To Encourage Repentance
You Must Be
Intellectually Clear
And
Emotionally Disarming
I recently made the comment that America needs to repent.
It was a very familiar setting. I and several family members were sitting around the dinner table enjoying a shared meal and the conversation gravitated toward philosophical ideas and that’s when I made my comment.
I don’t remember the entire conversation leading up to my comment but, no, we weren’t discussing any specific political issues or personalities. We’ve had those discussions but find it best these days to stick to peripheral ideas. It creates less friction, and that’s where we were at that moment.
And, instead of challenging my comment, one person at the table asked, “What do we need to repent of?”
It was a fair question, asked in the spirit of genuine enquiry.
My comment, of course, wasn’t original. Others have made similar remarks, but the reasons one person believes we need to repent don’t always agree with another’s.
In fact, when someone makes that remark, what they usually mean is America needs to think like me.
So, again, it’s a fair question.
It’s also true that what is meant by repentance, how it’s defined and how it works, can vary widely from one person to another so the question got my gears turning.
Repentance Is Not Coercion
We usually think of repentance as changing our ways, getting rid of bad traits. We repent of things like smoking or drugs or foul language or lying or stealing or drunkenness or any one of a number of other bad habits. It’s usually a corrective response to something you do addictively, and those who wish others to repent make statements that are aimed directly at those habits and are designed to shame more than enlighten.
Why do you talk like that? Why do you eat so much? Why don’t you wear something different? How can that music be good for you?
That’s not a great strategy, but we want people to repent so badly that we resort to anything we think might do the trick, even shaming.
The problem is the tone of voice accompanying those remarks is guilting. These are more statements than questions, opinionated statements, and they offer no arguments. It’s just accusation.
They may have the desired effect. People can change for emotional reasons, but will those changes last without sound, rational underpinnings?
We call it coercion, not repentance when someone changes their lifestyle only because someone else thinks they should.
The goal of repentance is not to force people into living how we think they should, but to generate a motivation within to live differently.
We’ve all seen coercion at work. We’ve heard the rants and experienced the emotional pressure and know just how persuasive emotional arguments can be. But we also know that this approach never bridges the gap between what a person does and what they understand about what they do.
When you analyze the nature of repentance, you get a very different picture.
Repentance Starts With The Head
Repentance starts with what you know, not how you feel or what you think about something. Feelings and personal thoughts on an issue are really just opinions, and those do matter, but not as much as you think.
An opinion is really nothing more than a dart wrapped in emotional noise. Throwing them around is like fireworks. It’s sensational but hardly sensible. You can enjoy them as an observer but if they’re aimed at you, it’s not a convincing experience.
Repentance doesn’t work that way. Anything that leads to repentance is thought provoking. Not shaming. Not accusing. Not guilting. Instead of targeting what you do, it targets what you think.
Repentance happens not because we’re told something is wrong but because we understand why something is unwise.
If you wish to induce repentance in others, instead of simply stating what you think about a thing, you might give an analysis of why you think that way. That would be a far calmer approach and the definition of repentance supports this idea.
The Definition Of Repentance
The Greek word most often translated “repentance” is metanoia. The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition says the primary meaning of Metanoia (repentance) is nothing more and nothing less than “a change of mind.”
According to an article on Logos, that is the meaning in both Classical and Koine Greek.
That is the basic meaning, but it is important to understand that there is nothing shallow about this change.
Repentance doesn’t involve a casual shift from one inconsequential plan to another on an impulse. It’s not, you’re planning to have a hamburger but you have a hotdog instead. That kind of change could be the result of circumstance – no hamburgers available. In that situation, you don’t really have a choice and hotdogs and hamburgers don’t require a philosophical or ideological shift.
Repentance means you’re trading one thing in for another. A repentant person has a complete shift in their train of thought. The person eating the hotdog still likes hamburgers, isn’t giving up hamburgers, and will probably eat many hamburgers in the future.
There’s nothing whimsical about repentance. It isn’t capricious, arbitrary or impulsive.
Repentance is the outcome of deliberation. The mental shift that occurs in true repentance is like a chemical readjustment of the brain and the outcome is life altering. Repentance changes what we do and how we act only because it changes our perspective first.
It is not repentance when one person changes how they act only because of social pressure – coercion.
True repentance is lasting. It holds up through temptation and turmoil.
People who repent remain steadfast because the mind has been completely rewired regarding some particular issue. It might be smoking. It might be drinking. It might be adultery, but the mind has been so completely convinced of a different way of thinking that the changes stick.
People who truly repent are determined and decided. Doubt, uncertainty, and indecision no longer cloud the vision.
