Recently, a Christian reader asked:
How can a person forgive their worst enemies without divine enablement? Is this something we can do on our own, without supernatural love? Because we humans, as good as many are, would still balk at loving a person who killed their child, or loved one, or caused immense personal injury. And yet, there are many who have done just that.
I assume this reader is talking about the Christian (or other Abrahamic) religion. According to Christianity, believers are indwelt by the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. God lives inside of every believer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He is their teacher and guide. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit teaches Christians EVERYTHING about life and godliness. Yet, we see no difference between how Christians and the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world live their lives.
This reader thinks that “forgiving their worst enemies” requires some sort of divine enablement; that, by implication, non-Christians, lacking divine enablement, are unable to do. Yet, countless Christians refuse to forgive others, and innumerable non-Christians selflessly forgive those who transgress against them. Forgiveness is a human thing; a learned character trait. Forgiveness is modeled (or not) to children by parents, grandparents, siblings, and other people close to them. A child who grows up in an unforgiving home will likely grow up to be an unforgiving adult. One can undo negative nurture in their lives, but it ain’t easy. Sometimes, it requires therapy to overcome negative character traits deeply embedded in a child’s psyche. Yes, parents, you can fuck up your kids. One need only look at President Donald Trump to see what bad parenting does to a person.
The reader’s comment reveals a false notion that is drilled into the heads of Christian children: you are required to forgive anyone who does you wrong. This idea is reinforced week after week through sermons and Sunday school lessons. Believers are taught to forgive everyone, just like God does. However, a cursory reading of the Bible clearly shows that God does not forgive everyone. He never has. Not in the Old Testament, and not in the New. Sure, we see God, at times, forgiving people, but we also see God not doing so many, many times
As an atheist, I reject the notion that I must always forgive anyone who offends me or causes me harm. I also reject the notion that we must love everyone unconditionally. (Please see Does God Love Us Unconditionally?) Is loving and forgiving others a good idea? Sure, but as with all “ideas,” there are nuances and exceptions that must be considered. Christians, however, must always, without exception, love and forgive. I contend that there are people who are not worthy of my love and forgiveness. My grandparents — who were fine, upstanding Christians who believed every word of the Bible — come to mind. (Dear Ann and Life with My Fundamentalist Baptist Grandparents, John and Ann Tieken.) Not only did I not love them, but when they died, I said, “Good riddance.” I said the same thing about my Christian uncle when he died; you know, the one who raped my mother. My grandparents caused untold harm to me and my mother. It was infuriating to hear people talk about how wonderful John and Ann were — awesome, Spirit-filled followers of Jesus — while knowing they were anything but. They had countless opportunities to practice Christianity in a meaningful way with our family, but they chose not to. And when they did deign to walk in Jesus’s steps, there were always strings attached to everything they did for you. Cross them, and as swift as getting your head cut off with a guillotine, they would cut off whatever help they were giving you. Critical and mean-spirited, they demanded, via Bible verse quotations, that people not treat them in kind. Simply put, they were fucking hypocrites.
All forgiveness and love are conditional. Christian or not, some lines can be crossed that are beyond love and forgiveness. And if you say otherwise, I don’t believe you. Stop with the syrupy claims that you love and forgive everyone. Can you not think of any circumstance where you wouldn’t love or forgive someone? I generally love and forgive others, but I can think of circumstances that are beyond my love and forgiveness. I refuse to pretend and love and forgive people, as I was commanded to do as a follower of Jesus; though even Jesus didn’t love and forgive everyone either.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Randomly, a fellow-fundy had said to me that god doesn’t say we must forgive a wrong immediately and it took him some time to do that on occasions.
