For those that remember the heady days of "Promise Keepers," the early years were marvelous, spectacular, and helpful. How I remember serving with Family Life (NY/PA) and helping take bunches of buses to Indianapolis, Washington, Chicago, and I can't remember where else.
Then things got funky. Ecumenicalism reared its wishy-washy head, and then the call for all the white folk to do a kumbaya thing and hug an African American and apologize for racism.
What?
I don't expect a brother to apologize to me for the African Americans in Germany who took shots at my unit after a stupid lieutenant made a (mildly) racist remark. (Literally: "Don't you boys know how to salute an officer?" That is, of course, unless he is one of the particular brothers who took a shot!
Sorry for the mini-rant; but just read a new post from a guy I respect who suggested we honkies should all apologize to African Americans for the racist attitudes of some. (don't know what happened to the Native Americans, Koreans, Japanese, Ethiopians, Mexicans, etc etc etc)
1 comment:
About 20 years ago I apologized to an older African American brother in church. Only time I have ever done something like that. He seemed to appreciate it. We both knew that I had not offended him. But we also knew that older white people were probably not going to apologize for the things that they did to him. Perhaps it was a case of simply trying to encourage a brother in the Lord by letting him know that I was on his side?
All that said, I agree with you about phony hugs at Promise Keepers. Things like that are pretty superficial and really change nothing. If one feels led to apologize to anyone then they should simply obey the Lord.
Appreciate your bloggings Jack.
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