Redemption in a World with No Canossa

The most radical thing you can ever say is, “I forgive you.”

Henry at Canossa by Eduard Schwoiser, circa 1862

Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber must have been filled with fear and trembling as he released his apology essay into the world.

It had recently come to light that a group of lawyers, acting on behalf of the SBC Executive Committee, had filed an amicus brief in a court case regarding the statute of limitations for sexual abuse crimes. At issue was the question of whether third parties who knew about the abuse but failed to properly address it could be held liable for civil penalties long after the fact.

The SBC as an organization stands accused of covering up numerous cases of abuse within member churches and failing to properly hold perpetrators to account, as detailed in reporting by The Houston Chronicle and others sources. It should therefore come as no surprise that the SBC Executive Committee’s legal counselors suggested their clients file an amicus brief in favor of greater immunity for third party offenders. What is more surprising, or at least disappointing, is that the Executive Committee agreed to do so.

As Barber explained in his mea culpa, he was the one who signed off on the brief, but not because he was seeking to avoid accountability. He was in the middle of an intense committee meeting, and because he is a human being living in the 21^st century, he was using his smartphone during the proceedings. An email came in from the lawyers asking for a quick sign off so they could file some paperwork. No doubt, Barber gets many such emails, and he did what most of us do most of the time: he didn’t read the fine print. He indicated his approval and moved on to the next agenda item without a second thought.

At least, this is the explanation Barber offered after enduring several days of a social media firestorm. When he became president of America’s largest Christian denomination (though they eschew the term “denomination”), Barber pledged to tackle the issue of abuse. He swore to respect the wishes of SBC messengers (delegates to the general convention) who had voted for greater accountability and repentance on the part of their leaders. On many occasions, he made good on that pledge.

I had been watching Barber’s social media posts for quite some time. He truly did seem like a kind man. I enjoyed seeing the updates about his numerous farm animals. The SBC includes many persons who seem like villains straight out of central casting. I have watched them tear people to shreds online, always angry, always aggressive. Barber was none of those things. However, he was a human being capable of making mistakes, and he made a pretty big one in the case of the amicus brief.

Maybe I am giving him too much credit for those cute animal photos, but Barber seemed to me more like a well-meaning person in over his head than a truly malicious actor. The internet, it is safe to say, did not agree with me. Denunciations of Barber’s statement came fast and furious. “Why didn’t he say this? When is he going to do that?” It made me wonder what he could have possibly said that would satisfy people who were already convinced that the SBC and all its leaders are rotten to the core.

What was he supposed to do? Walk to Canossa?! I asked myself.

It is the kind of thought that only pops into the head of a history nerd. In January 1077, the Holy Roman Emperor IV traveled across the Alps with his wife and son in tow, seeking out a meeting with Pope Gregory VII. The emperor and pope, chief protectors of the secular and sacred, were in the middle of a long-running dispute in which both had declared the other’s rule illegitimate. As it turned out, the pope held more clout: his excommunication of Henry allowed the German princes to rise in rebellion. This was such a blow to Henry’s rule, he had no choice but to make the humiliating journey south in hope of gaining a papal audience.

He found Gregory at the castle of Canossa, a hilltop fortress in Tuscany. There, the emperor made a great show of medieval-style penance, going barefoot and wearing a hairshirt, waiting for days in the blowing snow. Finally, the pope allowed the emperor to enter, and after the two of them had a little chat, Henry’s excommunication was reversed. He was able to return to Germany with a renewed papal seal of approval, and peace was restored to the land…for a time.

Anyone who has watched a celebrity undergo a ritual humiliation for some racist tweet they made before they were famous understands the dynamic that existed at Canossa. Much as Henry sought out absolution from the highest spiritual authority, so people now talk to Oprah, or Emily Maitlis, or whichever interviewer has the power to broadcast their repentance to the right group of people. Make the apology, wait for the public to lose interest, then move on with your life: that is the formula.

