Ashley, Josh, Anna, Sam, Charleston and Forgiveness

Ok, like so…there’s this girl named Ashley, and she’s causing A LOT of problems for marriages right now…

Surely you’ve heard of her?  Her full name is Ashley Madison, and the data breach of this adultery website has caused quite the scandal.  On the list were names of politicians, YouTube stars (like Sam Rader) and TV personalities (like Josh Duggar) alike.  There are already reports of a couple of suicides because of extortion attempts in relation to the data breach.

But we’ve had other heartwrenching upheavals over the past months as well – including the Charleston, SC church massacre.

Many of the people whose identities had been exposed in the hack have come forward asking for forgiveness, and claiming forgiveness.  The families of slain victims in the church murder uttered words of forgiveness when face to face with the killer.  And, surprisingly enough, all of these acts of forgiveness have been criticized.  I’ve witnessed a black lash — often anti-Christian — of people decrying the fact that these people want to be forgiven or want to forgive.

I poured over comment after comment on articles on the web, flummoxed.  Reading the comments made me wonder: What in the world were you taught in church? Do you even know God?  Do you read your Bible? Where on earth did you get that idea from? Do we even know what forgiveness is?  Do we even know what it looks like?

Thus, I’ve decided to write this blog post.

The following were some of the comments – top rated comments I might add – which I found disconcerting.

Jessa Seewald (Josh Duggar’s sister) posted a photo of the verse 1 John 1:9 (“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”) and people said:

“So… What your saying is that as long as your brother confesses his sins he is considered absolved? Wow. He must feel SO much better now. And he can do it again! All he has to do is confess and his sins will be forgiven! Wow! I should try that sometime…

You should. It’s completely freeing.  And Josh is not absolved… more about this later.

“By this logic, … As long as we believe Jesus forgives us and we “own up” to our “sins” then we’re righteous again, right? Lol. The hypocrisy is strong in this family.”

People obviously don’t understand how forgiveness works.  Heck, I don’t truly understand how forgiveness works.  But like many matters of salvation, I don’t believe it’s as complicated as we make it out to be.

“No. Its not as simple as confessing and being forgiven, that’s insane. It just goes to show you can fix everything with prayer or confession. Being a sexual deviant has no cure. I love you all but Josh is not a good person, for example. Sexual predators are not good people.”

The following were some of the top rated Facebook comments under the Washington Post article on Sam Rader.

“Graham, how do you know he [as in God] forgives you…until your dead?”

You know by faith.

“Oh, its [sic] that easy? Wow, I guess sinning is no big, if I know all I have to do is ask for forgiveness and all is good.”

Yes, it’s really that easy.  And no, sin is still a big deal.

“I cringe when people claim God has forgiven them. So convenient!

“Let God speak for him/herself!”

He already has.

“So let me get this straight. I can cheat and all I have to do is ask for forgiveness from God and all repercussions are forgotten? Two dummies meant for each other.”

“Matt, the point is that when I do something wrong, I work to earn forgiveness from those I’ve wronged. I don’t have an imaginary conversation in my head and let myself off the hook.  If the article had quoted him as saying that he was committed to earning his wife’s trust back, and was working to earn his wife’s forgiveness, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

He doesn’t deserve forgiveness.  Arguably, none of us do.  Forgiveness is not earned.  It’s not about merit or desert.  It’s simply given. Again, you don’t earn forgiveness.  You earn trust.  No one is owed forgiveness either.  Forgiveness is given.  For –give –ness.  It’s in the word.  Trust is earned.  I will say though that you can’t trust someone unless you’ve forgiven them, which is why I suppose many people confound the two.

“Must be nice to do whatever you want and only have to invoke God’s name to absolve yourself, eh? But I’m immoral simply because I don’t believe. RIIIIIIIIGHT”

Confess. Forgiven. Repent.  As in turn from your ways.  As in do a 180.  Repentance doesn’t mean you continue to prance along your merry way.  Repentance might look like going to see a counsellor.  Or turning yourself over to the police.  It may mean putting a block on your computer or living as a hermit away from children.  Repentance often means doing whatever it takes to not commit the same offence again.

That said, I think we are confounding and conflating a whole bunch of terms and ideas.

For months I’ve seen the media try to wrap its head around forgiveness.  I’ve seen articles that ponder and articles that pontificate “Black forgiveness”… as if forgiveness has a colour.  I’ve seen articles dismissing the concept of forgiveness as a thing that people in the Black church are taught to do (see here).  I’ve seen articles that confuse forgiveness and absolution.  I’ve seen people racialize forgiveness.

Gosh.  I’ve never studied theology, but I think we’ve over complicated forgiveness.  To my understanding, it’s about grace.  It’s about sin.  It’s about the triumph of grace over sin (where sin abounds).  And it’s as simple as 1) confession 2) believing that you are forgiven based on what it says in the Bible (God has already given you His written Word.  He won’t necessarily give you added confirmation) 3) Repent.  It’s not as complicated as we’ve made it out to be.

To me, forgiveness means I mean you no ill will.  It means I hold no grudges.  I don’t hold whatever you did to me against you.  It means I can now wish you the best, and that if you passed me on the street I could at least be civil.  It may mean I still hurt.  I don’t have to act like it never happened. It doesn’t mean I will ever forget.  But it does mean that I forgive.

