As Peter Leithart reminds us in his book Against Christianity, the Church is not a group of people who gather because they share a set of ideas, practices, or goals. “Christian community … is not an extra ‘religious layer’ on social life. The Church is not a club for religious people. The Church is a way of living together before God, a new way of being human together.” The Church is a culture unto itself, and as such it makes claims on its people that are different than those made by secular cultures. Often those claims stand in direct opposition to one another.
The desire to duck responsibility is not a new thing. But as with so many other human failings, this one has been elevated into the pantheon of modern secular virtues. Did something go wrong? Don’t worry, it couldn’t possibly be your fault—because nothing is your fault. It’s always someone else’s fault. You deserve the best, and the fact that you don’t have it is a cosmic accident, not the consequence of anything you did, or didn’t do. Life is a lottery, random and impersonal, bestowing its joys and sorrows without regard to the worth of its recipients—clearly so, because you deserve the best, and you didn’t get it.
And, as with so many other human failings, politicians are standing by to correct the undesirable consequences of those failings at the drop of a ballot, eager to smooth over life’s rough and uneven landscape for you. They are glad to fill the aching void in your wallet by reducing the unsightly and disconcerting bulge in that other fellow’s wallet. Nothing pleases them more than to lay guilt and shame to the accounts of those who have, so as to impute unearned wealth and privilege and self-esteem to those who have not. Their goal is a sort of cultural heat-death, a triumphant egalitarianism where no one has any more or any less of anything than anyone else.
Such a culture has no room for repentance, because it has no need of repentance. The self is imperial, and its desires are not to be questioned. We are to gloat over those things we have and burn with envy over those things that others have, chuckle over our well-deserved good fortune and rail at the cosmic injustice of our ill fortune. Not being responsible means never having to say you are sorry. And having no room for repentance, inhabitants of such a culture are denied the power of repentance.
Repentance is such a Christian notion that it may seem odd to claim that it might have power in a secular culture—but oddly enough, it does. A truth I learned early on in my marriage, long before I was converted, is that when something went wrong between us, more than enough of the fault was mine to merit an apology and a request for forgiveness, and so there was no reason not to get on with it right away. Not only did that practice keep those long, stewing silences from ever beginning, it gave me an increasing awareness of the depth of my selfishness, along with a vague understanding that such selfishness could only be brought to heel by repeatedly repenting of it.
Which made the words of Jesus all the more powerful once I was granted ears to hear them: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?” (Luke 9:23-25) Even if indulging the imperial self leads us to possess the whole world—and it doesn’t—what good is that, at the price is your true self?
Paul also instructs us to put the self to death, that a true self might take its place, a self that is no longer enslaved to the unquenchable lusts of the flesh: “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1-2).
But how to live such a life on a daily basis, a life of ongoing repentance? No better way than to constantly monitor the self, catching it when it overreaches itself at the expense of others, and repenting: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Phil 2:3-4) Rest easy that life will present you with many opportunities each day to transgress these boundaries, and thus with daily opportunities to repent of your transgressions.
Once we get a bit of practice at recognizing our responsibilities, the repentant life can kick into high gear. Previously clueless fathers like myself will discover an abundance of situations which call for it. Here is a quote from an article by R.C. which smacked me between the eyes—and drove me to my knees—when I first read it.
“Maybe the wife is frazzled because you failed to take out the garbage and the overstuffed garbage pail fell on the newly cleaned floor. That's your fault, and the right response is ‘I'm sorry.’ Maybe she's not so chipper because the children have disobeying left and right. If so, that's your fault too, because you are the one called to raise godly children. Maybe the children are out of control because the wife hasn't been administering discipline the way you patiently explained to her she should. Guess what? It's still your fault. You are responsible to see that she obeys you as surely as you are responsible to see that they obey her.”
May we all embrace the attitude implied here, being diligent to seek out our faults both glaring and hidden, quick to acknowledge our faults and repent of them, and eager to die to our own agenda that we might dedicate ourselves wholly to serving King Jesus.