re national repentance mcovingt aisun ai uga edu michael covington writes i heard on the radio today about a christian student conference where christians were called to repent of america s national sins such as sexual promiscuity to which i reply whoa there how can i repent of someone else s sin i can t and when i claim to repent of someone else s sin am i not in fact judging him jesus equipped us to judge activities but warned us not to judge people judge not that ye be not judged c s lewis made the same point in an essay after world war ii when some christian leaders in britain were urging national repentance for the horrors sins of world war ii i see your point but i cannot more strongly disagree to repent means to turn around we as a nation have behaved incredibly arrogantly toward god condoning encouraging and even forcing folks to participate in activity directly opposed to the written word of god we have arrogantly set our nation far above the god who created it and allowed us the luxury of living in this land we have set a bad example for other nations we ve slaughtered unborn children by the millions we have stricken the name of god from the classroom we ve cheated god out of the honor due him at every turn and we owe god an apology every bit as public as our sins have been when jesus said judge not that ye be not judged he was not addressing those like john the baptist who had repented and were calling others to repent he was addressing those who remained in sin while heaping down condemnation on others for their sins his message to us all was to remove the log from our own eye before removing the speck from our brother s but he also said to rebuke and to reprove don t forget that this is a command too our problem today is that we tend to judge and condemn as though we were rebuking and we tend to neglect bringing folks back to the lord with the excuse that we don t want to judge anyone in truth what we need to do is to judge less and call others to repent more and to be able to distinguish between the two in our own motives call sin what it is and do so openly let it s charge fall correctly where it should but instead of running someone into hell over it pull them out of their hellward path and onto the heavenward path i deplore the horrible crime of child murder we want prevention not merely punishment we must reach the root of the evil it is practiced by those whose inmost souls revolt from the dreadful deed no mater what the motive love of ease or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed but oh thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime susan b anthony the revolution july
