| CARVIEW |
The complexities of forgiving: Part 2 August 6, 2011
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evil, Healing.comments closed
“What would you do?” asks Simon Wiesenthal as he finishes the account of his experience in Karl’s hospital room. Forced to hear the confession of Karl’s atrocities against Jews — and his request to be forgiven — Wiesenthal leaves the room without speaking a single word. (For background, see my previous post — here).
The remainder of The Sunflower contains the responses of over 50 contributors of different religious and philosophical persuasions. Many endorse Wiesenthal’s silent response to Karl; all recognize the enormity of the challenge he faced in Karl’s hospital room and the very important questions raised by Karl’s deeds and his request to be absolved so that he could die in peace.
One of the most compelling reasons not to forgive Karl is the legitimate concern that forgiving such heinous deeds will serve to diminish the horror of the crime and very possibly encourage other people of ill will to perpetrate similar deeds. It has been of urgent importance to many Jews who survived the Holocaust to work tirelessly to keep alive the world’s collective memory of what happened in Nazi Germany. Moreover, many Jews have steadfastly maintained that forgiving those who initiated and participated in such genocidal crimes is unthinkable and would be an unspeakable moral wrong.
I remember Elie Wiesel’s passionate urging in an oval office meeting with President Reagan that he not visit and lay a wreath at the cemetery in Bitburg, Germany because members of the SS were buried there. Reagan did so anyway, an action interpreted as an official declaration of forgiveness by America of Germany’s Nazi past.
The Holocaust was such a searing experience for its Jewish witnesses and survivors that their faith in God was shaken to the core.
Some have answered Wiesenthal’s question by affirming that he was in his right to not forgive because he did not have “standing” to forgive. Karl’s sin that day in Dnepropetrovsk was against the innocent men, women and children who were locked in the house and incinerated. Only they have standing to forgive Karl’s sin. But since they are all dead, no human has the right to forgive Karl.
(One responder suggested that even God did not have standing to forgive Karl, presumably because God could have prevented the Holocaust, but did not).
Other responders suggest that the only possible response to Karl would be to say that he should seek forgiveness from God and God alone. A few would have offered to tell Karl that they would pray to that end.
Back in 1996 I attended a pastor’s Promise Keeper’s event in Atlanta. On the second or third day into the event, a racial reconciliation session was held. As part of it a well-known white Christian leader stood at the podium and confessed, on behalf of his race, many sins committed over several centuries against black Americans. Next, an Hispanic church leader made a similar confession of sins committed by Hispanics against indigenous peoples of Latin America. It is possible, but I do not recall it, that another white Christian leader confessed the sins of white European immigrants against the native American population of the United States. In all cases, the confessors asked for forgiveness of their race.
I do not recall 15 years later that there were any responses made by any representatives of the impressive number of black or native American pastors present. I am almost sure there were not. The confessions were met with silence. Who has the right to speak for his/her race and offer absolution for sins committed by many against many over several centuries? One can also ask if the white and Hispanic leaders who made confession for their races really had standing to do so.
Forgiveness and reconciliation ought not to be easy or done on the cheap. I argued in a previous blog that forgiving is a bloody business. “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin,” said the writer of Hebrews. The immediate reference, of course, was to Jewish altar rituals and to the bloody death of Jesus on the cross. It helps me, however, to apply it more broadly to all acts of forgiveness. Human sin wreaks enormous havoc and damage on individuals and communities. Lives are ended; others tragically shattered. Wounds are deep and, for many, lifelong.
Forgiving ought not to be easy. It needs to be a bloody business.
The complexities of forgiving: Part 1 August 2, 2011
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evil, Healing.comments closed
I have been offering a series of classes on forgiving at the prison where I minister. The idea came from the pre-release material I reviewed while preparing to teach an earlier class on money management. In a checklist of important tasks an inmate should remember as he/she prepared for re-entry, I found this one: “Forgive, forgive, forgive.” I searched the material for even a paragraph or two on what it means to forgive and how one should go about it. Nothing. Hence the idea for the class. I was fortunate to find a teacher who thought it was a great idea and helped me bring it to pass.
In my preparations for teaching I discovered Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Wiesenthal is known largely for his tireless efforts to find Nazis who directly participated in the Third Reich’s program to exterminate Jews. Through his efforts many have been arrested and brought to trial. Wiesenthal died in 2005 at the age of 96.
In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal recounts a dreadful story of being forced to the bedside of a dying soldier of the infamous SS, the powerful wing of the Nazi Party responsible for carrying out what we now call the Holocaust. At the time Wiesenthal was a prisoner at Lemberg concentration camp, living daily in fear of being beaten, attacked by dogs or pulled aside and shot. The soldier, Karl, had been severely wounded in battle and was near death. He had asked his nurse to find a Jew to whom he could make a dying man’s confession.
