(WokePreacherTV) Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson are still promoting their book “Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair.” In this January 2022 conversation with Bill Haley of Coracle, Kwon and Thompson cite the Belgic Confession of Faith and the concept of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement to argue that modern Christians with white skin owe civil judgments to people with black skin, even if they or their ancestors had no part in past generations’ transgressions against black folk.
DUKE KWON: We find in the Belgic Confession, right, this old confession from centuries ago that describes the nature of the atonement in this language, saying of Christ, “He paid back what he had not stolen.” This is the gospel. And so we’re simply called to enter into this as people of love and not to sort of pedantically try to figure out ways to identify only those who are descendants of slaveholders and, if not, then hey, you’re off the hook and be on your way. Or those who participated in the different movements of segregation, but hey, if your family wasn’t even then, you’re not, hey, look! We’re in this together, and we’re in this not just as a culpable people but a people called to love.
…GREG THOMPSON: The most important and most fundamental example of restitution is Christ himself. Anybody that believes in substitutionary atonement believes in restitution, right? They already do. Anybody that believes, as we sing in “How Deep The Father’s Love For Us,” that Christ took our sin and paid this, and suffered the consequences of sin for us already believes in the basic logic of restitution.
… There’s something very confusing to me about Christians who, on Sunday, could say, “Thank God that he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God,” and then on Monday say, “I didn’t do that, so I don’t owe reparations.” That is a sign of incoherence.
… DUKE KWON: All the language of paying for our sins is reparation language. That’s actually found in scripture. So we actually talk about reparations and sing about reparations and preach about reparations every Sunday, and you never knew it, you people of reparations!
Transcript and introduction provided by @wokepreachertv, with minor edits.
