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The Unforgivable Sin
I got into one of those Facebook arguments over the weekend. You know, the kind with relative strangers you wish you’d walked away from three comments ago. I don’t usually argue with people over Facebook, but when I do it almost always involves football, probably because, unlike politics or religion, football tends to be a safe topic where people don’t take things too seriously. But when a football player commits an unpardonable sin, lookout.
This particular argument centered around Michael Vick. If you’ve been watching football for the last twenty years you’re probably well aware of the Michael Vick saga, and I have no intention of rehashing it out here. It’s old news you can read about elsewhere. Most football fans I’m aware of (and Vick himself) have moved on, but I’ve just discovered there are people intent on making sure Vick is forever shamed by his past, and they’re beating the hate-drums on social media to make sure you know about it.
Back in 2007, Vick perpetrated an awful crime (no question there) but he also repented of it, served the appropriate jail time, rediscovered God while incarcerated, emerged a changed man, and had a rewarding second career. Since retirement, he’s become a victims’ advocate. What a monster.
This is not an uncommon story; churches are filled with people who, like Vick, have experienced the redeeming love of Christ after making awful choices; choices that sometimes resulted in serious harm or even the death of others. We don’t shame them for the rest of their lives. In fact, we often encourage them to use their testimonies as evidence of the transformative love of Jesus Christ.
At least, we should.
Murderers, rapists, and child molesters are rightly kept tabs on, preferably from behind bars, when the system works properly. The life-long ramifications of their actions are unavoidable, and every individual’s level of remorse, efforts at restitution, etc., is different. But God can transform the heart of even the worst of sinners, and these are the individuals I’m referring to, those who’ve seen the light.
If a person has admitted to their crime, submitted to the authorities, and publicly repented, shouldn’t we move on as well? Shouldn’t they be allowed to enjoy that clean slate offered by the cross, and even be allowed some honor for what they’ve done right in life? Or, should they be forced to don a new kind of scarlet letter? The internet doesn’t forget, and neither should we, says the Facebook posse.
Every situation is unique, but there are two things I know pretty well: the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, and football. Michael Vick ran for over 6,000 yards as a quarterback, and accordingly, he deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Does his sin negate his achievement? Does Pete Rose’s? Does yours?
All fall short of the glory of God, and none are without sin, right? The miracle of the cross is that our identity is defined by the righteousness of Christ, not our own righteousness, and man, is that a good thing.
Our sins will always be a part of our history, but we don’t deserve to be defined by them. How we treat our brothers and sisters matters a great deal. Of course, unforgiveness ultimately says more about the person refusing to forgive than it does about the person needing forgiveness.
If tomorrow you learn that one of your good friends once committed a heinous act, will it change the way you treat them? Will you start a Facebook petition to spread the word to those who don’t know? When Christians start comparing sins, we quickly steer outside of our lane: “My sin is forgiven, and so was yours, but your sin was worse so I’m gonna make sure everyone knows about it.”
In a few days, we will be celebrating the birth of Christ. Maybe it will be a good time to consider the people sitting around you. I guarantee a few of their ledgers are tainted with worse sins than Michael Vick’s. We can drag those sins out from behind the cross and hold them up for the world to see, and maybe in doing so feel better about our own sins. Or, we can remember what exactly it is we’re celebrating: forgiveness.
Whoever believes in Him is not condemned and, whether we like it or not, counted as righteous, at least in God’s eyes. Fortunately for us, and for Michael Vick, that is the only ledger that counts.
Published in General
Not only the pews, but often enough the pulpits are filled with people who have turned themselves around. From Prison to the Pulpit might be a great book title. (And in a fast search, there are at least three books of that name by different authors.)
It is not so much that his was an unforgiveable sin.
It is these two things:
If Vick left prison and instead of returning to the football field, he ended up pushing a broom at the local hospital or drug rehab clinic, would you worry about whether people forgave him then too?
As far as his finding the Lord, and having remorse, those two things seem rather common attitudes among criminals when they are on the path before the parole board.
