No, I’m not talking about apologetics, that formal defense or justification of a theory or religious doctrine. In general, my take is that Christian apologetics is largely a waste of time for two reasons.
One, it’s really just arguing. Trying to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong. Because the quickest path to the winners podium is to paint you as a loser. This does no favors to the good news of Jesus. I’ve never met anyone who was argued into faith. But maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong people.
Two, by using the word apologetic so often in this sense (defensively arguing), we lose the power of the other meaning: regretfully acknowledging an offense or failure. I’ve heard the word apologetic used far more in the church to describe defensive argument than I have to describe regretful sorrow. Heck, you can even get your PhD in defensive argument in order to defend the Christian faith, but I’m unaware of any such degree in saying “I’m sorry.”
I would suggest that the more we as Christians use the word apologetic to describe defensive arguing, the more our apologies will sound like defensive arguing. Which you will understand if you’ve ever tried to tell someone, “Hey, you know what you said really hurt me,” and they said, “I’m so sorry you feel bad.”
Not an apology. Try again.
I once had to say to my boss, “That’s a really lame apology.” After he had vomited anger out on me one day, I waited a whole week to see if he would apologize. He did not, so I had to bring it up. I explained how much it had hurt me, to which he replied, “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad, but you’ve got to understand where I’m coming from…” Not an apology. Try again. Something like, “I’m sorry I exploded at you in anger and berated the work you’re doing. I was out of line. Please forgive me.” would have done wonders. It’s not rocket science. By the third attempt, he sort of managed.
I later told that same boss, “I want to be in a church where grownups know how to apologize.” It was a little bit of a dig, TBH, based on previous experience. And it wasn’wasn’t very helpful. But it slipped out because an adult volunteer had physically harmed my son, and I thought that the incident warranted an apology—nothing more. My boss kept resisting my request, citing that asking the volunteer to apologize would shame him. I disagreed about the shame—I was asking for a private apology, not some public punishment. So I said the thing about a church where adults know how to apologize. Then, two days later, my boss tried to force me to resign by offering me a pittance of a severance and an NDA. No thanks. Read into that what you will, but it was at least doubling down on defensiveness and heaped more hurt on top of hurt.
As I’ve thought about it over time, I realized that I had blurted out something that day which I had never consciously thought, yet clearly came from somewhere deep within me: “I want to be in a church where grownups know how to apologize.” I meant that more than I had known. I still mean it.
Of course, I then have to become the kind of grownup who knows how to apologize. As a pastor, I understand the temptation towards defensiveness. I’ve done it. I hold regrettable memories of defending myself to church members and friends rather than admitting I was wrong. Regret is the closest thing we have to a time machine: I can’t change my past responses, but I can choose to respond differently next time.
Last week in fact, I apologized three times. The first was because I had completely missed an important appointment with someone. I simply didn’t check my calendar that day and completely flaked out. The second was because I flushed an upstairs urinal in the church, which then overflowed, flooded the bathroom, and then spilled through the floor into the downstairs bathroom. Ugh. What a freaking mess. Yes, it’s an old building, and it could have happened to anyone, (some say would have), but I was still the one who pushed the handle. The third was because I rushed to a leadership decision that really confused and hurt some people. The decision A) was made without consulting those whom it would most immediately affect, B) was half-baked and full of obvious oversights, and C) was probably not even really needed right now. So to those who would actually talk with me, I apologized.
If we can become an apologetic church, we can become a forgiving church.
If we can become a forgiving church, we just might stand a chance of being a good witness of the Christ who taught us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Some translations say “sins,” because sometimes we truly do willfully and blatantly sin against one another. Some translations say “debts,” because sometimes we do incur debts to one another—whether emotional, relational, literally financial, etc.
“Trespasses,” however, are a little different. Trespasses are overstepping boundaries. Crossing lines. Unwittingly reaching over into someone else’s space, making them feel unsafe, vulnerable, or “icky” (as one friend put it to me this week). I like it that our tradition uses “trespasses” when we pray the Lord’s prayer together each Sunday. It’s a humble acknowledgement that sometimes we just go too far. Most of the time we don’t meant to. In our well-meaning cluelessness, we missed the “NO TRESSPASSING” sign, and so now here we are, with our opprtunities to learn how to be apologetic and forgiving.