In ASLC Adult Discussion Group this Sunday we will take up Chapter 8 - Why Forgive? and Chapter 9 "Getting Even" - of Phillip Yancey's book "What's So Amazing About Grace?"
Forgiveness is easy enough to support in the abstract, but sometimes all but impossible to implement in specific instances. Can we/should we forgive Adolph Hitler? Jeffrey Dahmer? Our loved ones? (Sometimes its harder to forgive someone we know personally than to forgive a stranger)
We can contrive many reasons not to forgive specific behavior:
"He needs to learn a lesson"
"I don't want to encourage irresponsible behavior"
"She needs to learn that actions have consequences"
"I was the wronged party - its not up to me to make the first move"
"How can I forgive if he's not even sorry?"
"If I know something is wrong and 'forgive' without addressing the wrong, am I potentially enabling rather than freeing?"
"Never again!"
We are going to look at a few pragmatic reasons to forgive:
Forgiveness alone can halt the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace.
Forgiveness offers a way out.
We forgive for ourselves.
Forgiveness - undeserved, unearned - can loosen the stranglehold of guilt in the perpetrator.
8 comments:
So here's my statement about this forgiveness stuff... and I'm very interested in everyone's/anyone's reaction to this...
--Forgiveness is one of the (few) cental cores (non-doctrinal) around which healthy religions should be developed--
Agree? Disagree? Thoughts/Comments...
I'd posted this about an hour and a half ago, but in the previous post. But I'm here now.
Ok, I have to agree with this statement for several reasons.
1. If a religion were not encouraging forgiveness, then each individual would not be encouraged to better themselves because they wouldn't be forgiven for past mistakes. We need positive reinforcement and forgiveness for every time we fail.
2. Not trying to offer forgiveness to others leads to misunderstanding, anger, retribution....and possibly war. Instead of trying to forgive others for their mistakes or wrongdoings, they would be looking for these problems and trying to punish those people.
3. It would encourage the "I am right and everyone else must be wrong" syndrome. If you can't be forgiven for anything, then you HAVE to believe that you are always right or else you, too, would be going to Hell.
Okay, that is all my paint-fumed mind can think of at this point.
karen
From Dave...
On the blogspot you said:
"So here's my statement about this forgiveness stuff... and I'm very interested in everyone's/anyone's reaction to this...
--Forgiveness is one of the (few) central cores (non-doctrinal) around which healthy religions should be developed--
Agree? Disagree? Thoughts/Comments..."
Forgiveness is one of those concepts that it is easy to pay lip service to, but actually implementing it seems to be in direct opposition to human nature. Its just not fair! We crave retribution (on others)! Which religions, other than Christianity, espouse forgiveness as one of their central cores? (Even the Buddhists believe in karma - sooner or later you get what you deserve.) And how may Christian churches actually practice forgiveness in their doctrine?
I hope that you can participate in our discussions Sunday, cause while I can intellectually recognize the validity of Yancey's arguments, and I would like to believe that they are implementable, my gut reaction is they just don't hold up in our "real" everyday world.
Dave
My Response...
Dave,
I'll unfortunately miss your class. I’ve heard great things. But I’ll be doing the service over at Living Word tomorrow.
However, I do believe you are right about the “goes against nature” comment. It takes a very strong person to be so forgiving. Again, forgiveness doesn’t mean people can do whatever they want to you… and you just have to take it. Forgiveness, in one sense means, you are not going to let what they did to you (whatever that may be) ruin your life. It may have nothing whatsoever to do with the other party. That is forgiveness in its most non-emotional. Then again it may have to do with the other person… and that response may be based on emotion. But forgiveness as a concept doesn’t have to start with an emotional response.
And can it “work” in the real world? I think yes, but it takes a very strong person to implement fully. Look at how the Amish people responded after the shooting of their children. They didn’t forgive as a matter of course. Although we might say it’s more in their nature than in ours to forgive, actually we may not be as trained in it as they are. Then again they also have the practice of shunning people. I don’t know how often they do that, but we don’t even talk about shunning people.
More to think about.
And Karen... thanks for the post, even if it might be influenced by paint fumes.
Yes i think it teaches us to "change" and that (the notion to change into a better person) is another of the higher goals of healthy religions.
