Identificational repentance hits a new low as U.S. and Swiss Amish go to Israel to apologize for their silence during the Holocaust

Here's more evidence that you can't be a satirist anymore. To quote Winston Churchill out of context, "Here, surely, is the world's record in the domain of the ridiculous and the contemptible..."

A particularly ludicrous example of what I addressed in my posts Identificational Repentance and Grovelling Christianity was reported by Jonah Mandel in the Jerusalem Post on November 28, 2010:

Representatives of the Amish community from the United States and Switzerland paid a visit to the Western Wall on Saturday night, where they asked the Jewish people’s forgiveness for their group’s silence during the Nazi extermination of Jews in the Holocaust.

Part of what made the visit special was that the Amish, a sect of the Mennonite Church that largely rejects modern technology, do not normally use contemporary forms of transportation such as the aircraft on which they made the journey to the Holy Land. It is likely that this delegation does not represent the Amish at large, rather their faction of the larger church.

But according to an announcement issued by the office of Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, with whom the group met, the Amish delegates saw great importance in coming to Israel and expressing their contrition, as well as declaring their unreserved support of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

The delegation members stressed that they were neither seeking any kind of gesture from the Jewish people nor looking to proselytize – only to support Israel for the simple reason that in the past they hadn’t.

Rabinovitch was presented with various tokens at a ceremony in the Hasmonean chamber, including a parchment with a request for forgiveness in the name of the entire Amish community, along with a commitment that from now on, it would loudly voice its support of the Jewish people, especially in the wake of the expressions of hatred by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his extensions.

The delegation left Israel on Sunday.

I suppose the lives of millions of Jews in Europe could have been saved in World War II if only the Amish had spoken up for them. Just how many Amish--especially in the United States--were aware of what was happening to the Jews under Hitler? I suspect they were barely aware there was a war going on. As far as I know, the Inuit (or, to use a label now out of fashion, "Eskimos") of the Canadian Arctic also didn't speak up for the Jews during World War II, so maybe they should now go to Israel to issue an apology (which would actually be a refreshing change, since in the last 20 years, the Inuit have been successful at demanding--and getting--apologies for wrongs that were never done to them; but that's a subject that may be addressed in a future post).

Identificational repentance strikes again: University of Manitoba apologizes for sins it didn't commit

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, Romans 1:22

Anyone who has experience dealing with university bureaucracies knows that people in high positions in academia are usually spineless wimps. An egregious example is University of Manitoba President David Bernard, who has apologized to Indian students for abuses they suffered in Indian residential schools--even though the university had nothing to do with the residential schools. Jonathan Kay of the Canadian newspaper National Post offered an excellent commentary on October 27, 2011 (published as an editorial titled U Manitoba's guilty conscience in the October 28 print edition):

Sometimes, we hyper-polite Canadians just can’t resist playing to stereotype — like the one that says we’re always apologizing, even for things that aren’t our fault. Witness the University of Manitoba, whose President, David Barnard, has formally apologized to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for his institution’s role in Canada’s residential school system.

According to the Winnipeg Free Press, this “is believed to be the first time a Canadian university has apologized for having a role in that dark chapter in the country’s history.” That shouldn’t surprise us — because Canadian universities didn’t have any “role” to apologize for: This country’s post-secondary institutions neither funded nor operated Indian residential schools. Those roles were filled by the government and by churches.

Nevertheless, “we [the university community] have educated the people who became clergy and teachers and politicians and became involved in the [residential-school system],” Mr. Barnard told the media this week. And then, in his formal statement on Thursday, he added: “Our institution failed to recognize or challenge the forced assimilation of Aboriginal peoples and the subsequent loss of their language, culture and traditions. That was a grave mistake. It is our responsibility. We are sorry.”

Mr. Barnard’s gesture takes political correctness and White guilt into the realm of farce. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad studied at the St. Mary’s group of teaching hospitals in London, England — yet we are unaware of that institution’s president apologizing for this year’s brutal crackdown against Syrian dissidents. There is not a large university in the world whose graduates do not include criminals and bigots. Are they all expected to apologize for the misdeeds of their students? What comes next for U Manitoba, we wonder? Will Mr. Barnard apologize to the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the Manhattan Project contributions of University of Manitoba alumnus Louis Alexander Slotin (1910-1946)?