To me, forgiveness means I mean you no ill will.  It means I hold no grudges.  I don’t hold whatever you did to me against you.  It means I can now wish you the best, and that if you passed me on the street I could at least be civil.  It may mean I still hurt.  I don’t have to act like it never happened. It doesn’t mean I will ever forget.  But it does mean that I forgive.

Contrary to what many have been implying, you can have forgiveness and still have accountability.  Mercy and justice are married (Psalm 85:10).  If there is no mercy, there is no justice.  And if there is no justice, there is no mercy.  Moreover, my Bible tells me you reap what you sow.  I know that vengeance is the Lord’s and God can do a better ass-whooping than I ever could (pardon my French).  I’ve seen it myself.

Exodus 34:7: “…maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Forgiveness does not mean that the act is excused or justified, or that the perpetrators are absolved of all guilt and responsibility.  Forgiveness is rather a mechanism of empowerment, giving those most affected the permission to move on.

Forgiveness and punishment and wanting justice are not mutually exclusive.  Can I forgive you and still want your body to rot in hell?  Hmmm… maybe not. But I can forgive you and still want you to face the authorities for your actions.  I can forgive you and still support your wife in divorcing your sorry a-double-snake (my French is getting better).  I can forgive you and still support your wife even if she doesn’t because I believe in personal autonomy and respecting the decisions of others (but maybe not if she’s married to a child molester…).

It doesn’t give the perp – or perv – a free pass, but it does give the victim freedom, while the perp has to fess up and face their situation.  Released.  Let go.  Their fate is in the hands of God.  It’s saying “I don’t have to grudge you into your grave.  God will take care of it (and maybe even do it for me).”

It also doesn’t necessarily mean that the relationship with the perpetrator will remain intact.  Sometimes it’s irreparable.  Sometimes it’s unsalvageable.  Sometimes, for reasons of safety, it must be severed.  Some wise person once said that we are called to love everyone, but we must love some people from a distance.

Forgiveness also doesn’t mean that you can’t be angry.  It doesn’t absolve the wrongdoer of wrongdoing.  It just unburdens the hurt from carrying a weight that was not theirs to carry.

All that said, I also would never tell someone to forgive or that they ought to forgive.  I wouldn’t tell them that they need to forgive, or how to forgive, or when to forgive.  Forgiveness may take seconds and it may take years.  Forgiveness is personal and individual and must be done at one’s own pace and on one’s own terms (with God’s help).

Just because you – or I — call for forgiveness doesn’t mean we defend Josh or Sam or Dylann.  It is a hard case to prove that molestation, or pornography, or murder, or adultery are truly defensible, no matter what drove the person to do it. All of these men are in the wrong.  They have committed deplorable, horrible, abhorrent acts for which there must be some sort of…not retribution, but restitution, reconciliation and reformation if possible (and not to mention discipline and punishment as deemed necessary).

And yet, I also don’t think it’s wrong to empathize with both the victim/survivor and the perpetrator.  As tired as people may be of hearing it, it’s not a platitude when I say that we are all sinners in need of grace.

Josh is sick.  Dylann is sick. Sam is sick.  I dare say that some of these people are sicker than sick.  But then again, so are you.  And so am I.  We’re all sick.  We’re just sick in different ways.  Sin is sin is sin is sin.  It hurts people in different ways.  It has varying scopes of impact.  But it hurts God in the same way. As I saw in a photo floating around Facebook: Don’t hate me because I sin differently from you.

We have a hard time understanding forgiveness and we have a hard time forgiving because our flesh – we ourselves – vehemently war against it.  How can I forgive such an #&^@% like him? we think.  He doesn’t deserve forgiveness….

It is not in our nature to forgive, but (given that we are made in the image and likeness of God) we do possess the capacity.  The thing about forgiveness is that it’s not natural.  It’s supernatural.  It’s not worldly.  It’s otherworldly.  The power and ability to forgive does not come from us – it comes from God.  There are some people we can’t forgive even if we tried.  God has to enable us to forgive.  He has to give us a heart that forgives.  I’m not saying that only Christians can forgive.  But, I imagine that those who don’t know God will have an especially hard time forgiving because it requires them to access a power with which they are unfamiliar.

Roxanne Gay, in her New York Times article, said, “My lack of forgiveness serves as a reminder that there are some acts that are so terrible that we should recognize them as such. We should recognize them as beyond forgiving.”

Nothing is beyond forgiveness.  God forgives the unforgivable.  His Son got killed too you know — by the very people He came to serve and save. And yet He still forgives — over and over and over again.  Maybe, just maybe, we can too?  One day?  Perhaps?  Mary Johnson did.  We can always ask God for help.

The reality is we might have to say: it’s unfair, but help me forgive.  Lord they deserve death, but help me forgive.  Lord I hate them, but help me forgive (and love).  I never want to see his/her face again, but help me forgive.  I can’t believe she/he did this to me, but help me forgive.  I did nothing wrong, but help me forgive.  I don’t deserve this, but help me forgive.   I am hurting, but help me forgive.

I’ve never been in the position to forgive someone who has cheated on me, or raped me, or killed a loved one.  I count myself among the lucky.

However, if any of these heinous things were ever to happen to me, Lord help me say the same thing then as I say now.   Help me forgive.  Despite the pain, despite the hurt, despite the anger, despite the destruction and despite the betrayal, Lord help me forgive.  Give me a heart that forgives so that I can live.  The key words are “Lord help me.”  I will need the Lord’s help.  I won’t be able to do it by myself.