But the internet has a long memory, and while the public does move on to the next controversy with tremendous speed, it also has the capacity to jump on any offender who dares, after a year or two, to pop his or her head over the proverbial parapet. In an age when the criminal justice system is focused increasingly on rehabilitation of the criminal rather than simple punishment, society seems to be going in the opposite direction. We declare prison to be “The New Jim Crow,”¹ but when we cancel someone for having inappropriate views, we want them out of the public eye forever.

Maybe this is because people in prison tend to be poor and uneducated, whereas those we cancel ought to have known better. They were taught how to properly behave. They had every resource and opportunity, and they simply chose to be a terrible person, or so we tell ourselves. A prisoner may eventually satisfy the demands of the state and be released. Who can satisfy the demands of the online mob?

Here we come to the real issue: one I have touched on in previous articles. People have been cancelling each other for holding inappropriate views since time immemorial, but there are a few factors making our current historical moment a more legitimate “cancel culture.” While Henry IV could walk to Canossa for absolution, Bart Barber cannot, because there is no longer a single moral authority capable of granting forgiveness that applies in all jurisdictions. Moral authority still exists in the 21^st century, but it is increasingly splintered.

Instead of one pope, we have thousands upon thousands of influencers. The Church is not immune from this phenomenon. Congregants are as likely to take their moral opinions from content they consume online as anything said by their minister on a Sunday morning, and many of them attend churches with no hierarchical structure beyond the congregation itself.

Beyond this, the ability of society to 1) know about a person’s flaws and 2) remember them has been greatly increased due to the long reach of the internet. What is said online is set in stone, even if posted in the heat of the moment. Friendships come and go, but screenshots last forever. We form alliances with like-minded people we find on social media, then ditch those alliances the moment they are seen to be inconvenient or problematic. Real friendships—the kind where you know intimate details about a person’s life and help them through the worst parts of their existence—seem to be increasingly rare.

No, Barb Barber cannot walk to Canossa. Who then can grant him forgiveness?

This is one of the great questions of our age, for while we seem to live in a time when nothing is true and everything is permitted,² that is too simple a judgment by far. Western society still believes in sin, but the things it believes are sins have changed. It would be better to say that society no longer believes in forgiveness.

If you have the misfortune to fall into one of the new sins, or at least one of the sins that are still seen as such, the reaction can be swift and brutal. Deep down, we realize that if all our thoughts and deeds were exposed, society would find some cause for cancellation. Like the metaphorical goat, we would be cast into the wilderness. We therefore live in fear of discovery, desperate for forgiveness that is nearly impossible to receive.

It is therefore a radical statement to say to someone, “Your sins are forgiven.” Perhaps the most radical statement of all, for forgiveness is that scarcest of resources: a truly divine work.

I find myself constantly desperate for forgiveness. True, my sins are relatively “polite”: I haven’t gone on a racist tirade, cheated on my husband, or beat someone’s head in with a shovel. But I have been selfish and prideful. I express too little gratitude and too many complaints. I do not just need to be forgiven for actual sins, but for simple errors that feel like sins. I need to know that I am counted just.

There are few phrases in the English language sweeter than, “I forgive you.” For behind that phrase is another one: “I love you.” Forgiveness is born of love and reveals love for what it is. As Martin Luther wrote in his Theses for the 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, “The love of God does not find but creates that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.” When you forgive, you are loving like God does.

It is therefore with great joy that I pronounce your sins forgiven in the name of Jesus Christ and for his sake alone, for no one can earn forgiveness, but by the grace of God, it is given. For on a cross he died not only for Bart Barber, but for the very worst of the worst: people whose sins are nowhere near polite. He died for the cancelled and for the cancellers. He died to provide forgiveness of sins.

There is no need to walk to Canossa, for Christ has already walked to Calvary.

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1. I refer here to the influential book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, published in 2010.

2. This phrase has appeared in various iterations. Its ultimate origin is debated, but versions of it have been used by Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, and it appears in the Assassin’s Creed video game series (with dubious medieval connections).