Hope this isn’t a TL:DR:18yo daughter went on a 6month gap year trip to S Africa to help a well-known mission. She told them in advance she was vegetarian and they said that was OK. But when she got there, she was told to kneel every at every prayer meeting and a circle of local staff, laid hands on her, spoke in tongues, ululated over her to rid her of the demon of vegetarianism. She was terrified – it was pre-internet and she phoned us back in the UK worried stiff. We alerted our church’s prayer chain and two women pillars of that chain, accused us and her of lying. One had hosted the wonderful leader of that mission when he visited the UK, he was a perfect x-tian. Daughter escaped after a week of what I now know was extreme spiritual abuse. She chucked her bags over and then climbed the tall gate in the walled compound, as, dog-whisperer that she is, had charmed the Rottweiller guard dogs from the start. Another misson we knew picked her up and she spent 6m nursing HIV-AIDs babies abandoned in gutters etc in the city. But not before her dad got rushed to hospital with chest pains and I was in a state of deepest anxiety too. And all the time, those two wonderful x-tian women showed not an ounce of sympathy for our position and maintained we’d made it all up. I suddenly had no guilt about despising them, I ignored them during coffee after church. I had no conscience about standing before my god one day and then asking his forgiveness…he knew how appallingly they’d behaved and he’d let me through those pearly gates after this one very understandable failure to forgive.
I can’t understand what the objections are , about whether one should be a vegetarian or not. To certain Fundies this drives them up the wall, with no good, logical reason why. They just oppose it. Especially if kids are veggers. I’m sorry that happened to you and your daughter, I wonder who these Fundies are ? In a hot place like Africa or India, being a vegetarian makes sense, because meat and sugar actually warm the blood, and it becomes more acidic. A good thing in the Arctic, but not in the Equator. Were these church dolts Americans ? It seems like they were,or influenced by them. Such people are toxic, you’re right to not go near them again.
Matilda, that is an incredible account of how cruel people can be. As I have heard before, there is no cruelty like Christian cruelty. I think you have every right to despise these women, for what it’s worth. I was raised in the Pentecostal religion (Assembly of God) and can envision the trauma this young girl suffered at the hands of the “Holy Spirit filled” tongue babblers. What can you do other than stand there and try to figure out the right way to act during these performances? Because at the end of the day, that’s really what the speaking in tongues Pentecostal services are.
I still retain my belief in karma for lack of a better term. I don’t say that from faith as much as from just observation of how life works a lot of times. These two women will get theirs someday, and while trying to figure out why whatever is happening to them is happening, they may in a moment of enlightenment look back and recall how cruel they were in this situation. I personally forgive but not because of a belief in a supernatural score keeper. It’s because I know how much of a jackass I have been in the past and still can be. But I also have no qualms about determining whether the person is expressing an appropriate and sincere level of regret and contrition for their behavior. If not, then my level of “forgiveness” is just enough that I don’t let this person “live” in my head rent free. There will be no trust and no interaction until that person shows that they have recognized the harm they did and try to make sincere amends.
Christian Reader asks: “How can a person forgive their worst enemies without divine enablement? Is this something we can do on our own, without supernatural love? Because we humans, as good as many are, would still balk at loving a person who killed their child, or loved one, or caused immense personal injury. And yet, there are many who have done just that.”
Zoe: Does it ever occur that the concept of divinity doesn’t have to exist at all in order for humanity to live, experience life and embrace this journey? It’s a frequent tool thrown out into the discussion as though; this will get them. How clever I am. But it’s not really clever. The term “forgiveness” can exist with or without the concept of the divine. Just as those of us still say things like: My grandchildren are a blessing. The term “blessing” is not owned by the divine. “Thankfulness” is thrown out as well. ‘Oh Zoe, how in the world can you be thankful for anything if you don’t believe in God?’
Forgiveness is pushed, but in so many circles, one is pushed to forget and as someone who has been diagnosed with C-PTSD, one doesn’t forget and one probably shouldn’t forgive. Trauma and forgiveness are not necessarily a divine stew. In fact, the concept of a divinity overseeing it all can leave one in a state of never healing. Well meaning Christians will say: ‘Oh Zoe. Here’s what you should do. Possible Trigger moment: Picture Jesus on the cross. (I will leave out the gory details.) Put that (trauma/incident/abuse) in a box. Picture yourself wrapping it up, binding it with string and placing it there at the foot of the cross, below His feet. There. All done.’
