In the midst of the growing racial tensions and constant eruptions of alleged police brutality against especially African-Americans in the U.S., the House Judiciary Committee yesterday voted to recommend for the first time the creation of a commission to consider monetary reparations to Blacks along with a “national apology” for the United States’ history of slavery. This is a necessary movement that has been a long time coming. I think its objective eventually will be accomplished.
Some White Americans, especially some Republicans, will push back on this. Their main argument is that the present generation ought not be held accountable for the misdeeds of previous generations. That is a common argument that is thrust forward by people that oppose the concept of restitution in their shirking of responsibility. The truth is that humans beings are not little islands in themselves detached from each other. Rather, we’re all in this together. What we do today affects generations to come. And when our misdeeds hurt other people, our own people must be held accountable, even if they live generations later. It’s called justice.
Case in point–the Second World War. Germany tried to take over the world. In the process, they tried to annihilate all Jews who they blamed for all the world’s troubles. Yes, Jews have been the scapegoat throughout history. But now, seventy years later, today’s citizens of Germany are still paying monetary reparations to present, living Jews the world over for the German Nazis’ horrible misdeeds of the Holocaust.
Japan started the other world’s other side of the Second World War, directed against the USA and others. Thus, Imperial Japan attacked and occupied both present South and North Korea during WWII. Japan’s damage is still being considered for reparations. For example, at the beginning of this year, a South Korean court ordered the Japanese government to pay compensation to a dozen South Korean women who Japan had made forced sex slaves during WWII. Of course, South Korea has no jurisdiction over Japan. This demand is a matter of principle. Seven of the twelve Korean women have died since the lawsuit was initiated. There are other such lawsuits by aged Korean women who likewise suffered.
During WWII, the Japanese government had called these force sex slaves euphemistically “comfort women.” The court has made clear that it’s not the money, but a public apology, South Korea demands from Japan. This is another WWII injustice for which a rectification and apology has been long overdue. Japan immediately rejected the demand. Thus, tensions between South Korea and Japan have been growing over this matter throughout this year.
This concept of reparations and/or apology is in the Bible. In fact, for Christians who believe in the so-called second coming of Christ, the Bible indicates that will not happen until a Jewish remnant makes penitential prayer, acknowledging the misdeed of that Jewish generation which contributed to the condemnation and execution of Jesus of Nazareth. I realize this is a controversial position to take in light of the Holocaust. But it should not be accompanied with hatred and mistreatment of Jews today. On the contrary, Christians should be the most loving people of all toward the Jewish people. If it had not been for the Jewish people, there never would have been any Christianity. The Jewish people gave us our Messiah–Jesus of Nazareth–and more, such the Bible.
On this subject of Jewish penitence in the last days, see my book Warrior from Heaven. Its first three chapter are entitled “Armageddon,” “Jerusalem Repent!,” and “The Remnant.” Evidence to support this endtimes Jewish penitence is Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9. The young man Daniel was among the Jewish exiles whom Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylon after he attacked and destroyed Israel. It resulted in what is called the Exile or Babylonian Captivity. Decades later, Daniel read a prophecy from the prophet Jeremiah in the Jewish Bible which predicted this Exile would happen and that it would last seventy years (Daniel 9.1-2). Daniel then set himself to the task of praying diligently “with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession” (vv. 3-4).
Why did Daniel make confession, which was the admission of sins committed? He hadn’t done anything wrong. Indeed, yet he confessed the sins of his people committed in previous generations for which God judged the nation by allowing the Babylonian king to attack and destroy the nation of Israel. Daniel said to God, “All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. So the curse and oath written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against you” (v. 12). That extensive curse and oath are in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 in the Jewish Bible. Daniel further confessed “our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors” (v. 16), thus referring to the sins of previous generations of Hebrew/Jewish people.
If Daniel prayed such a prayer of penitence for the wrongdoing of his people in a previous generation, surely Jews will do likewise in the end times regarding the Jewish Sanhedrin’s condemnation of Jesus of Nazareth as a blasphemer worthy of death. Likewise, today’s White citizens of the USA need to apologize for their forefathers’ capture, transportation, and centuries of enslavement of Africans and even do more about it than that, like Germany is doing for Jews, by making monetary reparations.
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