sincere -- can be good for the soul of an organization, a state, a church or a people.

[sheltonmac]

So, is the author calling for the African tribes who helped initiate the slave trade to apologize? I'll go along with that.

[bigfootbob]

I want an apology from Rome for enslaving my ancestors. Such BS.

[stevem]

Apologies by blameless people to non-victims are a waste of time and, in cases such as slavery, political correctness run amok. It seems impossible to me that there can be one soul on earth that doesn't have nearly infinite injustice, on the receiving end, in his or her ancestry. Evil is not a recent invention nor is megalomania.

What would be nice is for societies to learn from the past and work to prevent inconceivable evil in the present. It is a good thing to put a stop to it these days wherever it is found when one has the power to do so.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Let those who are guilty of sin, repent of that sin and honestly appologize to whomever they have wronged.

Let those who think somebody else, long dead has sinned--just move on. Anything else is cynical manipulation. And x42 is no longer POTUS.

[Izzy Dunne]

I will sincerely apologize for my part in enslaving black people in the 1800's.
Does anyone feel better now?

[AppyPappy]

I'd feel better with some cash in my hand.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

I'd feel better with some cash in my hand.>>

So would they. Which is the point.

First get them to concede liability. Later on come the damages.

[Kay Syrah]

Well, of course, the evil of slavery is no way to begin a country. It is simply inerasable, but it is not transferable. And its a little like a child conceived in rape; the violence of its beginings should have no bearing of the value of its life. Besides, I like the idea that apologizing is a good thing, and then receiving forgiveness is the result. Lets see that part of the equation. Perhaps a call to forgiveness would go a long way to "heal and give closure."

[Sloth]

You know, I'm about as conservative as they come, and even I'd support reparations to elderly blacks (and others) for the government's failure to protect their Constitutional rights back in the 50s and before.

But this slavery stuff is utter nonsense.

[Izzy Dunne]

I'd feel better with some cash in my hand.

LOL!
Did I know you, back in the 1800's???

[jimfree]

You know, I'm about as conservative as they come, and even I'd support reparations to elderly blacks (and others) for the government's failure to protect their Constitutional rights back in the 50s and before.

I'd even bend in that direction. But not without a full and complete disavowal of any other remedy. We can't keep this as an open wound forever.

[Old Professer]

We've been beating this dead horse so long its bones are turning to dust; it's time to get over it.