I don’t know Vick, and I hope he found the Lord, and I hope his remorse is sincere. But I’d rather not spend much time thinking about him at all.
I think it’s for two reasons:
And the coddled athlete problem extends all the way down into high schools. Johnny Manziel attended a high school about 20 miles away from here, and you could see his future coming even then.
Repentance and true redemption is wonderful to behold. But people now know what to say and how to appear so we can no longer take people at their word. I hope his atonement is honest but his actions are what matters. We’ll see.
Just watched a 4-part TV show set in Scotland about this topic called The Victim. I think it was through Amazon Prime with our BritBox subscription.
Let us say that Michael Vick did sincerely in his soul ask for redemption. That is a very big if but let’s say that he really did it and he meant it. Would your facebook friends forgive him?
Over 2,000,000,000 humans on planet earth did exactly what the OP suggests Vick did. Why is it a big if?
What is it with people who refuse to take people’s confession of faith at face value?
The fear of the LORD leads to life, And he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil. -Proverbs 19:23
I read about slavery when I was a pre-pubescent child and it put fear for my immortal soul in me. It terrified me that if I were born a rich white guy on a plantation, I would have been comfortable with slavery. Of course I imagined that I would be the cool plantation owner. I’d free my slaves (eventually) of course and I’d have a job I’d go to occasionally when I wasn’t drinking and flirting with Southern Belles.
Even though I’ve never owned slaves, there was (is) that horrible corruption in my soul that would have accepted slavery.
Rather than acknowledge that such a horrific evil exists in me it would be easy to condemn anyone who existed before me as lesser than me.
The thing that we fear about forgiveness is that we need to be forgiven. I’ve never done anything as evil as Michael Vick has done. But maybe if things were a bit different my sins would be equal to his. That is what is truly horrifying about forgiveness.
2 billion people shot, electrocuted, and hung dogs? I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant.
Michael Vick didn’t suddenly have an attack of conscience. He was caught, tried, convicted and imprisoned. I think it’s pretty easy to understand why there may be doubts as to how sincere he is.
“According to a witness, the men fought their trained pit bulls with pet dogs, and they “thought it was funny to watch the pit bull dogs belonging to Bad Newz Kennels injure or kill the other dogs.”“
This isn’t good ol boy fun. In other contexts this would be a huge warning sign for future deviant behavior. But he can pass a football, so it’s all good.
Put it in reverse, make sure the beeper is beeping, and back it up, hoss. Read what I wrote in context, and respond to the point I made, not the point you want to argue against.
Some sins are greater than others, and sins are never committed in a vacuum where the only person affected is the sinner. There is a difference between temporal punishment, and eternal punishment. There has always been a battle between embracing the sinner, and those that believe forgiveness means we must embrace the sin as well.
When one believes that a sin is unforgivable they are really saying that sin is greater and more powerful than God, or the Holy Spirit, it is really blasphemy.
Boom.
The NBA has just as many – if not more- examples of this. But this is true for anyone with money and has little to do with sports.
James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
As I see it, there is no gradation to sins. From God’s perspective, I believe He sees each of us as sinners and guilty of breaking the whole law. It makes no difference to Him what we did to break His law, we are guilty of breaking it all and thus deserve death.
I don’t understand what point you are truing to make. As I stated clearly.
You could explain it, because as stated it makes no sense. Why I asked.
In our society, you can be forgiven and turn your life around if you were once a violent homicidal drug-dealing thug. But if you opposed gay marriage or mocked a dude in a dress or ever mistreated an animal, there can be no forgiveness.
As we transition to an atheistic society, we still reflexively find ways to forgive beaches of what we dimly recall were God’s law but breaches of the ever-changing dictates of whatever it is we are building to replace God have no mechanism for forgiveness.
Dennis Prager talks about this in his video on the Ten Commandments. The worst sin is to invoke God in the service of evil. Doing that brings shame upon God.
I’d say that Wokeness is the most pitiless religion. No mercy whatsoever. There is no escape and no redemption.