All of that is to say that people who repent experience a mindset change, the outcomes of which cannot be missed or mistaken.
An Example From Literature
Although fictional, Scrooge is a good example. He went from being selfish, stingy, cruel and unreasonable to being generous, kind, caring and helpful, and the change was the result of repentance. His ghostly dream made him see the future differently than he did the past.
But what actually changed? He didn’t stop drinking. He didn’t stop smoking or chewing tobacco. He didn’t stop using bad language. His language wasn’t the problem. His attitude was and that is what changed.
So, the answer to the question, “Of what does America need to repent?” is attitude.
Where We Are vs Where We Could Be
There is no question that Americans enjoy a level pf prosperity and personal benefit that much of the world can only dream of.
Where else can a person come up with an idea, implement that idea and become a billionaire, if not a trillionaire, within the course of one lifetime. There’s a long list of people who’ve done that: Bezos, Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg, Buffet and more.
The USA, which has less than 5% of the world’s population, is home to 33% of all single generational billionaires. That means 33% of all single generational billionaires are nestled comfortably in a framework that is home to less than 5% of the global population.
There is no doubt that many of those outside the US were encouraged and enabled by US driven policies.
That’s the America we know and love.
The question, however, is not did these people succeed in the opportunistic soil of the most prosperity conducive economy in the world but do they really appreciate the good their success enables them to achieve because of it.
Do those who succeed at the highest levels do so for the benefit of themselves and their cronies only or do they see the benefits accruing for human kind in general.
Or to put it another way, what is the point for each of them? What do they see as the end game of their success?
There are two options: The bank account and personal advantage or people?
I’m not suggesting that bulging bank accounts are wrong. Everyone aims to get ahead, which in the common vernacular means having more at the end of the month than one needs to live on, and the living part they visualize is beefier than barely existing.
But money is an opportunity, not a competition, and there must be a way to make it work for everyone.
The difference between those two mindsets is repentance.
A repentant person isn’t satisfied just to have money. They will use it in ways that enable others to make progress.
Repentance Changes Everything
By now you may realize that repentance, as I’ve described it here, focuses on more than just salvation. Yes, repentance is a necessary first step for salvation but repentance involves many different sociological issues also.
Repentance changes how we think about everything. That’s an important thought because from an early age we are enclosed in an ideological environment that may or may not be helpful.
Our parents tell us what to think. Our siblings influence the way we feel about what they teach us. We learn to love or hate school based on interactions with teachers, classmates and even the curriculum.
All of these influences affect how we think about ourselves, others and life in general.
And the thoughts we develop are hardwired. They can change but not easily. Based on experiences in the family, the neighborhood and at school, people develop different outlooks: fearful, confident, dominant, superior, inferior, trusting, untrusting, happy, hopeful, negative, positive, despondent and so on.
Can that change? Yes! But only if one learns the art and exercise of repentance.
The ideas that influence our outlook the most are the ones imposed on us by our earliest surroundings. This isn’t education, it’s mental shaping and repentance gives us the opportunity to reshape.
Fundamentalism’s Narrow Vision
Fundamentalists, the people who claim adherence to the Bible only, are interested in the lives of people but mostly in the spiritual, non-material sense of the word. Their big focus is on eternity.
Not here. Not now. Not what can be achieved or accomplished in this life but how ready we are for the next.
Don’t misunderstand. I know eternity is important. We shouldn’t neglect that but preparing for eternity is easy. It takes a split second to be believe in Jesus and once done, it is finished.
Following that experience, however, there is a lot of life to manage before we arrive at eternity and lot of life involves our material existence. Fundamentalists don’t seem to care as much about the life we manage here.
If you think I’m overstating it, please think again. Or better yet, consider the hoards of converts throughout the African continent who show up to church faithfully, repeatedly, week after week, but receive little encouragement to better themselves otherwise.
Two important facts bear this out:
- Wikipedia claims that Africa has an estimated 734 million Christians making Africa the continent with the largest Christian population in the world.
- And yet Africa is also the poorest continent per capita in the world.
That doesn’t make sense. How can the most Christianized continent also be the poorest? Should “Christianity” be a synonym of becoming little, doing little and having little?
Something’s wrong with that metric. The calculus needs to change and Christian influence should be a prominent factor in making the difference.
If you read through all the suggested reasons for this disparity, you find many sophisticated sounding ideas many of which are motivated more by bigotry than reality. What you probably won’t find emphasized to any large degree is the fact that the resources of the African continent, which technically belong to the African people, were abused by the very nations who insisted they were introducing Christianity.
The reality is North Africa was one of the first areas in which Christian evangelism took place (remember the Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8:26-39). Maybe Africa didn’t need European spiritual assistance as much as Europeans needed resources. Maybe resources were the goal and evangelism was the excuse.
