Carved in stone more than a millennium ago, the Buddhist scripture pillars of the Dinh dynasty preserve both sacred prayers and the remorse of a royal heir.

If they don’t “apologize” in the modern sense, it’s only because Scripture has a richer vocabulary of repentance. We need a theology of apology. Apologizing sounds straightforward, at least in theory.

Luke’s account of Jesus’ Passion offers a distinctive perspective: “The ordinary people are not only not complicit in the death of Jesus, but they repent of what has been done to him,” says Luke ...