I am joined by my friend The Black Horse to discuss this very timely topic for Holy Week as we make our final preparations for Good Friday and Easter, that of "forgiveness."
This is the real crux of the issue. It’s the conflation of a public humiliation ritual and the criminal going free (in the context of disproportionate racial violence) with the private forgiveness and freeing oneself of the desire for vengeance. Propaganda where real forgiveness may or may not have occurred, and the wicked goes unpunished or has mass public sympathy
I need help understanding this. What are we supposed to do when neither the offending party nor the sovereign brings justice to the situation? In what way are we supposed to forgive then? Do we have to forgive the sovereign their neglect? The offending party their collusion? Surely what is expected of us is not the same as if justice were had, but if that's the case, what is expected of us? I struggle to make peace with the situation, and I can't help but feel it is wrong to make peace with it.
Also, since Daryl Cooper recently wrote a piece related to this, where he advised against being "pulled into cycles of conflict", could you address the Jewish question, as it relates to forgiveness, explicitly? In my view, Daryl, while his intent is in the right place, is telling people to excuse all sorts of crimes under the notion of it being good for us psychologically as individuals without concern for the collective harm it has caused and would guarantee continues.
More explicitly, how is it that a Christian should regard the effects of Jewish influence on their society, the quality of their sovereigns, the Church, and their brothers in Christ?
I know part of what he's saying is don't let what you can't immediately act on consume you, but I find that to be more often used, particularly with this issue, as an excuse to allow preventable sin to continue. I would not feel this way if he would more readily admit there is an issue with Jewish influence that must be solved (and importantly that the solution is not dependent on their warped sense of fairness), just that the approaches he's seen are not sound, but that's not how he went about it at all. Regardless, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts you'd be willing to share that might help me see these things more clearly and approach them with a better moral foundation.
Good question. There are a number of components to this. One is the distinction between forgiveness and excusing a behaviour. To forgive is not to excuse the offense as if it didn't happen. The unfortunate thing about today's complex systems is it allows many injustices to be excused because there is no direct connection of harm and if there is harm, efforts are put into fixing the system without ever addressing the harms done. This can leave us with a diffuse sense of harm with no direct person upon whom responsibility can be placed. Can you restore a relationship between a person and "the system." What if people are adept at using and navigating the system? Are they to blame or are the people who initiated and set up the system? Which person(s) should be punished? This is why the propaganda of agitation can be so effective. It gives diffuse anger a focal point, providing an easy scapegoat upon whom to vent one's anger. I think this is where Daryl's concern lies. Its a caution against getting sucked into propaganda narratives that create easy and ready made villains.
The second component is that the earthly magistrate is supposed to hold perpetrators of injustice accountable for their sins against their fellow man. But what do you do when the people who set up the system to remove direct accountability are also the same class of people who staff and run it. What do you do when it seems that "the system" is sovereign and it appears that the foxes have been placed in charge of the hen house?
This leads to the final point, that ultimately justice belongs to God, the true Sovereign. Read the Psalms. This is what Job did. You take your case to God and plead with him and rage at him. This is supposed to be a regular part of worship and was at one time. God's answer was to place the sins of the world onto his Son, Jesus Christ. The question of justice gets resolved in one of two ways. One is that the sinner repents and puts his faith in Christ. As part of this process, as in the case of Zacchaeus, you do what is necessary to make things right, to satisfy earthly justice and restore right relationship. If this means jail or the death penalty or paying restitution, you do it to the best of your ability.
But what if the person is unrepentant? Holding onto to this anger and unforgiveness is not only psychologically damaging, it can open you up to the influence of the evil one and his demonic servants. Harbouring unforgiveness within your heart may also threaten your salvation. Forgive as God forgave you. How do you do this? You release it and give it to God and trust that God will deal with them appropriately. This means either salvation in Christ or judgement on the Day of Judgement. It means believing that such a day is coming and that Christ will return. This is why these teachings matter and why belief in the second coming is so vital to not only a healthy faith life, but also to a healthy society.