Many aspects of the residential-school system were indeed appalling: the forced separation of child from parent, episodes of brutal corporal punishment and sex abuse, untreated diseases. Yet many graduates of residential schools never had these experiences, and speak fondly of their time there — or at least acknowledge the good intentions of most instructors, and the decent education they received. These latter aspects of residential schools have become taboo to discuss: The official story now has become that the entire system was a sort of concentration camp staffed by cackling Gestapo. As a result, institutions such as the University of Manitoba have been encouraged to view themselves, ludicrously, as Canada’s answer to IG Farben.

When pressed for details about what role the university had in residential schools, Mr. Barnard was vague. The university president couldn’t even tell reporters for certain whether any current U Manitoba professor had ever taught any student who was involved in any way with a residential school. “We’re focused on moving forward,” he said.

But he’s not moving forward: The act of apologizing for something done by neither Mr. Barnard, nor by any of his colleagues, nor even by the university itself, is inherently backward-looking. It’s worse than backward-looking, in fact: The President is actively fetishizing the past, looking for guilt where none fairly exists.

What’s worse, these apologies never really please anybody — they just invite more complaints and demands.

Four years ago, for instance, an open letter of apology appeared in Quebec’s francophone newspapers, signed by the Archbishop of Quebec City, Marc Cardinal Ouellet. “I recognize that the narrow attitudes of certain Catholics, prior to 1960, favoured anti-Semitism, racism, indifference toward First Nations and discrimination against women and homosexuals,” he declared. “I also recognize that abuses of power and cover-ups have, for many, tarnished the image of the clergy … Youngsters were subject to sexual aggression by priests and religious figures, causing great injury and trauma which have broken their lives. These scandals have shaken popular confidence toward religious authorities and we understand this.”

Perhaps the Archbishop thought this would please the Catholic Church’s critics. Instead, as George Jonas noted at the time in these pages, the letter set off what the CBC described as “a storm of criticism from gay groups to women’s organizations,” which considered the apology insincere.

There always is something self-serving and posturing about such generations-late apologies: They purport to increase the moral bona fides of the person offering contrition, but on someone else’s moral dime. “Not being a Catholic, or even religious, it’s certainly not for me to raise questions about anything a leading churchman might say, but it seems to me that expressing contrition for what one didn’t do is an unauthorized claim for a reward to which one isn’t entitled,” Mr. Jonas wrote in 2007. “It’s charging someone else’s account to derive a benefit for oneself. It’s grandchildren sauntering into history’s apothecary to buy a bottle of forgiveness, saying: ‘charge it to our grandfather.’ Sorry, but grandfather may not acknowledge the debt. (Mine certainly wouldn’t.) One can meaningfully apologize only for oneself, whether one is a person, a nation or a generation.”

If Mr. Barnard has done some nasty thing personally, out with it. But since, to our knowledge, he hasn’t, he should keep his all-too-Canadian, all-too-guilty apologies to himself. They do nothing to honour his school, or remedy the past historical wrongs with which his university is only obliquely connected.

Go here to see the transcript of Dr. Bernard's apology, and here for a question and answer session between Dr. Bernard and Kathryn Blaze Carlson of the National Post.
I've already made my position on such things clear in my posts Identificational Repentance and Grovelling Christianity. I recently sent a long-overdue email (which may be the basis of a future post) to certain "journalists" and Canadian government leaders setting the record straight on the Conservative Harper government's 2010 apology for the relocation of Inuit people from Port Harrison, Quebec to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay, Northwest Territories in the 1950s. Lives were saved, and there was nothing to apologize for, but the Conservative Harper government issued an apology (thereby turning actual heroes into official criminals)--which is the number one reason--of many--why that party has permanently lost my vote.

Grovelling Christianity

I’m a Christian, but I’m also a white person (and not ashamed of it), and as such, I’m becoming increasingly nauseated with grovelling before politically-correct minority groups. In the secular realm, the government of Trudeaupia (formerly Canada) is one of the worst offenders in this regard. The current Prime Minister, Stephen "The Great Groveller" Harper and his errand boy Jason Kenney (Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multiculturalism) can’t seem to find enough groups to apologize to.

