Today, on the Christian Scholars Review blog Missing Good Friday: Forgetting to Teach Forgiveness, Perry Glanzer inquires,
Can you imagine a culture that does not teach the virtue of forgiveness? Actually, I found one conducting my doctoral dissertation research in 1994-95. While interviewing educators from Russia and Ukraine who had taught communist moral education and were now learning Christian moral education, I asked the teachers to compare the two ethical systems. Of course, they noted similarities, such as “be kind, be friendly, don’t try to offend, don’t kill, don’t be cruel, don’t kill your brother, or something like that” (personal interview, 4/26/95). That is what natural revelation gets you in an ideologically corrupt country.
Yet, repeatedly, interviewees shared about important differences. One startling truth they shared was that communist ethics never taught them about the redemptive virtue of forgiveness. For example, Larissa claimed, “Communist ideology never taught us to ask for forgiveness.” Olga echoed this point: “We weren’t taught to forgive; thus, we never knew what forgiveness is or never knew how to forgive. Christianity is based on that” (personal interview, 10/24/94). This new teaching had a profound personal influence upon teachers.
Teachers perceived that this unique virtue of forgiveness made a difference in other ethical areas. Under communism, as a teacher from St. Petersburg described, the fear of making mistakes and being punished penetrated the system to such a degree that people lied to cover their mistakes.
This teacher believed that the lack of an ethic of forgiveness contributed to communism’s culture of lies.
Glanzer offers several observations that contrast the Communist dogma versus Western teachings that have been grounded in and shaped by Christian teachings from the gospel of Christ Jesus.
Glanzer’s blog article prompts me to add another significant observation, one that he does not address and perhaps has not considered. The Communist dogma of no forgiveness has now come to dominate Western culture wherever advocates of Diversity-Equity-Inclusion (DEI) hold sway, which currently includes all U.S. federal government agencies, many states where Democrat governors hold power, most colleges and universities (both state-funded and private, including Christian institutions), and even large swaths of churches (Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical). Most advocates of DEI become angry when they are identified as Communists because they fail to realize that they are those Useful Idiots of whom Vladimir Lenin boasted long ago.
Integral to the earlier iterations of Diversity-Equity-Inclusion, such as Multiculturalism & Diversity, and essential to its current forms (Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, etc.) is the never satisfied demand for all so-called White People to grovel in penance, always confessing their inescapable guilt of participating in Systemic Racism. They need not engage in racist behavior to incur this Systemic Guilt. They stand condemned by virtue of diminished levels of melanin in their skin tone. Their guilt is due to the White People’s Original Sin invoked by and conveyed by those who stole Africans from their homeland and enslaved them in the colonies of the West. It matters not that few White People’s family lineages trace back to those who engaged in the slave trade. The Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Dogma unequivocally declares all melanin-deficient people culpable of White Guilt. And, thanks to the cleverness of the DEI Dogma, even individuals whose family lineages trace back to Africa via the slave trade, incur White Guilt unless they embrace the ideology of DEI Dogma. Hence, because individuals such as Justice Clarence Thomas, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Benjamin Carson, Carol Swain, Candace Owens, Kristina Karamo, and Marla Helseth oppose the DEI dogma, they stand accused of White Guilt.
Because the Racial Justice of the Diversity-Equity-Inclusion gods knows nothing of mercy or grace its gospel concerning Retributive Justice and Restorative Justice abandons the accused to utter hopelessness. The accused are destined for condemnation apart from finding some reprieve in Allyship Purgatory (aka, the Home of Useful Idiots who embrace the DEI Dogma) where DEI Allies attempt to allay their false culpability as they dreamily hope of fully purging themselves of White Guilt. From culpability for the fabricated Original Sin of White Guilt there is no hope of redemption and salvation. This is true not only because the sin is falsified but also because the wrath of the DEI gods is entirely insatiable. Hence the DEI gospel imposes an unappeasable justice that requires the accused to grovel in endless efforts to placate the implacable demands of Restorative Justice imposed by the DEI gods.
Many individuals, corporations, presidents of academic institutions, and pastors of churches hope to satisfy the insatiable DEI gods by publicly virtue signaling their allegiance. Many gladly buy DEI Indulgences, filling the BLM Coffers with unconscionably large sums of money. Beyond the instantaneous but momentary quelling of the conscience that virtue-signaling brings, they have no regard for what the millions of dollars might purchase. The BLM Tetzel Triumvirate—Cullors, Garza, and Tometi—exploit the millions from the Indulgence Box on mansions. This is of no concern to willing donors who crave the elusive public absolution of their pseudo guilt This lust for absolution incites their donations, however large or small. Corrupt though he was, at least John Tetzel preached that the Indulgences he sold were effective: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / the soul from purgatory springs.” The purchase of the BLM Indulgences entails no such assurances for the BLM Indulgence Box is bottomless just as the BLM gods are merciless and graceless.
In Christ Jesus alone are all aspects of justice satisfied: (1) Distributive; (2) Procedural; (3) Retributive; and (4) Restorative. Only the God who reveals himself in Holy Scripture has the authority in Christ Jesus: (1) to distribute justice in keeping with people’s deeds; (2) to process equity to every person; (3) to punish evildoers accordingly; and (4) to restore and reconcile all things whether on earth or in heaven, establishing peace by the sacrificial death of Christ Jesus on the cross.
Long ago, Martin Luther opposed the message of sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism exhibited in John Tetzel’s sale of Indulgences. He proclaimed the good news as it is in Jesus, the gospel of the free and complete forgiveness of sins. Today, the gospel Luther preached is under assault by a message that trades heavily upon the Christian gospel but is no gospel at all. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ obligates us to oppose the Communist Dogma that hijacks the language and concepts of the Christian gospel and fills them up with seductive but utterly spurious content that strikes at the very essence of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today, this Good Friday, I urge you to turn from every seductive and vain “gospel,” including the Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Dogma with its perverted and vindictive teachings concerning justice, and flee to Christ Jesus who alone offers effectual forgiveness of sins. He has made a complete atonement. He has satisfied his Father’s wrath against sinners. Come to him! Repent! Trust him! To everyone who repents, Christ grants forgiveness of sins, the declaration of justification before God. In Christ Jesus, God’s Last Day verdict of acquittal is brought forward. This is the assuring message of the good news Jesus, his apostles, and his faithful ministers today proclaim. And it is so because Jesus Christ bore the wrath of God as he hung upon that Roman cross on that Black Friday, transforming that day into Good Friday.