One tactic that is used to advance the postmodern agenda is an adroit use of “demands for an apology.” I have noticed that many Christians would be suspicious if someone simply announced that the lines between right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood, need to be blurred. Believing Christians hear something like this, and say, “Wait a minute . . .” Such blurring, therefore, is often advanced in a much more personal (and practical) way. The tactic is effective because believing Christians are often personally humble and, while they don’t mind defending the truth of the faith, they are much less comfortable about defending themselves. So the postmodern blurrers-of-lines go about it this way.
Here it is in a short form. They make an accusation, wait for the denial, and then offer to split the difference. Take an absurd form of this for purposes of illustration. A godly person is accused of shoplifting at ten area department stores. He denies it, indignantly. The accusers then suggest that he demonstrate his humility by “apologizing” for shoplifting at one of them. But of course, he didn’t do any shoplifting. If he refuses, he is upbraided for his pride and stubbornness. “Must think he is sinless.” If he agrees, for the sake of peace, he has agreed to a lie, and a blurring of the lines between truth and a lie. If he has agreed fundamentally, he has been taken out of the conflict between truth and lies. If he has (sinfully) compromised in it, but still seeks to remain in the battle, then the same drill will be run on him again.
In the realm of faith, apologies (i.e. seeking forgiveness) occur, and they occur all the time. But the truth of God’s Word governs the entire process. If someone has sinned, that person should confess it. If he has not, he should not. Offering an apology simply as a means of making peace (detached from the truth) is an offense against God. Offering an apology to get the adversaries to lay off is capitulation and surrender. The whole thing is a basic tactic of theirs, and like so many of their tactics (I wish this were the sixteenth century so that I could use the phrase knavish tricks here), the whole thing is knit together with lies.