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Simply Incredible
Take four minutes and watch this. It’s an incredible message, especially in these Days of Awe.
BREAKING: In stunning moment, Botham Jean's brother embraces Amber Guyger after her sentencing for his brother's murder.
"I don't even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you, because I know that's exactly what Botham would want." https://t.co/sWaPUtS0kj pic.twitter.com/xPAIKQLh6z
— ABC News (@ABC) October 2, 2019
I watched this with my oldest daughter and had an interesting conversation with her about forgiveness. It’s funny how kids have a way of making you think back to basics. What is forgiveness? On Twitter, one of my favorite personalities noted
I really agree with Oprah on the definition of forgiveness. A guest mentioned this to her in 1990 and she has talked about it many times since.
"Forgiveness is about letting go of the idea that the past could have been any different."
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 2, 2019
I’m not sure I agree, but it’s an interesting idea.
What does it mean to forgive, and why should we do it?
Published in General
That “letting go of the idea that the past could be any different” is certainly not forgiveness. She apparently means “making peace with your past” which is often involved. But pretending a misdeed was fated and not an act of free will is not honest, not loving, and dismisses justice as unobtainable.
The past could have been different. The misdeed didn’t need to happen. Someone made a choice to do evil. That choice is what needs forgiving.
Forgiveness has always been discussed in relation to justice and debt.
A financial debt might be forgiven in bankruptcy because the full amount due is more than the debtor can pay. Or it is forgiven because there are other interests that make the debt and breach of contract tolerable, such as hope that the pardoned debtor will eventually prove productive enough to offer society something which outweighs the damage.
Likewise, forgiveness of an immoral act, from lies to murder, is an assertion that something matters more than the moral debt. It indicates remaining value in an unjust person or unjust relationship. It accepts an imperfect or even grossly unfair situation because there remains hope for repentance and/or unity. Forgiveness is how we welcome the broken.
I’m astonished, since every other representative of the Jean family has been working hard to sow racial division and hatred.
So, for this one family member to buck the hate fest and create new possibilities for growth rather than animosity raises hope.
Powerful stuff. Not forgiving is a burden that must be carried around. It is like a having a bag of stones to carry around.
ps, if you feel moved, consider a donation to the Botham Jean Memorial Scholarship Fund at Harding.edu/giving; There is a pulldown to choose that fund. Harding U. is a Christian University and the scholarships are given to people from the Caribbean Islands. Botham is a Harding Alum.
Yes, it’s an interesting idea, but forgiveness is much more than this statement by Oprah’s guest.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Don’t carry the hate in your heart. It can’t help. Indeed, it can hurt. And no, it’s not easy.
The last two minutes were unbelievable. Thank you.
Her remorse, if genuine, allows him to forgive, as his forgiveness compels her to be genuinely remorseful. And both are better off for it.
“Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that the past could have been any different.”
Well, that sounds like nice, soothing, chicken soup for the soul, but I think it’s wrong.
Forgiveness starts when one understands that the past most certainly could have been different, but that it wasn’t.
And it wasn’t, because either you, or someone else, did something requiring forgiveness. And that’s the thing we have to confront. Otherwise, we’re just making excuses. (See C.S. Lewis, Essay on Forgiveness.)
We should do it because resentment and anger eats us up and damages our own lives and our own characters. That doesn’t mean the past couldn’t have been different if we or others had made different choices. It could have. But it wasn’t. And now it can’t be.
P.S. That’s why we have all these different verb tenses.
Forgiveness is not always approppriate, and in fact some people extend forgiveness far too readily.
It seems to me that forgiveness should not be extended until punishment is completed, the sentence is served, and the malefactor has shown remorse and a desire to return to society peacefully.
If you’re going to forgive someone, then it doesn’t seem right to send them to jail. Of course, a brother is not the one who can forgive the murder.
Forgiveness is not always wrong. However, it is extended all too readily by some, possibly because they are taught that “forgiving” someone makes them a better person. It does not. Sometimes it is vital to hold someone bound to their sins, and one way to do this is with incarceration.
These too frequent displays of “forgiveness” for horrible crimes strike me as insincere, or at best naive, and do not make me think well of the forgivor.
I do sometimes wonder how languages that don’t (have all the conjugated verb tenses and moods) convey what you just wrote.
Congratulations, Skyler. That is wrong.
I forgive you.
Yours is a prime example of how “forgiving” is just a passive-aggressive method of exerting dominance.
Or it could be a “joke.”
On the other hand, jokes could just be a passive-aggressive method of exerting dominance.
I was taught that forgiveness is about forgiving the offense and not the offender. It’s like saying “I don’t hold that offense against you”. It makes a difference because you aren’t letting the person, their soul off the hook, only the crime.
It doesn’t always have to be a public display either (reconciliation) and the person who committed the offense doesn’t have to know you’ve settled the issue in your heart. The offender’s feelings aren’t important here.
Yes, obviously, but my point is still valid. “Forgiveness” is often used that way.
I didn’t think you were serious. We’re all friends here.
Agreed. Forgiveness is a biblical concept with quite a lot of description to be found. I think I take the opposite view of Oprah (than Bethany)… hers is a quasi-spirituality the ends up with some very confused and backward ideas.
I don’t think the following 2 points advance the discussion but here they are:
I note that the black judge sentenced her to 10 years in prison, but then hugged her and gave her a bible.
This all reminds me of Charleston, SC, where Christian blacks forgave a white killer. This is incredibly moving. I don’t know that I am up to that level of forgiveness.
There’s truth in what Skyler says.
Hell exists because some will not accept forgiveness. Some persist in wickedness without regret or desire to improve. Forgiveness is properly an offer in exchange for repentance and effort to love. That is how Christ presents it.
The offer can be made before repentance and amends are made. But it represents hope for restoration, rather than a wishful fantasy that harmony is restored unilaterally just by saying it is. And some punishment might be prudent for public security and the satisfaction of neighbors even if the full punishment due is not demanded.
Forgiveness signifies an eagerness for harmony. To be willing to forgive, even if that offer is rejected, frees oneself of the desire for vengeance. But if the offer is only for one’s own peace of mind and not for the offender, it is not love.
Forgiveness is mainly for our own benefit. It is to get rid of a toxic burden. It is to acknowledge that the task of getting justice is ultimately not on our shoulders; to remind us that the source of real justice that won’t be denied is from He who knows all and forgets nothing.
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
I don’t know. I don’t feel any burden, toxic or not, in not forgiving people who have harmed me and intend to continue to harm me.
Yes. In Texas, it was the jury deciding the sentence. The presiding judge did respond, after the brother’s amazing expression, by hugging the family, followed by bringing her own bible down off the bench to point the newly sentenced convict to John 3:16 as the start of a path to redemption.
In Charleston, SC, in 2015, the expressions of forgiveness were actually offered at the suspect’s first court appearance, before there was even a trial. Those acts by Christians, together with Gov. Nikki Haley’s response, forestalled the Obama administration and leftist allies’ intended further racial division.
This young man’s spiritual act seems to be yielding at least a secular truce, as people hesitate to demagogue against the jury verdict being too light and not properly valuing black lives taken by white cops.
And of course this:
https://abc11.com/society/complaint-filed-against-judge-who-gave-bible-to-amber-guyger/5591589/
Color me not surprised.