The sin that assaulted Karl’s conscience was his participation in the murder of several hundred Jews in the Russian town of Dnepropetrovsk. He and his comrades had locked the terrified Jews in a building whose floors had been doused with gasoline. When the building was ablaze and the innocents, children included, attempted to jump through the windows, they were shot and killed before they hit the ground.
Recounting his heinous deeds, Karl gripped Wiesenthal’s hand. He wanted a Jew to hear his confession and forgive him for his sins against the Jews. Wiesenthal withdrew his hand and, without a word, turned and left the room.
Afterwards, Wiesenthal told his experience to fellow prisoners and, after the war, to others. He was in turmoil over Karl’s confession and his decision to walk silently away. When he finished recounting the story in The Sunflower, Wiesenthal asked his readers, “What would you do?”
Dear reader, think about this. I’ll return in a day or two and continue.
“Inside Job” — A review October 30, 2010
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evil, Reviews.comments closed
Most reviewers of “Inside Job” have remarked on the film’s emotional impact. Kenneth Turan said it “will leave you both thunderstruck and boiling with rage.” Another called it “outrageously depressing.” And another: “If you’re not enraged by the end of this movie, you weren’t paying attention.”
This is a film with a point of view. From start to finish filmmaker Charles Ferguson is out to convince us that the meltdown of 2008 — a financial ‘tsunami,’ to quote French finance minister Christine Lagarde — was the consequence of fraud, complicated and insanely risky investment instruments, the hubris and greed of Wall Street executives, non-existent government regulation, and a revolving door between the federal government, Wall Street and academics with huge conflicts of interest.
Ferguson finds several dozen journalists, economists, politicians, government officials, reformers, and bankers who are willing to be interviewed on camera. All of them prove useful to Ferguson’s thesis even when they don’t want to be. For example, the journalists, economists and regulators who saw the danger of an unregulated market in derivatives, and warned of an impending financial catastrophe, help Ferguson prove his thesis. Two others, Glenn Hubbard and Martin Feldstein, both architects of financial deregulation, also help Ferguson make his case by strongly defending the decisions and legislation that created the opportunity to take the system down.
At least a dozen people who wielded great power and influence in government or on Wall Street refused to be interviewed for the film. The most recognizable among them are Ben Bernanke, Lloyd Blankfein, Tim Geithner, Alan Greenspan, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, and Laura Tyson. Declining to defend their decisions and actions, the audience is left with Ferguson’s interpretation of their role in all that took place.
When a film is based in large measure on on-camera interviews, one can’t help but wonder how much of the raw footage ended up on the cutting room floor so that the producer could tell the story exactly the way he or she wanted to. I was left to wonder about the relatively little that was shown of the interview with former Fed Chairman, Paul Volcker. He commented about the excessive executive pay on Wall Street and remarked about how much he used to make when he was a banker. But surely Volcker would have had much more to say about the decisions and the players. Why was it left out?
Even for those of us who have followed the story fairly closely, Ferguson’s look at how academic economists profit handsomely for work done outside the classroom was a new twist. Ferguson tried, and failed, to get the Chairman of Harvard’s Economics Department to admit there are conflicts of interest when his professors are paid to advocate for economic policies and practices that benefit the very institutions that are paying them for that advocacy.
There was little in this film to laugh about. But the funniest segment was the interview with France’s Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde. Looking very somber and serious, she is asked when she first knew that Lehman Brothers was filing for bankruptcy. After the fact, she replies. So what was her first thought upon hearing of the bankruptcy. She paused slightly and intoned gravely, “Holy cow!”
I viewed the film in a small art theatre in Philadelphia with two friends. The theatre was less than half full and probably seated only 100 people. I expected to hear more gasps and groans than were audible to me. But I made up for the deficit and left the theatre deeply troubled.
Outside, my first words to my two friends were these: “We have just seen a graphic example of what Christians in the first century referred to as ‘principalities and powers.'” And a day later I believe this more than when I said it.
Moral hazard; systemic risk October 27, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evil.comments closed
Like millions of others I watched the value of my retirement funds plummet with the stock market last year. Like many others I don’t have especially kind feelings toward the financial institutions who played dice with my money and the national economy. And, like some, I have tried to unpack what exactly happened to bring the entire financial system to the brink of collapse.
So I have learned about derivatives, credit default swaps, CDOs, mortgage backed securities, and other arcane instruments of modern finance. I know what happened to Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Merrill Lynch. I know the names of the powerful government players — Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner, Sheila Bair — as well as the names of the CEOs who played loose and free with other people’s money — Bob Rubin, Dick Fuld, John Thain, Ken Lewis, and others who have possibly regretted their unhappy moments on the evening news (but surely not their huge paychecks and bonuses). And I see, all too well, the revolving door connecting the two groups.