For the questions you posed, not only is it possible, but I believe that it is a duty of right leadership to restore relationships between people and the cultural body and its institutions. I don't believe there is such a thing as a system which operates independently of human will and decision, nor do I believe there are systems which can survive tolerating the empowerment of those who do not use them in goodwill. The spirit of the law can only be maintained by the sovereign actively working against those who try to parasitize or undermine it. Systems inevitably benefit some more than others, so it is possible for one to be set up, or perpetuated, under false pretenses and the architects of those false pretenses to be at fault.
I do agree with you. The challenge with the managerial system is identifying who is at fault? If the system is the enemy of justice, the enemy of the people in this regard, take for example something like the education system: are all teachers complicit, collaborators in an unjust system? One can see how “the state” system built to obfuscate responsibility, in trying to bring justice can lead quickly to things spiraling out of control. Does burning all to the ground bring justice? Sometimes it does. But Calvin warns that claiming to be the instrument of God’s justice against an unjust ruler puts one in very dangerous territory. Even David, who himself was already anointed, would not himself lift a hand against God’s anointed king. He waited patiently for God to do justice. How many laments are David’s pleas for justice as his enemies pursued him and he lived on the run in caves for a long time? There are lessons there.
Trust me I feel your rage. I am an older man who sees how the world of my youth was taken from me for profit and power. The temptation to want to pick up arms and “do something” is immense. Maybe this will be the path God lays out, maybe not. But in the meantime it is up to us to pursue the spiritual disciplines so that these thoughts don’t consume us. Like Job, like Jacob, like Elijah, like David, bring it to the Lord and wrestle it out with him.
I still get the feeling that I'm being asked to excuse second order consequences of people's actions or proclivities as if wisdom in that regard must come from scripture alone. Sure, it is a different matter than first order crimes, but when there is overwhelming evidence which is hardly obscured (just routinely ignored), repeated through time and across circumstances, confirmed by both reason and intuition, surely it would be wrong to ignore. It is to fight the forces of darkness with our arms tied behind our back, and letting good people suffer for the hubris. Dismissing notions of diffuse culpability, inevitably tied up with particular identities, as scapegoating can't help but appear as obfuscation.
It's like the "not all" argument being used to dismiss the destruction of innocence which any one of us could predict from any number of actions taken by our states as a direct downstream consequence of policies forced on the system by particular groups with often clearly malicious or self-serving ends in mind. It's insulting to have a reasoned look at these things be called scapegoating, which you may not have done but Daryl gets close to.
Regardless, I could forgive them a million times, but is it really not any of our responsibilities to do something about it, or at least to call each other to hold in poor regard those who should? Can we forgive them privately while still committing ourselves to do what is in our power to fully hold them to account publicly, as well as those who should be doing that for us?
Yes, the private/public split is good. It is also good to remember that in Christian teaching, that justice is not meant to be “private,” that is vigilante. It is frustrating when the magistrate ignores justice. There are some answers in the idea of lesser magistrate challenging the greater on behalf of the people. There are no easy answers here.
Thank you. I clearly struggle with my anger at all this, but for those trying to help with that like Daryl, I believe it is counterproductive to pretend like people-groups are above scrutiny as if they didn't have distinct interests or irreconcilable differences, as if this weren't part of a fight for sovereignty, of putting their distinct interests ahead of others. The obscuring of these things, or implying that it would be wrong to take our own side, has not helped us so far.
I appreciated The Black Horse's comment that forgiveness should be a private affair and not a public spectacle. Even as it rang true, it was kind of startling. We are so primed for a sanitized, hidden away justice, but forgiveness as public display.
If fictionalized mobster stories are any indication, a perpetrator will occasionally be handed over for justice to a rival gang to avoid all out gang warfare. It stands to reason that such criminal organizations would understand cycles of violence. They are also clearly motivated to not involve the sovereign.