Thing is, instead of getting the help one needs to deal with the trauma(s) one is vulnerable to dissociation, thinking it’s all been taken care of when in fact nothing has been done at all. ‘Oh but Zoe. You just need to believe.’ No you idiot I need psychological counselling to deal with the trauma to my mind and body.’
Zoe steps down off her soap-box, reaches for her tea and thankfully gives thanks for the blessing of therapy, healing, recovery and forgiving herself for not realizing it wasn’t her fault.
Zoe, isn’t it crazy how most of these churches, especially like the AOG, insist on survivors of abuse have these one- sided, continuously abusive relationships with relatives or parents, nothing ever gets fixed,or resolved, it just keeps going. Going no contact or low contact is the only way to go with those types, because forgiveness and reconciliation aren’t the same.
Yes Yulya. I agree re: “no contact or low contact.” It isn’t an easy choice because culturally and spiritually (to use an all encompassing phrase) those who chose their own peace are considered selfish and are often blamed. We become the scapegoat.
Personally this whole forgive (and throw in forget if you like) is just using spirituality to bypass reality. As you wrote, “. . . nothing ever gets fixed, or resolved . . .”
Matilda, I am sorry your daughter endured such abuse.
I believe that the person who has been wronged should have the power to decide whether or not to forgive. Sometimes it is the right or best thing to do. But too often, apologies are insincere: the person or entity making the apology thinks it’s a “get out of jail card “ or is simply looking to save their ass. And they are the ones who feel most entitled to forgiveness and, if they,re religious, say things like, “God forgives, so should you.” To me, that sort of “forgiveness “ enables bullying and other exploitative behavior.
True forgiveness heals the giver, but as we all know, healing of either body or mind is not something we can magically make happen. That doesn’t mean that either requires supernatural support. Faux forgiveness requires stuffing the hurt into the far dark corners of the cave of j your mind, but it will refuse to stay there and sneak out to hurt again at the most awkward moments. Just as I invoke the wisdom of the medical establishment to help heal the issues of my aging body, I invoke the wisdom of my therapist to help heal the issues in my mind. Nothing is completely successful now (at almost 66), but all help.
I am working at forgiving things that can’t be apologized for, because the perpetrators are dead. Not the behavior of true [expletives] I’ve engaged with along the way, because they aren’t worth the thought-time. Instead, I’m working to forgive words and behaviors not actually meant to damage me, but did, by people who loved me. Big stuff. Hard work.
Matilda: “She told them in advance she was vegetarian and they said that was OK. But when she got there, she was told to kneel every at every prayer meeting and a circle of local staff, laid hands on her, spoke in tongues, ululated over her to rid her of the demon of vegetarianism. She was terrified . . . ”
Zoe: Matilda, this is an incredible story of as you say “extreme spiritual abuse.” 🙁 In my opinion, criminal. I’m impressed by her ability to figure out how to escape. Especially charming the guard dogs. Terrible stress for all of you.
Matilda, what happened to your daughter is truly horrifying.
Interestingly, Rabbi Maimonides talked about forgiveness as being optional. He said that it is the responsibility of the person who did wrong to truly apologize and to ask the person they wronged, what, if anything, can I do to make this better. They are never supposed to make excuses or try to defend themselves, and they are to understand that maybe the answer is “nothing” and they do not get forgiveness. The person wronged is never required to forgive. They can choose to do so, but if they do not that is fine. It’s so much better than the Christian way that puts the victim in the position of being wronged and having to pardon the perpetrator, even if the perpetrator isn’t repentant.
Thank you for your sympathetic comments. That mission was american in origin and, sadly, that branch had extreme wacky pentecostal ways. Hubs later went to other parts of Africa (on behalf of a british mission). He said there was no way we could have known in advance that the branch of the mission which abused our daughter was so crazy, other branches were ‘mainstream.’ Seems daughter was just unfortunate that the group she joined had so many weirdo pentys in it and a weak leader who handled it very badly. The attitude of the two women who said we’d lied, showed to us that so many of us x-tians were brainwashed/bamboozled into believing that any mission that worked among foreign heathens – especially those whose skin colour was dark – was a hero of the faith and would never do anything wrong. The last 20yrs or so, with the internet, have shown how erroneous that is!