BTW, does the diversity of this conference include confessional Lutherans, or indeed anyone holding to ANY of the Reformation Confessions?

We must pray THY Kingdom come, THY will be done.

A Scripture that came to mind while reading this discussion is Proverbs 19:11:

“If you are sensible, you will control your temper.
When someone wrongs you, it is a great virtue to ignore it. GNV

The wise are patient;
they will be honored if they ignore insults. NCV

It’s wise to be patient
and show what you are like
by forgiving others.” CEV

Only God is I AM – an unchanging, unwavering being. Only God has THE stable identity. The Fall and sin have severed us from our identity in God. We become whom or what we follow, believe, serve, give ourselves to…(this is the definition of worship). (Jeremiah 2:5)

The best (only real, stable, secure) place/way to find and achieve real and lasting identity is in (surrendering to, worshipping, serving, following) Christ – by the new birth into His family, – by being grafted into His Blood-line, – by dying to the old self in the water of baptism, – by growing up and becoming fellow servants of Christ, finding purpose in His Will and Word – we find and make our true home among others of His family.

This is how we find the only authentic transcendent eternal identity Christ created and suffered to give us and wants for us.

In Christ, as Scripture states, we also acknowledge that this world is not our home and that we are all pilgrims, exiles and ‘seek a country’. We pilgrims/exiles are a family, we are all one, and our home on earth is the Church (our ark), a house not made with hands, whose maker and builder is God.

We find our identity, unity, home, place through authentic whole-hearted worship in which Christ feeds, fills, fulfills us…we know the search is over for a place to belong.

One Chinese who knew he was one with American Christians was Watchman Nee, whose books have helped millions of Christians find their true identity in Christ.

As a Christian, I have found a deeper kinship with Africans, Asians, Americans who know Christ and have been born into his family, and ancient saints long dead, with whom I share spiritual birth, than with my natural-birth family who live inauthentic identities in conformity with the world, flesh and devil. We cannot be close because their souls are divided, insincere or ambivalent (hyphenated?) in rebellion against God. We cannot share the Blood of Christ and the life and unity of the Holy Spirit.

I pray you each will find Your home, family and country in Jesus Christ who makes us one. Read over Acts 2 again and notice how the Holy Spirit gives them one language, one heart and one-ness in God. Sin divides, scatters and fractures, the Holy Spirit of God gathers, unifies, integrates – makes us whole and one in Him.

Amen.

This is your last post because you can’t answer my previous questions, and you can’t answer them because doing so would require that you admit that there are other, more charitable ways of understanding what Wan said. It’s more important to you at this point to preserve your projection that he is a bad, hypocritical man.

Professor Wan wasn’t at all tentative in labeling me and the whole population of Dallas, Texas racists, on the basis of an anecdote or two. This was especially odd in my case, since I have never been to Dallas or even to Texas, not have I met Professor Wan. That Professor Wan seems more tentative and more hesitant in issuing apologies than in bearing false witness only goes to confirm the widespread suspicion that the panel at Perkins might — just might — be rather less “just” and less “diverse” than it is advertised to be.

My very last word. No need to reply, since I won’t be checking in here again. All the best. Au revoir.

Can you think of any other reasons he might have responded tentatively rather than the more full way you would have preferred? Is the only reason that he doesn’t feel “genuine” remorse, or are there other reasons?

Here’s what passes — at least with you — as an “apology” from Professor Wan:

“In the heat of the moment, we probably said a lot of things we’ll regret in a few years. Maybe even sooner. If I did, I apologize.”

Professor Wan makes clear that he doesn’t yet feel regret for anything he said, though he does concede that he, like everyone else who spoke here, may, at some point in the future, feel such regret for some as yet unspecified portion of what was said, in which hypothetical case, he, Professor Wan, issues a blanket apology, in advance of such a contingency.

The problem is that apologies — genuine apologies — don’t work that way. One has to specifically address what one has done wrong and to acknowledge one’s regret and to express those regrets specifically to the those whom one has wronged. Professor Wan has done none of those things, which is why his “apology” was not received as such by very many here besides you.

“I’m not protesting my bruised feelings, but pointing out your hypocrisy. You play rhetorically fast and loose, lobbing round brickbat terms like “hate” and “inhumanity,” and not in a spirit of joshing or jest.”

I understand that you think I’m being hypocritical, but I can’t understand why you think so. I retracted the word “hate.” I never used the word “inhumanity,” so I don’t know how I can be accused of using it “loosely.” I used “human” and later explained how I was using it and how that use was not intended to insult anyone. I understand that you don’t accept by expectation, but I can’t understand why you don’t.

(I’ve reread the paragraph where I mention “human insight,” and I noticed that I also say “one quite human response is anger.” I hope you can see that I am indeed using the word “human” to be shared psychological characteristics and am not using it to insult anyone as being inhuman.)

“But then you take others to task for not being careful with their words”

It’s true that I have complained that most on this thread have used language to mock the conference participants. It’s also true that I’ve handed out some of my own. When called on it, I’ve apologized. After Wan bowed out on the 8th, I’ve tried to follow his lead and be more temperate. Since that time, I’ve made only the one dig, and that was at Blake for the reasons I explained.

“As for Professor Wan apologizing, I don’t think he actually did, not not sufficiently so. He didn’t specifically apologize to me for implying that I am a racist, nor did he apologize to most of his neighbors in Dallas by admitting that neither are they, and that he isn’t actually faced with racist harassment by them “every” single “day” as he initially claimed”

You’re right that he didn’t itemize his apology but offered a blanket one. Sufficient or not, he offered more than anyone who mocked him.

Don’t flatter yourself that my feelings can be bruised by your words. I’m not protesting my bruised feelings, but pointing out your hypocrisy. You play rhetorically fast and loose, lobbing round brickbat terms like “hate” and “inhumanity,” and not in a spirit of joshing or jest. But then you take others to task for not being careful with their words, and for throwing rhetorical brickbats or bombs.

As for Professor Wan apologizing, I don’t think he actually did, not not sufficiently so. He didn’t specifically apologize to me for implying that I am a racist, nor did he apologize to most of his neighbors in Dallas by admitting that neither are they, and that he isn’t actually faced with racist harassment by them “every” single “day” as he initially claimed.