“I Have Sinned Against the Lord and Against You! Will You Forgive Me?”
In The New Republic, Eve Fairbanks profiles South African ex-police minister Adriaan Vlok’s search for redemption. Today, the evangelical Vlok washes the feet of those he admits to wronging during apartheid, when his police force murdered anti-apartheid activists. “Somebody has to take the blame for these acts, though,” Fairbanks writes. “And by owning up to a thousand subtle sins of ego but denying culpability for apartheid’s worst crimes, Vlok has pushed the guilt onto his former underlings”—perhaps undermining his own spiritual quest.