Questions of Forgiveness
Daniel had a violent mother. He did the right thing and forgave her. He also sleeps with one woman after another, always rejecting them.
Mark is afraid of intimacy. He is addicted to Internet pornography. He begs God for forgiveness, then succumbs again.
Fiona was abused for years by a family member. She did what she was told to at church and forgave. She numbs her feelings with food, sees her abuser, gets suicidal and regularly buys painkillers and alcohol to kill herself.
I’ve changed their names but I know Daniel, Mark and Fiona and their ‘forgiveness’ has had a negative effect on those around them and themselves. There are non-Christians who say they will never forgive evil they have suffered. That is not an option for Christians, but neither should this distorted ‘forgiveness’ be.
The words ‘Have mercy on me’ were cried to Jesus by people in need of healing. Although it is hard to admit sin, it can be harder to admit woundedness and get help. Praying ‘Have mercy on me’ is taken to mean asking for forgiveness, not healing, yet usually with helplessly repeated sin such as Mark's pornography, the person is avoiding dealing with childhood damage. Not to seek healing and to keep expecting God’s forgiveness is to abuse his forgiveness. A friend of mine says one reason he is not a Christian is because Christians can keep expecting to be forgiven without needing to look at the roots of their behaviour.
Similarly, ‘forgiveness’ of others can mean abuse and self-abuse. Whatever Daniel thinks, he has not forgiven his mother: if he had he would not need to keep punishing women. Dennis, Sheila Fabricant and Matthew Linn in their book Don't Forgive Too Soon talk about real forgiveness, which comes only after facing the feelings inflicted wounds have left. If this is avoided, the ‘forgiveness’ is a sticking-plaster with a suppurating wound underneath. In Fiona’s case this is lifethreatening.
God is wronged when he is treated as a forgiveness-machine and when his children are mistreated. God is justice. Pope Benedict XVI has said that forgiveness can never replace justice. For a victim, justice, especially from the Church, is a manifestation of God’s love and truth. Unfortunately, when there has been even very serious harm, what is likely to happen is that the victim is effectively told, “The sin here is not what was done to you but that you haven't forgiven yet.” Prayer ministers hear some awful suffering and their first response is, ‘Have you forgiven?’ Of course, they would claim they are saying this to help the person but what they are really saying is, ‘I don’t care what happened to you.’ Justice is ignored.
In a theological examination of one serious type of harm, domestic violence, Marie M Fortune says: “Prior steps are necessary in order for a victim of violence and abuse to be freed to forgive. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus describes part of the [healing] process very concretely:
‘Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you several times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, “I repent,” you must forgive him,’ (Luke 17: 3-4, RSV)
“The scripture clearly points to the need for preliminaries to be accomplished before forgiveness is considered. These prerequisites are best described as elements of justice. Once justice has been accomplished, even in a limited way, forgiveness becomes a viable opportunity. Prior to justice, forgiveness is an empty exercise.”
True repentance means not just remorse but a change of heart and mind. If an offender does not repent, then, says Fortune, the victim needs justice from other sources and ‘Justice, forgiveness, and healing ... become the responsibility of the wider community. The church, the legal system, and family and friends can also make justice for victims.’ The need for the Church to manifest justice is great (especially in cases where the wrong has been committed by one of its representatives). This is done, says Fortune, by hearing the whole story, acknowledging harm done, speaking out and protecting other vulnerable people. This, of course, has wider application than domestic abuse victims.
Why, then, do so many Church leaders dismiss justice and push this pseudoforgiveness? It is because of what they are not admitting: their ‘Scriptural command’ really means, You’re making me uncomfortable. Fortune has described this as “You forgive so I can forget.” This dishonest ‘forgiveness’ is bad when preached from the pulpit, worse when preached in ministry to people in pain and worst of all when preached to people reporting wrongs in your church.
In Verso casa (‘Homewards’), Italian writer Susanna Tamaro says ‘forgiveness’ means ‘reconciliation’. She quotes Brother Roger of Taizé, who says that we have to become reconciled to our childhoods. Experts believe that the proportion of dysfunctional families is ninety per cent; yet prayer ministers too, rather than face this need for reconciliation with their childhoods, remain on the surface, where others’ pain and anger is a threatening reminder of their own and has to be seen off. The most effective way is to quote the Biblical injunction to forgive in a way that seems unarguable-with, but which distorts God’s Word into something facile and damaging.
Without this reconciliation to their childhoods and with the consequent fear of painful reality, many prayer ministers approach victims’ psyches and situations in hob-nailed boots, neither seeing who they are nor listening to where they are. They need to be able to hear suffering, vulnerability, anger and complexity (for example, it can be easier for people who feel loved and successful to forgive; or someone who kept forgiving an abusive parent as a child may associate forgiveness with feeling shame). They need empathy. They need to understand that abuse damages trust, including trust in God. God is in the place of pain - including angry pain - even if the prayer minister is not, but superficial, simplistic ministry can obscure that. Being authentic, sensitivity to complexities and listening are crucial. When a prayer minister really hears the person in front of them, they can discern how to help clear a way through painful damage, so that there is an opening to the gift of God’s healing love and to genuine forgiveness. Marie M. Fortune's essay, "Forgiveness: The Last Step," in Carol J. Adams & Marie M. Fortune, eds. Violence against Women and
Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook is also available on the Internet