Sometimes, an apology is the only, albeit difficult solution. That being said, I am sorry, truly and deeply sorry.
I'm sorry that we've allowed stereotypes to shape our views in ways we always said we wouldn't. I'm sorry we have become a people synonymous with "judgmental," with "hypocritical," with "hateful."
I'm sorry that we've embraced a tainted culture and that our congregations distort scripture under the guidance of flawed leaders. I'm sorry that we have become an inward-focused, sycophantic clique under those very same leaders who are more concerned with their social status than the well-being of their fellow man.
I'm sorry that we don't practice what we preach, that we knowingly go against our own doctrine. I'm sorry that we've discounted and undermined the message of our Savior to the point where no one wants it anymore, to where you don't want it anymore. I'm sorry that we've allowed the unthinkable to happen; we've allowed a life-giving Hope to become something undesirable to those who need it most.
I'm not going to make excuses for our actions or lean against the cosmic crutch of "human nature" to absolve our people of the guilt we should feel for our actions. If darkness is the absence of light, then we have succumbed to that void, embraced its chill, and fallen silent and still to its power. The light that should shine through us has been dimmed and dulled to a grain-sized glimmer of a reflection of a spark beneath layers of inexcusable behavior.
We have created a religious autocracy to replace our community of prayer, and in doing so, we've dripped poison into the remedy we were created to be. Worse, we've put the poison in an attractive glass, filled it to the brim, and tipped it against the lips of your children, our children, our future.
We're more focused on trying to make sin a quantifiable equation to be multiplied and added and ranked than we are introducing people to the One who takes sin away, the eternal minus sign. We've become sin-seeking missiles trained on sexuality and abortion and whatever hot button the conservative agenda is currently pushing. We're trained to obliterate our targets rather than to love them.
We've perpetuated a sickness in the Middle East with the wrongful damnation of a people as a whole rather than the radicals that besmirch their existence, enforcing their doctrine through violence and a deep, unrelenting hatred of their own. We've neglected to aid a hurting people, we've neglected to mourn their dead, and our knees have yet to hit the floor in prayer for their relief.
We've aided in the erection of walls segregating faces of our brothers and sisters based on their complexion. These walls stretch higher everyday, the mortar thickening at the expense of unborn children whose tiny, undeveloped ears have already been exposed to gunshots echoing off the walls of their mothers' wombs, echoes of an unfounded hatred.
And it runs deeper than black versus white, east versus west, "religious" versus secular. There is an infection, a curse, an evil in the lifeblood of our people that has left us vulnerable to the petrification of our hearts. Where believers once met the world with unyielding love and a message of unprejudiced hope, they now cling to cold, bitter stone.
As sad as it is, rarely do Christians represent the former half of their title. So, for what it's worth, I am truly and deeply sorry.
If you don't take anything else away from this apology, please don't look to us. We will only fail you.
Look to Him.