This is the real crux of the issue. It’s the conflation of a public humiliation ritual and the criminal going free (in the context of disproportionate racial violence) with the private forgiveness and freeing oneself of the desire for vengeance. Propaganda where real forgiveness may or may not have occurred, and the wicked goes unpunished or has mass public sympathy
I need help understanding this. What are we supposed to do when neither the offending party nor the sovereign brings justice to the situation? In what way are we supposed to forgive then? Do we have to forgive the sovereign their neglect? The offending party their collusion? Surely what is expected of us is not the same as if justice were had, but if that's the case, what is expected of us? I struggle to make peace with the situation, and I can't help but feel it is wrong to make peace with it.
Also, since Daryl Cooper recently wrote a piece related to this, where he advised against being "pulled into cycles of conflict", could you address the Jewish question, as it relates to forgiveness, explicitly? In my view, Daryl, while his intent is in the right place, is telling people to excuse all sorts of crimes under the notion of it being good for us psychologically as individuals without concern for the collective harm it has caused and would guarantee continues.
More explicitly, how is it that a Christian should regard the effects of Jewish influence on their society, the quality of their sovereigns, the Church, and their brothers in Christ?
I know part of what he's saying is don't let what you can't immediately act on consume you, but I find that to be more often used, particularly with this issue, as an excuse to allow preventable sin to continue. I would not feel this way if he would more readily admit there is an issue with Jewish influence that must be solved (and importantly that the solution is not dependent on their warped sense of fairness), just that the approaches he's seen are not sound, but that's not how he went about it at all. Regardless, I would greatly appreciate any thoughts you'd be willing to share that might help me see these things more clearly and approach them with a better moral foundation.
Good question. There are a number of components to this. One is the distinction between forgiveness and excusing a behaviour. To forgive is not to excuse the offense as if it didn't happen. The unfortunate thing about today's complex systems is it allows many injustices to be excused because there is no direct connection of harm and if there is harm, efforts are put into fixing the system without ever addressing the harms done. This can leave us with a diffuse sense of harm with no direct person upon whom responsibility can be placed. Can you restore a relationship between a person and "the system." What if people are adept at using and navigating the system? Are they to blame or are the people who initiated and set up the system? Which person(s) should be punished? This is why the propaganda of agitation can be so effective. It gives diffuse anger a focal point, providing an easy scapegoat upon whom to vent one's anger. I think this is where Daryl's concern lies. Its a caution against getting sucked into propaganda narratives that create easy and ready made villains.
The second component is that the earthly magistrate is supposed to hold perpetrators of injustice accountable for their sins against their fellow man. But what do you do when the people who set up the system to remove direct accountability are also the same class of people who staff and run it. What do you do when it seems that "the system" is sovereign and it appears that the foxes have been placed in charge of the hen house?
This leads to the final point, that ultimately justice belongs to God, the true Sovereign. Read the Psalms. This is what Job did. You take your case to God and plead with him and rage at him. This is supposed to be a regular part of worship and was at one time. God's answer was to place the sins of the world onto his Son, Jesus Christ. The question of justice gets resolved in one of two ways. One is that the sinner repents and puts his faith in Christ. As part of this process, as in the case of Zacchaeus, you do what is necessary to make things right, to satisfy earthly justice and restore right relationship. If this means jail or the death penalty or paying restitution, you do it to the best of your ability.
But what if the person is unrepentant? Holding onto to this anger and unforgiveness is not only psychologically damaging, it can open you up to the influence of the evil one and his demonic servants. Harbouring unforgiveness within your heart may also threaten your salvation. Forgive as God forgave you. How do you do this? You release it and give it to God and trust that God will deal with them appropriately. This means either salvation in Christ or judgement on the Day of Judgement. It means believing that such a day is coming and that Christ will return. This is why these teachings matter and why belief in the second coming is so vital to not only a healthy faith life, but also to a healthy society.
