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A Corporate Confession in Response to the Capitol Riots

 [The following confession was read during the January 10th worship service at Turner Christian Church, during our regular time of confession--which normally focuses on individual reflection and confession. The live recording can be found here.]

Confession today is going to look a little different. Normally we focus on confessing our individual sins and victories. However, there are several examples in scripture of what we call corporate repentance: moments when God’s people gather together and recognize that they have sinned in large, collective, systemic ways. These passages teach us that when God’s people sin on the world stage, none of us are innocent. None of us can stand apart and say we had nothing to do with it. The church is an interconnected body, and in times like these we all bear the guilt.

The events in Washington DC this past week were shocking and heart-wrenching. There is footage of people cowering in the congressional chambers, praying for God to protect them. And when they broke through, the rioters carried Christian flags, crosses, and signs that say “Jesus saves.” In the weeks before these riots, people who gathered in DC for explicitly-Christian events were seen to vandalize churches that supported causes with which they disagreed. For me the true horror of this week is not how it reflects, or does not reflect, on the reputation of American democracy, but what it says to the world about the state of the church in America.

Now, none of us were there. We did not participate in these riots. I don’t know who you voted for or what policies you support, and frankly, it doesn't matter. We all bear responsibility for the culture of division that made this possible, because it begins with us—it begins with things that we have done.
It begins with calling our brothers and sisters idiots.
It begins with thinking, and then saying, “You couldn’t possibly be a Christian and think that,” or “Real Christians could never vote for that person.”
It begins with our refusal to listen sincerely to people from the other side.
It begins with our retreat into echo chambers where we only hear the voices of people with whom we agree. 
It begins with our choice to believe only the best about those with whom we agree and only the worst about those with whom we disagree.
It begins with us defending our ungodly words and deeds by claiming that the other side does it too.
It begins with our choices to define ourselves more by our nationality and our political persuasions than our submission to our Lord, the savior of the whole world.
And it leads to broken windows, broken lives, broken hearts, and the broken witness of the church.
All this we must confess.

But we never confess without hope. The truth is that Jesus Christ came, not just to forgive and redeem individuals, but to forgive and redeem the whole assembly of his people—to restore the people of God to right relationship with God. And his death and resurrection serve as a witness that is louder than any of our failures. 

And if we are truly honest, and we resist the urge to despair, we must also confess that, while our sins were on public display this week, the victories of God through his people were much more numerous this week. Though it may not have made this news, Jesus Christ used his church this week to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick and the mourning, bring peace to conflict, bring reconciliation to the broken, and bring salvation to the lost--victories that will endure long after the news cycle has moved on. And so, as we repent, we thank God that his good work continues—we thank him that nothing can stop the spread of his kingdom, and we commit ourselves to being part of the conspicuous victory of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Let us pray.


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