And I'm playing around with the idea of being able to forgive without it having to be based on emotion. Can a religion that stresses forgiveness teach its adherents to do so, whether they "feel" the correct feelings or not?
Here's the issue in another way... Can we forgive in spite of our anger?
Sometimes it might just come down to making a choice to do so.
I don't think I'm strong enough to be a pacifist, and I may not be strong enough to forgive in this way either. It's a really tough lesson.
You know, that leads me to another thought...if we constantly forgive everyone for everything, then what does happen to consequences? Do we teach others to keep on doing whatever they want because we're going to just keep turning the other cheek? Or do we still have consequences for the offenders, but we forgive them at the same time? Now I'm starting to get confused....AAAGHHHHHH
As I've mentioend before, I believe forgivenss is one of the most misunderstood concepts in religion. Particularly the Christian West. We've been taught things like Forgive and Forget, or we red, Turn The Other Cheek.
Forgiveness doesn't mean we should remove our "boundaries". You have a right ot not let someone invade your boundaries. Nor does it mean what the person did to you is okay. Nor does it mean you should be a doormat and let them do it again to you.
Dave might be on to something when he says it is counter intuitive. Forgiveness may not have the same kind of emotional reposnse we tend to think about when it comes to "forgiveness".
Most of the time we think forgiveness looks like what we see in the playground; a little boy hits another boy. The mothers tell the hitter to say sorry to the hitee, whether he feels like it or not. Perhpas the idea is in the act of apologizing, the hitter may actually develop some sene of remorse. The hittee in his turn is supposed to say, "It's okay". Then they are told to hug or shake or offer some gesture of reconcilliation.
The Catholics are not the only ones that have the sacrament of confession and absolution. We Lutheran's have it too. However the Roman Catholic church calls this the Sacrament of Reconcilliation. I think this is a lot more nuanced than we we call it. We are seeking reconcilliation when we forgive.
But it doesn't have to mean that we are seeking reconcilliation with the perpetrator.
Are we obligated to forgive someone even if they do not ask for forgiveness? I don't think so. But then again, sometimes it isn't about them.
In spite of what I feel (emotionally), and I may want to go in direction X, offering forgiveness means I may need to go in direction Y,
-opposite of X. That's counter intuitive. But it may be the exact place I may need to go in order to find life again... regardless of what the other person feels or not.
The Amish families affected by the tragedy offered forgiveness to the shooter, not because would definitely have changed him. They didn't know that. They offered it because they needed to continue to live.
And this turning the other cheek business... has little to do with being meek and humble. It may mean more like, seeking retribution will only destroy you.. so let it go. Forgive and live. But that doesn't mean you have to put yourself back in the same situation and have somethign happen to you again! That's not living.
There's more...
Comments, anyone?
Foregiveness vs consequences
I’ve been thinking about Karen’s question on consequences.
Suppose you had a cute little puppy-dog that widdled on the floor, cause that’s what cute little puppy-dogs do. You would probably forgive the cute little puppy-dog, cause it is a cute little puppy-dog. But you would probably also try to train the cute little puppy-dog not to widdle on the floor, else on day when the cute little puppy-dog is grown you might get up in the middle of the night and step barefoot in a warm, smelly pile of …..
Forgiveness addresses past behavior, while education/training/behavior-modification addresses possible future behavior. When we forgive someone, we do not take retribution, we do not punish them for past behavior, but we may take steps to negatively reinforce that future repeats of that behavior will not be enjoyable for that person. (Admittedly this is a subtle point and not easily appreciated by a toddler whose mother spanks his heinie while telling him “I’m only doing this for your own good!”) And while we are doing so we should recognize that negative-reinforcement, by itself, is often not as effective in the long-term as positive reinforcement.
Perhaps a reason for the high rate of recidivism in our “criminal justice” system is because our system is predisposed to punishment for past transgressions, rather than to positive behavior-modification to avoid future transgressions. (On the other hand, didn’t Chairman Mao and Ho Chi Minh employ “re-education camps” to “convert” the politically heretical elements. At what point does positive behavior-modification become “brainwashing”?)
Having said that, I still think that there are some people who are “broken beyond repair” and who will not respond positively to either forgiveness or to behavior modification. And behavior modification in the extreme leads me to thoughts of “One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.”! Is lobotomy the appropriate “treatment” for the “unforgiveable”? Or is it better to warehouse them for life?
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