Ok, I’ll argue with this point…or at least keep it up for debate.
Well if redemption doesn’t exist, why does all of humanity yearn for it?
Well, based strictly as a QB no. But his running numbers as a quarterback break the scale. A case could be made for that anomaly I think, since the league never saw anything like it, or has seen anything like it since.
For some of us the point you made is bogus.
Again with emphasis – if this guy didn’t have talents galore to demonstrate on the grid iron, he’d never again register on your consciousness.
Only God knows whether his remorse is sincere. And it is up to God and the souls of the many dogs he killed and injured to forgive him. (As well as all the many humans in all the many care and rescue facilities that put the surviving dogs back on the road to physical and emotional health.)
To me, killing or torturing a child or an animal is especially horrendous because they are innocents. I remember the descriptions of some of the injuries the surviving dogs had to endure, and surgeries to repair their bodies. What had been done to these animals was ghastly.
All the rescue folks said the dogs were, once well fed, and recovering from their wounds, amazingly responsive to kindness. This Vick guy may have been responsible for maiming the animals in a most cruel manner, but in the end the dogs’ innate goodness endured.
I am glad there is a God who can forgive him, as being an animal lover, I cannot.
Okay, me’n Conrad, happiest Pit on the planet, talked it over, and here are our findings (and remember, he’s a rescue Pit, and is thereby conferred Absolute Moral Authority):
We agree that dog-fighting is abhorrent. When we talked about it, he grabbed (didn’t even ask, damn Pits) my pack of Camel unfiltereds, fired one up, and said, “Look, Boss, I seen things. Bad things. Worst things you can imagine.”
I poured us both a shot, and asked, “Worse than I can imagine?”
He exhaled his smoke, and dropped his shot like a stevedore just gone off shift. “Got it. You’re the exception that proves the rule. You on Facebook? You on Twitter? Instagram?”
“Nah, Dawg. I haven’t seen anything that would even hint that that would be a healthy addition to my lifestyle.”
“Wait. You’re on Facebook. I remember The Lovely And Talented Mrs. Mongo yelling at you for your friends list being all girls you banged in high school and some Jewish lawyer from Ricochet.”
“Point.”
We both downed our shots.
“But this isn’t about me, my wedge-headed canine friend. And it isn’t about you, except for you got Absolute Moral Authority. It’s about Michael Vick. What about Vick?”
“Well–” said Conrad.
“Vait!!” yelled Princess Leia, the Most ADHD German Shepherd Ever. “If Vick had the proper moral compass ve vould not be having this conver–“
“Can it, Princess,” said Conrad as we both put down a shot. “You ain’t part of this discussion. You’ve never been in the Pit. He’s been in the Pit,” said Conrad, giving me a head chuck. “I been in the Pit. You? Shaddup.”
Leia sounded off with, “I haff been in ze pit of despair looking at ze lackluster perimeter security-“
“Quiet, Little Sister,” Conrad and I said in unison.
I refilled me ‘n Conrads’ shotglasses (No one should be surprised that Princess Leia is a very disapproving teetotaler). I squinted at Conrad, not so much for emphasis as the fact that the smoke from the Camel in my lip was curling into my eye. “We’re talking Vick, here, canine. What. About. Vick?”
Conrad pound his shot and said, “The brother’s done his time. That’s that.”
So, that’s that.
@tex929rr
The problem is, some activities show us that a human being is wired differently than the rest of us. For me: that would be: pedophiles and animal abusers.
The Vick experience is not about dog fighting per se. It is about this:
Donna Reynolds offered her experiences with arriving at the site where Vick was running his dog fighting “training center” for the pit bulls:
See Part Two;
Part Two, Donna Reynolds continued:
“Brutal details that got to me then and stay with me today involve the swimming pool that was used to kill some of the dogs,” Reynolds wrote on her blog. “Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables were connected to the terminals of car batteries before lifting and tossing the shamed dogs into the water.”