For the questions you posed, not only is it possible, but I believe that it is a duty of right leadership to restore relationships between people and the cultural body and its institutions. I don't believe there is such a thing as a system which operates independently of human will and decision, nor do I believe there are systems which can survive tolerating the empowerment of those who do not use them in goodwill. The spirit of the law can only be maintained by the sovereign actively working against those who try to parasitize or undermine it. Systems inevitably benefit some more than others, so it is possible for one to be set up, or perpetuated, under false pretenses and the architects of those false pretenses to be at fault.
I do agree with you. The challenge with the managerial system is identifying who is at fault? If the system is the enemy of justice, the enemy of the people in this regard, take for example something like the education system: are all teachers complicit, collaborators in an unjust system? One can see how “the state” system built to obfuscate responsibility, in trying to bring justice can lead quickly to things spiraling out of control. Does burning all to the ground bring justice? Sometimes it does. But Calvin warns that claiming to be the instrument of God’s justice against an unjust ruler puts one in very dangerous territory. Even David, who himself was already anointed, would not himself lift a hand against God’s anointed king. He waited patiently for God to do justice. How many laments are David’s pleas for justice as his enemies pursued him and he lived on the run in caves for a long time? There are lessons there.
Trust me I feel your rage. I am an older man who sees how the world of my youth was taken from me for profit and power. The temptation to want to pick up arms and “do something” is immense. Maybe this will be the path God lays out, maybe not. But in the meantime it is up to us to pursue the spiritual disciplines so that these thoughts don’t consume us. Like Job, like Jacob, like Elijah, like David, bring it to the Lord and wrestle it out with him.
Thank you, that helps.
I still get the feeling that I'm being asked to excuse second order consequences of people's actions or proclivities as if wisdom in that regard must come from scripture alone. Sure, it is a different matter than first order crimes, but when there is overwhelming evidence which is hardly obscured (just routinely ignored), repeated through time and across circumstances, confirmed by both reason and intuition, surely it would be wrong to ignore. It is to fight the forces of darkness with our arms tied behind our back, and letting good people suffer for the hubris. Dismissing notions of diffuse culpability, inevitably tied up with particular identities, as scapegoating can't help but appear as obfuscation.
It's like the "not all" argument being used to dismiss the destruction of innocence which any one of us could predict from any number of actions taken by our states as a direct downstream consequence of policies forced on the system by particular groups with often clearly malicious or self-serving ends in mind. It's insulting to have a reasoned look at these things be called scapegoating, which you may not have done but Daryl gets close to.
Regardless, I could forgive them a million times, but is it really not any of our responsibilities to do something about it, or at least to call each other to hold in poor regard those who should? Can we forgive them privately while still committing ourselves to do what is in our power to fully hold them to account publicly, as well as those who should be doing that for us?
Yes, the private/public split is good. It is also good to remember that in Christian teaching, that justice is not meant to be “private,” that is vigilante. It is frustrating when the magistrate ignores justice. There are some answers in the idea of lesser magistrate challenging the greater on behalf of the people. There are no easy answers here.
Thank you. I clearly struggle with my anger at all this, but for those trying to help with that like Daryl, I believe it is counterproductive to pretend like people-groups are above scrutiny as if they didn't have distinct interests or irreconcilable differences, as if this weren't part of a fight for sovereignty, of putting their distinct interests ahead of others. The obscuring of these things, or implying that it would be wrong to take our own side, has not helped us so far.
You two deftly navigate the rocky shoals.
I appreciated The Black Horse's comment that forgiveness should be a private affair and not a public spectacle. Even as it rang true, it was kind of startling. We are so primed for a sanitized, hidden away justice, but forgiveness as public display.
If fictionalized mobster stories are any indication, a perpetrator will occasionally be handed over for justice to a rival gang to avoid all out gang warfare. It stands to reason that such criminal organizations would understand cycles of violence. They are also clearly motivated to not involve the sovereign.
Thanks! That is a really good example of the mechanism at work to end mimetic violence by "making things right."