There’s a quote I came across from American writer, David Dark after the US Capitol attack in 2021.
“Unity without reckoning is marketing.”
I haven’t read much of his work, but this statement shook me to my core for a couple of reasons. One, because it contains the word ‘reckoning,’ which as far as words go, is as strong as the final dregs of your grandpa’s cocktail. But it shakes me even more so because I can put myself at the bookends of this quote. I am both:
a person passionate about unity, and
a person with a career in marketing
And so while I often speak of unity, I’m terrified that all that will come out of my life is the marketing of unity’s goodness and potential, without any real action toward it. Because action and reckoning are really what unity need.
True unity calls humans, as God’s creation, toward true confession and recognition of mistakes and toward reconciliation. There must be an agreement that mistakes have been made, that there should be accountability held for those mistakes, and that at the end of the road, grace and forgiveness await.
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Reckoning does not have to be a part of cancel culture. It can instead be full of rehabilitation and life.