Church, we have a forgiveness problem (and it’s not what you think it is)
A couple years ago I was at a gathering with campus ministry students and colleagues. I’m honestly not sure what the topic was because I had just severely sprained my ankle and there was no way for me to actually get to the sessions. As I sat in my hotel room with my foot elevated, I started to notice my phone was blowing up. My students were furiously messaging me. The priest leading the session was talking about forgiveness and how it is imperative Christians forgive. To not do so was to not follow God’s commands (which one might interpret as sinful). At some point, the priest began to talk about how sexual assault victims need to forgive the people who assaulted them. My students were beside themselves in confusion, pain and rage.
What this priest didn’t know (but statistically he should have guessed) was that there were *a lot* of sexual assault survivors in that room, including people for whom those wounds were very, very fresh. My co-pastor and I, both assault victims ourselves, spent most of that evening in a group debrief with our students assuring that there was no need to forgive until (or if) they were ready, and that that dude was the worst. Unfortunately, that priests opinion is not an aberration.
In the past few days, social media has been flooded with posts and reposts about Botham Jean brother’s forgiveness of Amber Guyer (complete with a hug) and the judge also hugging her. The posting I have seen is largely divided down racial lines. White people are all over it, posting about how that is what the kingdom of heaven looks like, how amazing this was, etc. The black folx in my feeds are expressing outrage and pain, posting about how this is a prime example of how white supremacy has infected Christianity and how white supremacy affects black folx (if you haven’t had the opportunity to listen to black voices on this story, I encourage you to do so and to sit with the way white supremacy shapes how we view black pain, rage and forgiveness). What I have seen is largely an expression that Botham Jean’s brother can forgive as he wishes, while trying to also explain the problem with this kind of public spectacle of forgiveness and the way white people who were not posting about the mom’s comments and pain and likely weren’t posting about the racism present in Botham’s murder and murderer. And expressing these thoughts seemed to be making white people very uncomfortable. They (we) wanted to see the forgiveness (possibly because we want forgiveness by proxy).
We want to lift up forgiveness to feel forgiven ourselves for what we have done and what we have left undone. We want to be free without having to change who we are. So we lift up those who forgive and, by doing so, put impossible pressure on those who have experienced violence to forgive. We communicate, implicitly or explicitly, that forgiving puts a person on a higher spiritual plane. When we do this we also communicate that a person who cannot forgive has a spiritual blemish and, until they forgive, they are broken in our eyes, and in God’s. The idea that to be a good person or a good Christian one must forgive is wrong.
Not only is the idea that a victim must forgive no matter what wrong, it is deeply harmful and both comes from and perpetuates patriarchy and white supremacy.
The onus to forgive is always put on the less powerful while the onus to apologize honestly and with heart is rarely put on those who hurt. Women must forgive their rapists. Black people must forgive racists. Adult children of abusive parents must forgive their parents. Even if no move to apology has been made. It’s supposed to enlighten us or something. We are, the thinking seems to go, better people once we have forgiven (or forgiveness is a sign of growth).
In her seminal work on trauma, Trauma and Recovery, Judith Hermann writes:
“Revolted by the fantasy of revenge, some survivors attempt to bypass their outrage altogether through a fantasy of forgiveness. This fantasy, like its polar opposite, is an attempt at empowerment. The survivor imagines that she can transcend her rage and erase the imapct of the trauma through a willed, defiant act of love. But it is not possible to exorcise the trauma, through either hatred or love. Like revenge, the fantasy of forgiveness often becomes a cruel torture, because it remains out of reach for most ordinary human beings. Folk wisdom recognized that to forgive is divine. And even divine forgiveness, in most religious systems, is not unconditional. True forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution.
Genuine contrition in a perpetrator is a rare miracle. Fortunately, the survivor does not need to wait for it. Her healing depends on the discovery of love in her own life; it does not require that this love be extended to the perpetrator. Once the survivor has mourned the traumatic even, she may be surprised to discover how uninteresting the perpetrator has become to her and how little concern she feels for his fate. She may even feel some sorrow and compassion for him, but this disengaged feeling is not the same as forgiveness.” (189–190)
I would like to highlight two themes from these words from Herman. The first is that putting weight on victims of physical or emotional violence (including racism, which has been shown to be a continuing trauma for our black and brown siblings) only makes things worse. It actually hinders their recovery and places in them the idea that they are not doing healing or recovery right or that they are not healing or there is something wrong with them because they cannot forgive. For many survivors, speaking to them of forgiveness before they are ready is a signal that you are not a safe person to be open with about their pain and they will pull away. This is an especially important point for religious leaders, as safety is imperative for people healing from violence and if they do not feel safe in your presence they will either leave your community or have a delayed healing process.
The second is the theological point Herman makes here. Forgiveness cannot be granted until there is confession, repentance and restitution.
John begins his ministry, preparing the way for Christ by calling people to repentance. Jesus calls for repentance. He sends out the disciples to call people to repentance.
What is repentance? It is turning towards God. It is a change of mind that RESULTS IN A CHANGE IN ACTION. Repentance isn’t a milquetoast, “I’m sorry” that was written in the notes app and posted on Instagram or by a publicist. It isn’t even an I’m sorry. It’s I’m sorry, I’m getting help, these are the concrete steps I am taking to never do this again.
In the stories in scripture in which Jesus commands forgiveness, he also commands repentance.
Luke 17:3, ““If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.”
In Matthew, Jesus tells a story immediately after he tells Peter to forgive seventy times seven times. There is a servant who owes money and is forgiven when he falls on his knees, begs for forgiveness AND offers to pay it all back. The servant then goes and abuses people to get them to pay him and even after they both apologize and offer restitution he throws them in prison. It’s then that the servants forgiveness is revoked, because he couldn't forgive as he was forgiven. But the forgiveness wasn’t, actually, totally free. A promise of repayment was part of the bargain. The servant wasn’t thrown into the depths because he commanded repayment, rather because the promise of repayment wasn’t enough and he threw people in prison.
Confession, repentance, restitution. These things were a part of the religious culture in which Jesus was raised and the ethos in which he preached and taught.
Forgiveness without any attempt at confession, much less repentance is cheap grace. We encourage cheap grace when we push people to forgive without pushing the perpetrator to truly repent of their actions, living a new life that shows fruits of repentance.
Not only do we encourage cheap grace, we encourage recycling of damaging power cycles. We tell those who hurt others that they get to stay at the top if they just say, “I’m sorry.” Victims continue in grief while abusers get to keep on keepin’ on, sucking up all of the power, privilege and resources in the room.
We need to change the way we talk about forgiveness. We need to call people to repentance. For sure, we need to provide pathways to repentance, to work for systems or restorative justice rather than punitive. We need to put in the work so that true change is possible and allow space for people to repent. But we also need to cut it out with this form of cheap grace if we want to have a truly transformed society in which victims are heard and have the space to heal and that they might be lifted up instead of those who do harm — regardless of where they are on their healing journey.
