Guest Post: If We Are All to Blame, Who Will Repent?

The following was adapted by a Facebook post by Fr. Nicholas Denysenko, PhD, a priest of the Orthodox Church in America and Emil and Elfriede Jochum University Professor and Chair at Valparaiso University. He was raised in a Ukrainian Orthodox family in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and this short essay has been republished with his permission.

No, this is not simply a reaction to the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis yesterday. People die from acts of violence every day. 2025 was a bleak year for American acts of deadly violence, and this only for those we actually know. The more that we open our eyes and our ears, the more we become aware of the self-proclaimed mighty impoverishing the vulnerable.

I mourn the deaths of all those whose lives were taken in acts of violence.

Renee Good's death is a loss for everyone. We are all mortal, we will all die, some unjustly. Her death has devastated the lives of her family. They will never be the same. And no justification for the shooting makes her death okay.

Her death represents the evil in our midst. The evil in our midst is our demonization of our opponent. Our opponent is also our neighbor. God loves our opponent just as much as he loves you and me. Our opponent's life is of equal dignity and value to our own.

As a Christian, I am obliged to follow my Lord's teaching in the Gospel of St. Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, even though it is hard and is certain to cost me. I have to try to find a way to make peace with my enemy. I cannot in good conscience say that I am following Jesus if I want to eliminate or humiliate my enemy.

I have to follow this teaching even if the leaders of my country execute policies that bring violence and harm to my enemy. It is possible and desirable to be a faithful citizen of one's country, to even be patriotic, while also following Jesus. But if the two are no longer compatible and my elected leaders tell me that it's okay to seek my opponent's humiliation and justifiable to use harsh violence to strengthen my country's position, I am obliged to follow Jesus' teaching. In principle, I am not obliged to endorse my elected leaders' positions, if I am truly free.

It is possible and desirable to be a faithful citizen of one's country, to even be patriotic, while also following Jesus.

Yes, this assertion can be applied to any of the illiberalisms that afflict us - right and left, or up and down.

To be super nerdy and precise, I absolutely, 100% agree with my Church's teaching that ethnophyletism is heretical. Many countries are afflicted by this ideological disease, including my own.

I think that all of us have to ask ourselves why the world is so tolerant of abject violence for the sake of geopolitical and geoeconomical gain? Why aren't we horrified by the lionization of violence and brute force, not just here, but elsewhere, too?

In what instance has a country or multinational state (if you will) flourished by propagandizing the blame game? Who benefits from it? Has it not repeatedly failed the public?

What would happen if we agreed that the blame game and justifying use of violence only cause more harm to the public and tried something else?

Do I have to hate and despise you if we disagree on an issue or if I don't get my way?

Isn't using violence in the societal blame game actually a matter of using force to show my opponent that I am "right" and they are "wrong," and to therefore serve my own ego?

If Herzen posed his question to us today, the response would be "all of us" (are to blame). And St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco might rightfully say, "the devil." [Let the attentive reader understand]

If this is true, then do we today want to cast this devil out from our midst?

Or do we prefer to sustain our covenant with the devil?

May wisdom, courage, and the divine grace of God almighty guide us.