Over the past couple of years we’ve been witness to forces at work that could be described any number of ways. Had they been witnessed by first century Christians, I think they would have described those forces as principalities and powers. The best-known reference in the New Testament is in Ephesians 6.12 — “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Change “the heavenly realms” to “Wall Street and Washington” and it fits quite well, don’t you think?
But this is no joke. Forget the caricatures of devils with horns and pitchforks. We’re way beyond that. This is a story of institutions established to do good — to handle and invest hard-earned money with honesty and integrity — that fell victim to the most depraved of human ambitions and actions. It’s a story of mere mortals — educated and smart, to be sure — but mere mortals nonetheless, who gave themselves over to what John, in his first letter, called “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vain glory of life.” Briefly stated, that is how institutions conceived to do good become demonic. And “demonic” is not too strong a word to use to describe the decisions and actions, of leaders in government as well as the private sector, that have brought the nation to the brink of ruin.
But there is plenty of guilt to go around. John’s description above applies not just to powerful institutions and their CEOs, but to millions of ordinary people who spent like there was no tomorrow, taking on levels of personal debt that only an ever-increasing housing bubble could have supported. To be sure, they were aided and abetted by financial institutions ever eager to capitalize on the human vulnerability to temptations of lust. And, with no cushion whatsoever, millions have been injured by the fall of those institutions on the commanding heights of the economy.
And so we find ourselves deep inside a terrible economic recession. Millions are out of work or underemployed (myself included). Trillions of dollars of national wealth have been washed away. Many, many families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Last year’s federal budget deficit was $1.4 trillion and the national debt is now just south of $12 trillion. Projections on adding to that number will make one weak in the knees.
While delving into what happened in the past year, I frequently came across the terms “systemic risk” and “moral hazard.” These are the twins birthed by the principalities and powers that seem now to control the world of finance. Systemic risk describes the vulnerabilities of a market or an entire economy to the collapse of a single financial institution deemed “too big to fail.” Moral hazard, on the other hand, describes the undesired message that is sent to shaky institutions when the government bails out a sister financial institution that is deemed “too big to fail.” The “moral hazard” is that when government steps in to save a bank run by greedy morons, all other banks run by greedy morons have no incentive to repent and shape up because they, too, will be saved from their insanely risky decisions.
Systemic risk and moral hazard now prowl the economic landscape of the nation. Which one do you like? Sorry, you can’t choose. Choose the one and the other one will kill you. This is the nature of evil. The principalities and powers rule in the financial affairs of the nation. You may not like Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and the billions he is just now handing out as bonuses to himself and his top executives. But the battle is not against Lloyd Blankfein or the other human captains of national finance. The battle is against the demonic powers that interface with the institutions that have lost their way and no longer serve the good. It is an uphill battle and it will take a lot more than essays like this to win it. It is a spiritual battle that can best be waged with spiritual weapons. More about that soon.
Principalities and powers May 1, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evil.comments closed
I’ll ask the question as bluntly as I know how: has the election of Barack Obama brought judgment on America?
I am loathe to pose this question and even more loathe to attempt an answer. But some of my friends in the faith, obviously disappointed by Obama’s election, see in his administration a dark confirmation of the beginning of the end. They cite a number of things: looming socialization of the economy and health care, the presumed loss of freedom, victories in the courts and legislatures for gay marriage, and the assured continuation of legalized abortion, if not an actual increase in the numbers. The list of dark and ominous clouds could no doubt be lengthened to include the threatening swine flu pandemic.
I wish to respond to those who seem convinced that something sinister and evil was unleashed last November on a country that was previously in the hands of righteous leadership, and that had the other candidate won the presidency, righteousness would have been exalted. Or to put it another way, God has removed his favor and protection over the United States because of the election of Barack Obama, and divine judgment has begun.
I hope to address this without partisanship, though I surely will be accused of it.
First, let’s get a common misunderstanding out of the way. What the Bible says of God’s covenant relationship with the biblical Israel does not apply to the United States. As the chosen people, Israel had covenant obligations to the Lord. The United States, even though its population is three-fourths Christian, does not. This is not to say that God refrains from judging modern nation-states. It is to say that he does not do so based on the standards of his ancient covenant with Israel. The United States is not a chosen nation.
Second, there are divine laws that govern all human activity. Paul expressed one of them in Galatians 6.7 — “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” There are highly undesirable consequences, judgments if you please, for sinful behavior. Those who do evil will reap the bad fruit of their actions. I believe this is as true of nations as it is of individuals.
In Romans 1 Paul says that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Following this he uses the term “God gave them up” three times to emphasize the divine consequences of ungodly behavior. Paul provides a long, and I think suggestive, list of what constitutes unrighteousness. Part of Paul’s purpose here is to set the stage for his affirmation that the world needs a savior and that this savior is Jesus. But he is also hoping that the reader will locate him- or herself somewhere in this broad landscape of disobedience and be willing to stand before God as a guilty sinner in need of salvation.