I took great offense when The Great Groveller apologized to the Chinese in Canada in 2006 because early in the 20th Century Canada had charged a head tax to Chinese workers entering the country, and eventually enacted immigration laws that barred further immigration from China. It would probably come as a shock to Messrs. Harper and Kenney that white Canadians of an earlier era would themselves have been shocked to be accused of doing anything that merited an apology. I think "chronological arrogance" is the term that Joseph Sobran used when referring to the criticism of those from earlier times because they didn’t see things as people in our time see them. To Canadians of the early 20th Century, the idea of a "multicultural" nation would have been suicidal, and an oxymoron: to the people of those days, a nation was mainly an identifiable people group that had important things in common, such as ethnicity, language, and religion (indeed, the New Testament Greek words for "nation" are ethnos, genos, and allophulos; all of them refer to a race or people, rather than a political entity). Canadians viewed their country as one of white Europeans (mainly English-speaking, with a loyalty to Britain and British institutions, and a belief in some form of Christianity), with one mainly French-speaking province (also composed of white people of European descent, mostly Roman Catholic). The people of Canada thought it was necessary for the nation to be as homogeneous as possible; to change the racial makeup of the population would be to change the country for the worse, and they didn’t want the country to be changed. That’s why they charged the head tax to Chinese coming to work in Canada--if they couldn’t discourage these people from entering Canada, they would at least make them pay for the privilege.

As for the Chinese, they weren’t brought here as slaves, and they weren’t held as prisoners. They agreed to the terms of employment, which were better than anything they would have had at home, and ended up better off than if they’d stayed in China. Although they weren’t paid as much as white workers, they were free to take their earnings back to China, where those earnings were regarded as a small fortune. The Edmonton Journal of June 27, 2006 published an obituary of Fong Ping Mah, whose husband was one of those workers who came from China to Canada and paid the head tax. He made several trips back to China, where the money he had earned in Canada enabled his family to be regarded as wealthy capitalists. Why should these people receive an apology?

A similar apology was issued to Canadians of Indian descent (from India, that is) in 2008 for the incident in 1914 when the Japanese ship Komagata Maru, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab (mostly Sikhs, with smaller numbers of Muslims and Hindus) was prevented from docking at Vancouver, and was sent back to India. By 1914 Canada, as a Dominion, had control over her own immigration, and was increasingly enacting laws and regulations restricting non-white immigration. Those on the Komagata Maru were deliberately trying to force their way into a country where they knew they wouldn’t be welcome. The government of the province of British Columbia and the government of Canada both made it clear that these passengers (except for 24 who had complied with the regulations) weren’t welcome. Far from apologizing for the incident, I applaud the B.C. and Canadian governments of 1914 for standing up for the interests of the country; given the way that some Sikhs have behaved since they were allowed into Canada, I think the governments of the early 20th Century showed unusual wisdom. For those white people of a politically-correct persuasion who think such a view is horribly racist, consider the results of unrestricted Chinese and Indian immigration. Just on numbers alone, it would be only a matter of time until whites would become a minority in their own country; if you think this would produce a harmonious nation, look at the effect that Muslim immigration is having on western Europe today. The millions of Mexicans illegally pouring across the border into the United States are having an extremely negative effect on that country. As Mark Steyn says, diversity is great for the world, but not for a country.

I’m just as nauseated by professing Christians who think that the best way to reach some people groups is by grovelling before them, confessing sins (usually in the past, and usually committed by others) which may be real, but may also be imaginary. The target groups are often quite happy to exploit the guilt feelings for their own benefit. I don’t see any of this grovelling Christianity in the New Testament.

I have no problem with apologies being made and compensation paid to actual victims of injustice, but I’m sick and tired of white people, especially white Christians, allowing themselves to be played for suckers. In the Christian realm, we see this in the case of Indian (i.e., First Nations, Native, Aboriginal, or whatever such term you prefer) residential schools, where actual sins were committed; those sins have been confessed and repented of, and restitution has been made (as an aside, the residential schools situation is an example of the dangers of "faith-based initiatives," where churches carry out the social agenda of the state). Some professing Christians insist on confessing and repenting on behalf of others, even if the sins were committed by those who falsely claimed to be Christians. This makes the professional repenters look very pious, and there are those among the victim group(s) who are happy to encourage the guilt feelings of the repenters. An example of this can be found in the Response to the Prime Minister’s Apology to Aboriginal Peoples by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s Aboriginal Ministries Council. The response (an abridged version of which may be found here (on page 10)) was written by Ray Aldred, Assistant Professor of Theology at Ambrose University College, and Chair of the EFC’s Aboriginal Ministries Council. Below are some quotes from Dr. Aldred’s statement, followed by my comments.

