Repentance will save the world
Photograph by Melanie Stander via Unsplash
Nathan Perrin
When I first began my twelve-step journey to process my complex trauma, I went through the rigorous process of amends in Step Nine, which states that I “made direct amends” to those I had harmed “wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” Being the theology nerd I am, I read Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s “On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World.” Rabbi Ruttenberg bases her views of repentance on the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides and links the Protestant Reformation to a general misunderstanding of what repentance entails.
Rabbi Ruttenberg writes,
Luther’s stance moved the real action of a person’s spiritual life into the internal realm. And though Luther asserted that Jesus “willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance,” and that good actions were part of a necessary Christian life, in the following centuries, the notion that “you just need to feel sorry for your sins” (as the Lutheran pastor and religious studies scholar Cory Driver put it) began to emerge… This goes against the Gospels themselves, where the verses about forgiving “seventy times seven” are situated in the larger context of a discussion on accountability, and where Jesus modeled community accountability in relationships with Peter and others. And yet, a dismissive attitude toward repentance nevertheless became so widespread in Protestantism that the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously lambasted preaching forgiveness without simultaneously demanding repentance as “cheap grace.”[i]
I came to realize that the theology I was taught in childhood around repentance mainly revolved around a form of “fire insurance” – i.e. getting out of hell in God’s eyes. There were few mentions of accountability or discussions of reparations to people we have harmed (and we have all harmed people in our lives, whether personally or systematically). Repentance was viewed less as an opportunity for growth, accountability, and grace, and more as something someone individually does with little concern for the consequences of their actions. I believe this is partly because western Christians have viewed repentance as a one-step process in salvation, rather than an exciting lifelong journey that invites us into deeper wells of spiritual understanding.
This idea of repentance can also be seen in Jesus’ own ministry. In Luke 19, tax collector Zacchaeus takes significant actions of repentance in response to meeting Jesus: “Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Today, salvation has come to this household because he too is a son of Abraham. The Human One came to seek and save the lost.’” (Luke 19:8-10, CEB).
In this instance, we see repentance for Zacchaeus does not involve mere feelings of personal sorrow, but rather a holistic turning around of his entire life and making amends to the people he harmed. Repentance is a commitment not to cease doing harm, but to own up to it every time harm is committed and growing from the experience of the consequences we experience.
As the New Testament repeatedly affirms, we are all sinners in need of grace. Repentance doesn’t become, then, a dreaded conclusion but a grand redemption. We come to a place of meeting and seeing a God who refuses to leave us to ourselves, and who promises to walk with us as we make those amends and repair the world.
When I made the decision to make amends, it was liberating and freeing. I no longer walked around with a deep anger in my gut about things I’d done or things done to me. I became oddly excited for the next thing I would do wrong because of the grace and growth I experienced. In the twelve-step culture, this is normative. In the American church, not so much. However, I believe this is a symptom of the broader culture we find ourselves in and not necessarily the Church’s fault alone.
Cancel culture certainly has had an impact on how we view repentance — cancel culture being defined as overwhelming punishment and shunning by society when someone commits a transgression. This is not to be confused with the natural consequences of one’s own actions.
In “We Will Not Cancel Us, and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice,” adrienne maree brown writes:
I want us to look at each other with the eyes of interdependence, such that when someone causes harm, we find the gentle parent inside of us who can use a voice of accountability, while also bringing curiosity—‘Why did you cause harm? Do you know? Do you know other options? Apologize.’ That we can set boundaries that don’t require the disappearance of other survivors. That we can act towards accountability with the touch of love. That when someone falls behind, we can use a parent’s voice of discipline, while also picking them up and carrying them for a while if needed.[ii]
None of us are ultimately defined by our worst moments, and we will all commit harms and wrongs in our lives. Especially for us white folks, it’s in our cultural DNA to be oppressive. As the New Testament repeatedly affirms, we are all sinners in need of grace. Repentance doesn’t become, then, a dreaded conclusion but a grand redemption. We come to a place of meeting and seeing a God who refuses to leave us to ourselves, and who promises to walk with us as we make those amends and repair the world.
Nathan Perrin (he/him/his) is a writer and Anabaptist pastor in Chicagoland. He holds an MA in Quaker Studies and is a doctoral student studying Christian Community Development at Northern Seminary. His doctorate work centers on creating a writing program for nonprofits and churches to use to help under-resourced communities process trauma. His work has been published in the Dillydoun Review, Bangalore Review, Collateral Journal, Esoterica Magazine, etc. His forthcoming novella Memories of Green Rivers will be released in 2026 by Running Wild Press. He is also a screenwriter. For more information, visit www.nathanperrinwriter.com
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Ruttenberg, Danya. On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. Boston: Beacon Press, 2022. Kindle edition, 7.
[ii] adrienne maree brown, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2020, Kindle ed., 41.
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