Thursday, May 10, 2007

Thoughts on Forgiveness, Part 2

I'm back to continue my thoughts on forgiveness. When I signed off Wednesday I had made the point that forgivenss doesn't make everything alright like so many Christians say it does. I believe that with all my heart. Forgiveness has limits and that should be admitted by believers; it doesn't make everything ok.

Yes, forgiveness can liberate people from the grip of toxic emotions and give them a new lease on life, but only if it's part of a larger process. It doesn't do that all by itself. The belief that it does has, I suspect, left a lot of hurting people sitting in pews all across America and the world, people who don't dare admit their true feelings for fear of appearing unChristian and/or getting chastised by their "caring" pastors and Christian friends.

Why do so many Christians believe that forgiveness is a panacea when the Bible no where says it is? I think it may be because of a discomfort with the emotion of anger, a discomfort that is itself unBiblical. A lot of Christians believe that anger is a sin; the Bible does NOT teach that! The Bible tells us to be angry but sin not, making a clear distinction between anger and sin. Jesus got angry at the Pharisees and at the moneychangers in the Temple. If getting angry is a sin, then Jesus was a sinner and, therefore, can't be the Messiah, who is supposed to be sinless. So Christians need to dump this false and harmful doctrine that getting angry is sinful and follow what the Bible actually says.

Another reason I think Christians believe forgiveness is a cure-all is the false "health, wealth, and happiness" doctrine. Simply put, this doctrine states that Jesus came to earth to give us health, wealth and happiness, and if we're not healthy, wealthy, and happy it's because of some secret sin in our lives, usually unforgiveness. Forgiveness is the ticket to God's blessings, to heaven on earth; unforgiveness blocks the divine gravy train. So, many Christians are "forgiving" people just to have access to the Cosmic Genie, also known as God. This is a sad state of affairs indeed.

By turning forgiveness into The Answer To All That Ails Us, Christians can end up being quite cruel to hurting, victimized people, even without meaning to. More than once I've heard tv preachers demean the feelings of wronged people. "You don't have a right to be angry!" "Who are you to judge anybody?!" "If you don't forgive, you're worse than the person who hurt you!" I've heard tv preachers say these, or similar, things without the slightest comprehension of the damage they were doing to a lot of people in their congregations.

The worst thing you can do to someone who's been hurt is to invalidate their feelings. Hurt and anger are natural and thoroughly appropriate reactions to being wronged, and they don't go away just by chanting the spell, "I forgive you". If Christians really want people to offer--and benefit from--truly genuine forgiveness, the first step is to agree with the injured person on both the depth of the injury and the rightness of his "unChristian" reaction to it. In other words, validate his feelings. Stop expecting instant forgiveness, and stop condemning when it's not forthcoming. And PLEASE stop telling people that forgiveness heals!

The idea that forgiveness causes emotional healing is, perhaps, one of the most deeply ingrained doctrines in the Church today. And I think it's one of the most unhealthy doctrines to dump on injured people. As I've said before, anger, hurt, and the desire for revenge are natural human feelings, but no matter how natural they are they can become horribly destructive if not handled properly. Teaching people that simply saying, "I forgive you", will banish these potentially deadly emotions from their hearts and minds is a gross disservice. These feelings need to be worked through, and the process can be long, hard, and messy. The end result, though, is an emotional healthy person who's ready to forgive. That's right; forgiveness can be and, if the truth were told, usually is the RESULT OF healing, NOT the means to healing.

That goes against virtually everything Christians today are taught about forgiveness. But Christians need to start thinking outside the box--not outside the Bible!--on what forgiveness really is and how to achieve it. Christians are commanded to forgive. If they really want to obey their Lord they should look at every possible means to do so and dump whatever doesn't work.


I will be posting on this subject again later. I'm not finished with forgiveness, and forgiveness isn't finished with me.

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