I hope that when Canadians heard their government’s apology there were not those who said, "It wasn’t me, I don’t need to apologize."

Well, I’m one Canadian who says, "It wasn’t me, I don’t need to apologize." I’m perfectly willing to confess and repent of my own sins, but I resent being called on to confess and repent of sins that were committed by others, especially when those sins were committed before I was born (I can’t verify the accuracy of the list of residential schools as it appears in Wikipedia, but I found only one school on that list that opened after I was born, and almost all the schools had closed before I reached the age of 20). This is where identificational repentance comes in (see previous post). Certain professing Christians (especially those of the Charismaniac/Dominionist ilk) are of the view that if there is spiritual darkness or resistance to the Gospel in a particular area, it’s because there is a curse handed down from previous generations because of a sin or sins that occurred. It’s then necessary to conduct an investigation of the spiritual history of the area to determine when and how the area came under a curse. If and when the sin is identified, it must be confessed and repented of in order for the curse to be broken and reconciliation to take place.

This is contrary to scripture: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Ezekiel 18:20

In addition to the pagan nature of the spiritual warfare worldview with which IR is associated (see previous post), a problem I have with identificational repentance is the arrogance of those who presume to repent on behalf of people who: (a) may not have wanted to repent; (b) may not have thought they did anything requiring repentance; and (c) may have been right about (b) (e.g., the immigration issues cited above).

Let me suggest the theme of restorative justice. An attempt at reconciliation which might help us to think through what has happened in the apology because what has happened in Canada is not primarily a breakdown in law, but a breakdown in relationship. We need restorative justice because it is aimed at repairing relationship. Thus, when trying to walk in the theme of restorative justice there are three large tasks, according to Rev. Dr. Pierre Allard: Tell the truth; really listen; come up with a shared plan to repair the damage.

Let me suggest three tasks that Canadian evangelicals need to take in order to be better agents of reconciliation and that might help Canada in the continuation of walking toward restorative justice.

Task #1 A universalism of intention, not pretension (walking in the light of 1 John; the one who says they are without sin is a liar and the truth is not in him): Tell the truth.

When it came to residential schools the country and often the evangelical Church denied the truth by not acknowledging their responsibility for residential schools. But everyone was implicated by the residential schools, either because they ran residential schools or they stood by and did nothing to attempt to stop them.

In fact, it isn’t a denial of truth for evangelical churches not to acknowledge responsibility for residential schools. It wasn’t the evangelical churches that were operating these schools (I found one Baptist school and a few non-denominational ones on the Wikipedia list), but the mainline churches. More than half were run by the Roman Catholic church, and almost all the rest by the Anglican and United (and before they united, Methodist and Presbyterian) churches. Get your apologies from them, Dr. Aldred. And if you’re going to hold everyone guilty because they "did nothing to attempt to stop them," you may as well make similar accusations against the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles because they didn’t do anything to stop slavery in their society.

Task #3 Reconciliation, repentance, restoration (How can two walk together unless they both agree?): Come up with a shared plan.

I wonder if we will be ready in the years ahead to come up with a real plan to repair the damage. We must not let ourselves stop short of this.

Let’s see now: there’s already been an official apology from the federal government; a settlement agreement paying compensation to all victims has been implemented (and those victims who chose to opt out of the agreement were able to apply for compensation through other means); a Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been formed as part of the settlement agreement; and healing funds have been available from the government and churches for the last decade. I think most Canadians would say that justice has now been served, and the debt has now been paid. If people such as Dr. Aldred continue to belabour their grievances, it will show that the issue is no longer one of "restorative justice," but about exploiting white guilt feelings in order to keep extorting as much money as possible. This won’t result in reconciliation, but in resentment. I’m reminded of the episode of M*A*S*H where Corporal Klinger was injured while saving Major Winchester’s life, and Major Winchester felt obligated to do good works for Corporal Klinger while he recuperated. Corporal Klinger took advantage of this to the point where Major Winchester said, "Max, there is a fine line between good Samaritan and abused toady--and I am teetering on the precipice!"