She continued, “We don’t know how many suffered this premeditated murder, but the damage to the pool walls tells a story. It seems that while they were scrambling to escape, they scratched and clawed at the pool liner and bit at the dented aluminum sides like a hungry dog on a tin can.
“I wear some pretty thick skin during our work with dogs. But I can’t shake my minds-eye image of a little black dog splashing frantically in bloody water … screaming in pain and terror … brown eyes saucer wide and tiny black white-toed feet clawing at anything, desperate to get a hold. This death did not come quickly. The rescuer in me keeps trying to think of a way to go back in time and somehow stop this torture and pull the little dog to safety. I think I’ll be looking for ways to pull that dog out for the rest of my life.”
Vick did all that and more to his dogs, and even threw family pets into the pit with fighters and laughed while they were mauled, according to a witness who testified to federal investigators.
######
This man is sick beyond description. Remember, he was not battle weary or shell shocked. His best friend in the whole world had not just been blown away by the Viet Cong. He wasn’t living on C Rations and trying to make his way through mine fields, day after horrid day, during months of monsoons, and then one day he snapped.
He just was born one very ill human being. He was like this because he wanted to be like this and he let himself devise this swimming pool of horrors.
Sure maybe I should forgive him. Or God should.
But if a person is wired like this, do you really think they have changed? Do you think they can change?
(Also I don’t think he spent any time in prison. It seems like he didn’t spend any time – not one minute – in prison. It might have been house arrest, oh the horror of house arrest! but I for one would be quite comfortable with someone this ill remaining on house arrest until the day he dies.)
Roughly 2 billion people are Christians. It stands to reason that most of those 2 billion people did exactly what Henry is saying is unlikely: they asked, sincerely, and in their soul, for redemption. Henry says it is a “big if” that Vick did such a thing. I’m asking why it is such a big if?
My point is that it isn’t such a big if.
That’s my point. But you said my point was bogus. So, which is it? Do you agree with me or do you not agree with me?
Not rapists? Not serial killers? What about guys that slap their wives around? What about Adolf Hitler? Forget Hitler, what about that guy who counted money at Auschwitz?
You seem to be suggesting that some people are “wired” to do evil and heinous things. Some people might be. But I’m not sure you or I can be counted on to make the determination.
Vick was sentenced to 24 months in prison, of which he served less than a year, due to having been incarcerated prior to his assignment to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth. He was release July 20, 2009. You can look it up if you care to. His federal prison number is 33765-183.
Vince, back to your original point about forgiveness. There is a man in my church, about my age. About 20 years ago (I did not know him at the time) he killed a woman in a head on collision while stinking drunk. He was tried, convicted, and served about 4 years, I think. I find it difficult to regard him neutrally. He raised two sons well; both are career fireman at a nearby city fire department. I know both and they are fine young men. I am civil to this man but can’t imagine spending time with him. He walks around free and that mother can never be touched by her children again.
She got the death penalty because he couldn’t stop drinking. Maybe his repentance is sincere; I’m sure he wishes it never happened. Mr. Vick’s actions were clearly intentional. In both cases it took the legal apparatus of the state to make them stop.
I don’t have to believe them. It’s not my problem anyway. What happened is done, whether I feel they got what they deserved or not. But I’m not required to give them the benefit of the doubt, either.
I don’t know Mr. Vick, and I don’t follow football. I do remember, vaguely the story.
Did he get saved in prison? I’m glad. I’ve no problem going to church with him, praying with him, reading the bible together, singing Christmas hymns, laughing at some joke, sharing a meal – whatever. And I’ve given a helping hand to folks that have done worse. Probably will again.
But there still may be consequences to sin. And if I were to need a kennel for my dogs I probably wouldn’t call Mr. Vick.
I grant all of his sins were abhorrent. The issue is, what is he doing today? Well this for one thing: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/01/29/fallen-nfl-star-michael-vick-spoke-at-liberty-university-monday-heres-what-he-said-about-dog-fighting-and-his-faith/%3foutputType=amp