Maybe we need to change the attitude. Maybe the right information could provide a different perspective. Maybe these things together could help us change our minds.
Repentance Has An Emotional Side
So, if repentance is changing one’s mind from a wrong way of thinking to a right way of thinking, what is holding us back?
Repentance isn’t just about ideas. There is also an emotional charge.
If your Daddy taught you that some particular thing was true, it feels like disloyalty to change your thinking. How can Dad be wrong? Even worse, how will it affect Dad if I think differently.
Will he be hurt? Will he hurt me?
The best parents, by the way, encourage their kids to consider different opinions. Parents who require their kids to think like they do and believe what they do, just because, are creating emotional impediments to logical development. That’s not a good approach.
Of course, people who grow up with negative, abusive fathers have no problem thinking differently. They’ll be different just to get away from the perceived negativity. Many parents develop a style of parenting just to be different to how their own parents acted, but that’s not an answer either. It’s still an emotional response.
But, if you were lucky enough to have an endearing relationship with Dad, you will think long and hard before changing your mind.
I once made the comment that Richard Nixon was a bad President. His lying, manipulative, law-breaking approach to leadership was common knowledge, but in spite of that, one lady responded with disagreement and disappointment. Why? Because he was her father’s favorite.
Not because Nixon was worthy of respect. Not because there were a few redeeming qualities to consider, but because a positive outlook for Nixon was necessary for a right relationship with Dad.
Nixon’s public record was clear. Siding with him was siding with unacceptable character flaws but the flaws alone, though obvious, weren’t sufficient to change the perspective. Nixon’s disreputable presidency was protected by emotional attachment.
Therefore, if you wish to change the minds of people you must be careful to focus on the facts alone, leaving out the emotional charge. That’s not an easy rule to follow. I certainly haven’t always done that well, but if you wish to be effective, you must first be disarming.
The best way to destroy a good argument is to deliver it with vitriol. Loving a good idea is better than hating a bad one.
We do one of two things with the ideas we’re subjected to in our youth.
We analyze them honestly or we catalyze them into permanent fixtures.
Repentance Should Be A Continual Consideration
We think of repentance as a one time thing and only for salvation but how can that be.
No one has all the answers and some of the answers we think we have aren’t really answers.
Baptism is a good example. All Christians accept the idea of baptism but the different ways in which it is administered and the variety of meanings attached to it are endless.
Some churches believe baptism has no transforming power. Others believe it is necessary for salvation, although not powerful enough to be sufficient alone.
Someone needs to repent but that rarely happens and attitudes about whose right and whose wrong are not very considerate.
Humanity easily gets it wrong and then fights to keep from changing.
Repentance And Change Are Related
Never forget that change is the one thing we don’t like but can’t avoid. It’s also the first line of evidence that repentance has occurred.
The problem is we tend to commit to the answers we have. In fact, acceptance within a social group, be it church, neighborhood, school, professional community, political party or whatever, is determined by how committed we are to the prevailing ideologies.
To be accepted, one must defend those ideas vociferously and act on them with gusto. That’s why a change of mind can sometimes be accompanied by so much emotional noise.
Changing your mind changes everything. Even family, friends and associates will react to your change.
People we’ve convinced to think one way can react quite strongly if we begin to think differently.
Repentance is coming to the point where you see things differently and the change that follows can be accompanied by one of two things or maybe both:
- The pain of regret
- Or relief from trying to force an untenable issue.
Paul is a classic example. He believed Judaism, as he understood it, was absolutely right. Therefore, he believed Christianity was absolutely wrong, and in accordance with Jewish thinking, he went about destroying Christian ideas by killing Christians.
He was forcing the issue. He wouldn’t back down from this perceived responsibility. However, when Paul repented (Acts 9:5), the Lord commented that he was now liberated from kicking against the pricks.
That’s how Jesus described Paul’s psychological state. He was unbending, unthinking, endurant where his ideas were concerned. He wouldn’t think otherwise or consider different ideas. And Jesus said that approach (an unrepentant attitude) was like kicking against thorns.
Painful and useless.
It doesn’t have to be so painful if we adopt a posture of repentance. It’s OK if you believe you have the right idea as long as you are respectfully open to other considerations.
Maybe we should stay in a constant state of rethinking the issues. The ideas we start with were imposed on us. We don’t really have options, but as we grow, there should be an effort to consider the issues more carefully. When we do that, we’re taking a better, more reasoned approach to how life works.
Instead of hammering and being hammered into changes, we can approach different ideas with an intentional effort.
THINK!AboutIt
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