I’ve noticed two things about the "reconciliation movement:" (1) It’s always a one-way street, with white people, especially white Christians, doing all the confessing and repenting (an 18th Century Canadian ancestor of mine had his ears cut off by Indians, but I have yet to hear any apology from Indians for that act--although I don't hold today's Canadian Indians responsible for it); (2) It seems to be a perpetual process of confessing and repenting that never seems to arrive at a point where the aggrieved group will say that final reconciliation has taken place.

May 30, 2012 update: Something I should have posted a few weeks ago: That last paragraph has been proven wrong, at least in one recent example. As reported by Nick Martin in the Winnipeg Free Press, April 16, 2012:

There were sweetgrass and tobacco, solemn tradition intermingling with laughter, unspeakable memories and hope for the future, dancing and a feast, cultures coming together.

Archdiocese of Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber was the central figure at Thunderbird House Saturday, still humbled and trying to come to grips with the generosity of spirit that would allow aboriginal people to show forgiveness for the church's role in residential schools.

Weisgerber was adopted Saturday as a brother by Bert and Phil Fontaine, and elders Fred Kelly and Tobasonakwut Kinew, the first such traditional Naabaagoodiwin ceremony celebrated as an act of reconciliation.

"I was very honoured. I was blown away," said Weisgerber, dressed in his traditional black robes and a pair of moccasins. "I've never had a brother. Now I've got four."

Weisgerber spoke repeatedly about the generosity of aboriginal people. "They're the ones who've been hurt.

"As colonials, we're the ones who made the error 125 years ago," said Weisgerber, who acknowledged the damage his church had done to aboriginal people and their culture.

All Manitobans must make the commitment to reconciliation, the archbishop said. "All of us have to do this.

"The heart of reconciliation is forgiveness. There has to be a change of heart. There's a lot of racism on both sides of the divide," he said. "I believe we have a very long way to go, but it's a road worth travelling."

Former Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine issued his own apology -- to the Catholics who had shown goodness, but whom he had for years "tarred with the same brush" in "indiscriminately" expressing his bitterness and anger at his treatment as a child in the residential schools.

"That was unfair," Fontaine said. "I've been thinking about this for a long time. It's been a struggle to find some balance in this tragic history."

Fontaine said there were long discussions among the four men before the adoption proposal was put to Weisgerber.

"The community had to be willing to adopt Archbishop Weisgerber," he said.

It was Weisgerber who three years ago asked Pope Benedict XVI to meet with residential school survivors, Fontaine pointed out.

That wasn't a universally popular idea in the Catholic Church, said Weisgerber, "But once the Pope said yes...." Weisgerber said he has been receiving emails from clergy across the country since word broke about the adoption.

Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said he has not contacted other aboriginal leaders about the adoption ceremony.

"This is an initiative led by individuals. It's not a political initiative," Nepinak said. "I'm honoured to be here. This is an historic event. My mom went to residential schools, her mom went, and her mom's mum went."

Nepinak said Saturday's ceremony was a combination of the "relatively recent arrival of the Roman Catholic Church and its ceremonies" and ages-old aboriginal ceremonies.

Kinew told the community gathering "the ceremony means we are now prepared to move ahead... I want to leave residential schools behind me because I want to live my life in a good way."

This is a refreshing change, which does come as a surprise to this blogger; let's hope that this isn't an isolated example, and that things move in the direction of true reconciliation.

Identificational Repentance

One of the more annoying fads to come into evangelicalism in recent years is identificational repentance, where Christians take it upon themselves to publicly confess and repent of the sins of their ancestors, supposedly to break demonic strongholds so that God can then work miracles, and cities and nations can then be "taken for God." As is so often the case, the movement originated with Charismaniac Dominionists. Herescope has an excellent article on IR.

Identificational repentance is connected with a spiritual warfare worldview, which believes that life consists of a constant battle between good and bad, light and dark spiritual forces, and that we must use shamans prayer warriors to find out what these forces are and what they’re up to in order to appease them or break their grip. Bob DeWaay, pastor of Twin City Fellowship in Minneapolis, Minnesota, formerly subscribed to the spiritual warfare worldview. His written commentary on the subject may be download in pdf or html . I particularly recommend downloading Pastor DeWaay’s radio broadcasts of May 22 and 29, 2006; and December 1; 8; 15; and 22, 2008. Pastor DeWaay explains that the spiritual warfare worldview is basically a pagan worldview dressed in Christian terminology, where being in Christ isn’t enough in itself to provide for a victorious life.

