Their understanding is that forgiveness is like a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card that they can keep in their pocket and throw down whenever they happen to stray across the line. I don’t think the Bible actually backs this up. The word “repent” means to “feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one’s wrongdoing or sin.” Sincere regret and remorse are completely absent from most of these people’s lives.
The book of Revelations talks about how only a few thousand will ascend into Heaven. Well 2.2 billion people identify as Christian, so it seems like most of them are doing it wrong.
I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer that he take responsibility of his actions, resign from this church in the shame he should be feeling, and work at becoming a decent human his Jesus could be proud of. Unfortunately, these are evangelical “christians,” and they’re hypocrites who worship Mammon. So we’ll see nothing of the sort from this congregation’s chief predator.
Well, luckily we have a legal system for dealing with people who forgive themselves for gross violations of the rights of other citizens. I take it now this person has publicly admitted to a serious crime, his conviction ought to be expeditious.
This right here is why I don’t believe in forgiveness and consider it a useless, toxic, garbage concept. No forgiveness, only accountability and opinions changing based on new information.
The con artist never believes what they’re trying to pull off.
A sinning pastor could actually still believe in their religion (and potentially exhibit shame when wrong), yet not hold themselves to the tenets of that religion.
That’s a terrible shame, and a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Forgiveness is a powerful way for people to cope with injustices and hurts, and to move forwards; forgiving can be very good for your soul, if it gives closure to a painful past. But forgiveness isn’t automatic, it can’t be demanded, and you very much can’t get forgiveness from someone else than the person you’ve hurt. If someone is not ready to forgive you, even if you sincerely seek their forgiveness, then you won’t be. Furthermore, forgiveness does not mean forgetting, or getting to skip restitution and recompense. And while God will forgive us our transgressions and sins against Him, it doesn’t mean we get to skive from our responsibilities and obligations to our fellow human beings.
Or, once again: just because some people do a thing wrong, even horribly wrong, doesn’t mean the thing by itself is inherently and automatically bad. Forgiveness has real and genuine value and meaning, even if some toxic parts of American Evangelical Christianity practice a warped and toxic, garbage version.
As can be seen from their megachurches, which don’t resemble a church so much as Six Flags Over Jesus. *something something moneychangers in the temple*
Thank you for posting this. I know far too many people that hold on to anger and lets it define them. I had HORRIBLE things happen to me by someone in my past, and I’ve had friends that went through similar issues practically call me a liar because I’m not broke the way they are. Turns out, I didn’t need to hold the anger.
The person that did all of this is dead anyways, and if I ever meet anyone that needs information about this particular person (and I have), I have given it to them, but I’m not angry or bitter about it anymore. I haven’t forgotten, but I have forgiven. I don’t need this person occupying any part of my brain any more than they already do – the memories won’t go away, so the anger is the only thing that I have that could.
Beyond this, you can’t forgive someone for someone else. This church can’t give forgiveness to the preacher in anyway beyond what the person hurt says.
If you like the idea of not feeling as bad anymore about something someone did to you and you call that “forgiveness” than that is up to you, but I think it’s unnecessary. Not the feeling less bad part. The word.
We don’t forgive the couch when we stub our toe on it. The toe slowly stops hurting, we stop swearing, we calm down, we think about moving the couch or being careful when we walk past it, we think about throwing it out entirely, we talk about it, we stop thinking about it, but could recall it if it was relevant. All these emotional and physical experiences still happen, even though we do not call it “forgiveness” we don’t walk around with a perpetually stubbed toe just because we never “forgave” the couch.
But we act like that’s the case with the harms we visit on each other. We act like forgiveness is something we have to do in order to become good again, in order to heal our souls and avoid being bitter and angry forever. It’s enforced by others. They chastise for remembering, for withdrawing from those who hurt us, for having new or different boundaries. They remind us what’s at stake. Do you want to be broken like this forever? The boogieman for survivors of abuse. If you don’t forgive, you will not heal.
It’s like if we understood “heal” as something you did for the person who stabbed you, and if the wound remains open and weeping, this is something YOU are failing to do for THEM. So yeah. None for me thanks.
True, but with particularly toxic people I find that shunning them and excluding them from my life is far more effective. That these Xtianists don’t have the good sense to kick this garbage person out of their church tells me all I need to know about them.
