America's Original Sin

The following is an excerpt from an article by Janie Cheaney in World Magazine. The title of the article is, "The Only Way Forward: The Solution is Spiritual if the Goal is Peace and Fellowship." Resentment, revenge, envy, and craving justice is a dead end.

Racism, rooted in the African slave trade, is said to be "America's original sin." An original sin is the primary fault from which every other fault stems. For that, we should look to the misapplication of American freedom, which translated into expanded opportunities to exploit as well as to succeed. Exploitation is not essentially racist. It is egoistic and acquisitive, and no one is exempt. America's original sin is actually the Original Sin. Racism is an effect, not a cause.

What to do? Proposed solutions are mostly about money. But the problem is spiritual not material, and so is the solution: forgiveness.

Is forgiveness fair? No, but Someone who was owed a much greater debt showed us that forgiveness is the only way out of the bondage of sin, "For freedom Christ has set us free." To forgive centuries of wrong, traces of which persist to this day, means to lay it down and walk away. The history still stings, but the farther you walk the less you feel it, especially when walking toward the light.

What do we want - fellowship, or alienation? Peace or warfare? Our Father desired peace and fellowship with us enough to pay dearly for it. Guilt must be borne, and the one to bear it was His own Son. He considered the gain worth the price. God willing, may my brothers and sisters, so long out of Africa, make that reckoning. I can never compensate them, but Christ can.