In 2001 the Evangelical Alliance in the United Kingdom, whose slogan is the Dominionist-sounding "Uniting to Change Society," published several articles promoting IR which may be found here. The one I'll be quoting from is Identificational Repentance--Is it Necessary? Is it Biblical? by Frank Green.

According to Mr. Green:

Identificational repentance is a term coined by John Dawson in Healing America’s Wounds to describe a type of prayer which identifies with and confesses before God the sins of one’s nation, city, people group, church or family. It may also involve formally apologising to or asking forgiveness of representatives of the victims of the corporate sins (such as white Christians repenting of racism and asking a representative group of black people for forgiveness in a public ceremony)...

As a practice, identificational repentance has been encouraged in the context of mission, especially by those with a strong spiritual warfare slant to their ministry. They argue that the corporate sins of a nation or city form a major obstacle to the revival God wants to bring and that when the Church takes time to investigate and research the history of her nation/city, the Holy Spirit will reveal to her the specific roots of that which blocks the blessing. The next steps are the same as those taken by an individual who turns to God but with the added dimension of the involvement of a group of intercessors:

1. Identify the national sin
2. Confess the sin
3. Apply Christ’s blood
4. Walk in obedience and repair the damage

Mr. Green, typical of the promoters of IR invokes II Chronicles 7:14 (If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.) and Exodus 20:5b (...for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me) in support of identificational repentance. However, he takes both of these verses out of context. The context of II Chronicles 7:14 is the dedication of Solomon’s temple in Israel under the Old Testament. The land is Israel. The church of Jesus Christ is now under the New Testament, and no specific land is promised to the church.

In the case of Exodus 20:5b, H.L. Ellison explains in his book Fathers of the Covenant (pp.109-110) that three and four generations was the normal family group in Israel at the time. The preceding verses in Exodus 20 were warning against having too small a view of God. If a great-grandfather held to this inadequate view of God, the resulting sins would affect all those under his roof down to the great-grandchildren. I find it interesting that the IR proponents never mention Exodus 20:6 (And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments). The thousands in this case refers to generations. Why do the IR proponents always invoke the "curse" verse and not the "blessing" verse that immediately follows?

Mr. Green invokes the examples of Nehemiah and Daniel in support of IR. Once again, this occurred in Israel under the Old Testament. The church is now under the New Testament, and we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our priest; we don’t need a Nehemiah or a Daniel.

Later in his paper, Mr. Green admits:

There is no clear NT reference to it: Jesus never mentioned it, nor did Paul or any of the other NT authors (although, as we have seen, the Hebrew Bible contains numerous examples in the context of the nation of Israel before Jesus came, so it is not an unbiblical activity).

Indeed, one only has to look at the book of Acts. The apostles visited a number of places on their journeys, and never once did they feel it necessary to conduct a spiritual history investigation to find out which demons were afflicting these areas in order to free up God to do His work. Instead, they just proclaimed the Gospel, sinners were saved, and churches were started. In striking contrast, one of the things that’s missing from identificational repentance methodology is the clear presentation of the Gospel. It’s also worth noting that the Epistles, which were written to address issues specific to the church of Jesus Christ, contain no mention of identificational repentance.

Mr. Green does ask a number of questions that other proponents of IR should ask:

Is there a preoccupation with certain types of sin in some circles? The sociological analysis of the spiritual warfare movement frequently sounds like the U.S. Moral Majority or the former Tory Government in the U.K. ...

Is it easier to engage in repentance than mission? John Dawson says that we need to "keep doing it until it’s over." Isn’t this playing directly into the hands of the Enemy by busying ourselves with anything other than actually sharing Good News with lost people, which is supposed to be the primary activity of the Church militant.

How do we know if or when we have "broken through" and actually received the forgiveness for which we are asking? Will there be quantifiable results in the material realm that "breakthrough" has occurred in the spiritual realm?

Perhaps this is the most serious question of all: is it easier to repent of other people’s sins than those of our own? ... There may well be some railway-sleeper sized sins sitting comfortably in the corner of our own eyes that require urgent attention before we start focusing on the specks of dust in our history.

More on how identificational repentance is coming to the fore in evangelical and government circles in Trudeaupia (formerly Canada) will be in the next post.