My point is that there is ample unrighteousness to go around and that divine judgment is rarely for the sins of the few, but for the sins of the many. Some American Christians seem determined to find ungodliness among the “liberals” in Washington or among some other group that “doesn’t believe like we do.” If we would remove our binoculars or blinders, we might just see that sin is quite close at hand. As Paul said in Romans 2.1, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”
Third, either our memories are short or our senses quite distorted. Have we forgotten that the last president, a confessing Christian of more or less evangelical persuasion, took us into two wars simultaneously, refused to pay for those wars because he preferred massive tax cuts, produced eight straight budgets with huge deficits, exponentially increased the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, loudly praised the deregulation of banking and finance while the bankers created increasingly risky and novel financial instruments by which to enrich themselves and send the economy into a free-fall, and handed his successor a federal deficit $4.35 trillion larger than the one he inherited? Perhaps the bright light accompanying the confirmation of pro-life jurists John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court blinded many to the horrifying long-term damage the former president did to the military, our soldiers, our economy, our citizens, and our moral standing among the nations.
I do not write any of this with a partisan spirit. Facts are facts. Shall we be judged only for the sins since January 20, 2009 and not for the sins that occurred before? Or is God selective in the kind of unrighteousness he judges based on the political party in power?
Fourth, I believe there is an inevitability in the direction our nation is heading. (Notice that I said, “I believe”). The world is shrinking and globalization is firmly embedded in the daily decision-making processes of those who govern economies and nations. Tribalism is coming to an end. The destinies of all nations are increasingly tied together. The present deep recession clearly points to this. A different president would not stop this.
The free market has worked well for many things; it is not working well in the health sector. Costs are out of control, millions have no insurance, and thousands are bankrupted each year because of medical bills. Government intervention is inevitable and everyone knows it. Though it will not create a perfect medical system, it will not be worse than the mess we have now.
The current recession was caused by many very bad decisions, public and private. Greed fueled its share of those decisions, politics too. Government intervention was and is necessary. Some of it is misguided, some of it insufficient, and all of it is breathtakingly costly. The bill will increase over time. All of it will be deferred for as long as investors are willing to buy Treasury obligations. Add to this the unfunded entitlement liabilities and you have a scene that is not just breathtaking, it sucks the air right out of the room. The future of the United States is incomprehensibly bleak, assurances of Warren Buffett, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers notwithstanding. This began long before Barack Obama’s election.
Regardless of the election results from last November, all of this would be true. The administration’s plan of action is legitimately up for criticism. What makes anyone think that the other presidential candidate would address these catastrophic problems any better, especially when much of what he said suggested that the problems weren’t all that bad and that the free market would [magically] solve them all?
Fifth, Christians of all stripes would be better-served by adopting a healthy dose of discerning caution about those elected to lead us. To the extent that leaders of the two main parties in our country think about Christians, it seems to me that it is mostly about how they can manipulate or placate us. Evangelical Christians have an undiscerning soft spot for the Republican party; mainline Christians for the Democratic party. Christians in America are too easily seduced. The reign of God is not well-served. Perhaps some day Christians will wake up and realize that their salvation is only in Christ and lay aside their historic animosities and mistrust of each other, finding common ground as a real alternative to the powers that govern.
I would be just as concerned as I am now if John McCain was president. Not because he is evil, but simply because of the spiritual realities that operate behind the scenes in all powerful institutions and systems. Paul called these “the principalities and powers.” Few Christians seem to realize the degree to which both political parties are used and controlled by these forces of evil.
No, God is not judging America because of the election of Barack Obama. No, righteousness would not be exalted if John McCain was president. The present distress, which is quite real, is a divine call to repent (change our minds) about where our salvation truly lies and who our saviour really is. It is a call for the church to be the church and to stop allowing itself to be used by political parties that care not one whit about the reign of God.
About me
Name: Hampton Morgan Jr.
What I do: I work a couple of days a week as a bookkeeper for a women's residential substance abuse center, do some self-employed bookkeeping on the side, prepare tax returns, and write technical reports for a telecom company. But what really fires me up is ministering on a part-time basis in a nearby prison. That ministry is called "House of Bread" and operates under Bay Creek Christian Outreach Ministries, Inc.
The website for Bay Creek and my prison ministry is https://bccomi.org I have also begun now to blog on the Bay Creek website.
What I used to do: I spent about twenty years as a pastor in a mainline denomination and eight years as a denominational official. I am now officially retired from that work.
Where I blog: I also blog on fiscal and financial matters at Fiscal Foolery -- https://fiscalfoolery.wordpress.comContact me
You can email me at hammor@ptd.netArchives
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
Categories
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
House of Bread 