The Gift of Forgiveness—America as a Work in Progress
By: Terry Paulson
America is an exceptional nation. A great nation founded by divine providence with a recognition of our creator as the source of our human rights. We were founded upon lofty principles we are still growing and developing into. Our founders were great people way ahead of the Times they lived in. We are one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. We are a nation from which people from all over the world come to yearning to be free. We are a nation that In God we trust and it’s time now for unity, love, hope, reconciliation, forgiveness. A time to realize how far we’ve come and where we can still go while respecting our founders, our founding documents and the path they set us on. A republic, if we can keep it.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
America, as successful as it has been in creating a country where people risk their fortunes and their lives trying to enter, has remained a work in progress. Its past leaders, often imperfect by today’s standards, stretched the fabric of our rich mosaic in every age to help live up to the values we first just dreamed of embracing. We aren’t what we will be, but we can be proud of how far we have come in our journey.
Can we ever get beyond the racial sins of our past and present? I take heart in the Biblical story in Genesis about Joseph, the son of Jacob. Like many who were forced into slavery in America’s early history, Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous older brothers. In spite of a tragic series of events, Joseph never lost his strong belief in the God of Jacob.
After being sold into slavery in Egypt, he was wrongly accused of rape and placed in prison. Realizing his gift of being able to interpret dreams, Joseph finds favor with Pharaoh. Through his service, this previously insignificant Hebrew slave becomes second in power throughout Egypt.
In the midst of a famine that Joseph predicted, he was given the opportunity for revenge. When his brothers who sold him into slavery came to Egypt to secure grain, instead of punishing them, he helped them, eventually shared his identity, and was reunited with his father. The story takes many twists and turns, but nothing is more striking in light of our current racial tensions than a conversation with his brothers after the death of their father Jacob.
In Genesis Chapter 50, his brothers, now fearing that they may be punished after their father’s death, come to Joseph and begged for his mercy. They offered to be his slaves and shared a message suggested by their father, “’This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father."
After hearing their plea, Joseph wept and said to his brothers, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?” Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father's family….”
Joseph left judgment to God and embraced his brothers who had sold him into slavery. There was no call for reparations, no forced apology, no punishment.
Years ago on a plane from Atlanta to LA, I met Brother Clarence. He was 99 years old and the black son of a former slave. His father had been a young man when the Emancipation Proclamation gave him freedom. Clarence was his last child born near the turn of the century.
Asking what his father said about slavery, Clarence smiled, paused, and said with a certainty I wish more could have seen, “My dad refused to talk about it. He said there’s no point in talking about it because you are free!” What a gift his father gave Brother Clarence as he left Texas and made his way to Los Angeles.
His father, who had actually experienced slavery, wasn’t focused on the past. He cared enough to set his son’s sight on a future with freedom. Clarence was a man of faith, a man of joy with a smile that would fill a room. Even more inspiring, he lived the freedom his father so treasured.
On our money, we read the statement “In God We Trust.” Do we? Maybe we need to. It was not added at our founding but later as a reflection of the cultural importance of faith in God’s providence in America’s story. At the heart of that faith is the power of forgiveness.
Instead of trying to determine fault and reparations for events years in our rearview mirror, is it not more important for us to find a way to keep moving forward? Can we not invest the time wasted in playing this fruitless blame game into working together to make more progress living up to our values of equal rights?
America’s story is still being written. May God feed the better angels of our nature. Like Joseph, may we embrace the power of forgiveness and faith in our future. May we each trust God to empower us to write that future story together in a way that helps further heal our racial divide.
Terry Paulson is a PhD psychologist, author, and professional speaker on Earned Optimism, Making Change Work, Claiming Your American Dream, and Becoming a Conservative Values Voter.
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Imagine how you'd feel if that was the inheritor of Jeff Epstein's estate after we found out he made millions selling sex with minors to wealthy clients and your daughter was one of the victims. Would most people really agree with them thinking "Well, let's just let bygones be bygones, who really cares if they profited massively off underage sex slaves, what's done is done and it's just time to put it all in the rear view" as Epstein's family continues to live on the money he made.
Perhaps if the bigots and racists in our nation would at least admit there has not only been a problem but recognize there is current systemic racism right now in America. How can anyone forgive when much of the abuse is still happening?
All this seed does is tickle evangelicals ears by telling them they and their ancestors should be forgiven for being racists, for supporting segregation, for supporting slavery.
Ah yes, doesn't that sound nice to anyone who harbors racist prejudices in their hearts? No need to pay any price, no need to apologize, no need to pay back the billions and billions of free labor that was stolen, no need to even give a hand up to those who were oppressed for centuries, let's just "move on" because that's how Joseph treated his family that had sold him into slavery. What a crock.
Would God want his Name writ upon secular money?
A quick according to the Bible answer is definitely no!
The God these pretenders apparently worship probably would. It's just their new God doesn't look anything like the Christ of the bible as described in the gospels they claim to worship.
The Bible is clear God abhors that kind of crap!
So, why do the fundies see it all so differently?
You can't get more graven image than cashola...
Yet His Name is engraved on $ against His will!
Why?
While it was on some coins earlier, putting it on paper money was probably in response to the "Red Scare". Communists cannot touch anything with the word God on it lest they burst into flames.... or is that vampires?