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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
@bossmongo
Best thing I’ve read all week.
No, but Christains are commanded to forgive them, not because it benefits them, but rather because of the damage unforgiveness does to us.
As in: it isn’t about them, it is about you.
Well, it’s about them in how I treat them, and how others see the way I treat them and follow my example. They may have enough self-assurance in their identity in Christ to not care if I treat them like dirt but that’s a pretty tall order for most people to endure. It matters for me in that my heart drifts farther and farther away from God when I harbor hate, or unforgiveness, or spite, scorn, especially toward another brother or sister in Christ. This is something the enemy uses to destroy churches, one act of prideful contempt at a time. And he does it very well.
Question: Is there a spectrum for forgiveness?
I think Vick has served his time, and that is that as far as official sanction. But I do not disagree with @caroljoy‘s assessment of his actions.
So if I actually knew Vick, I would not seek vengeance or additional redress against him. I would not go all “eye for an eye” and set up an opportunity to hook him up to a car battery with the leads going to his cojones and throw him into the swimming pool. In our civil society, one’s debt is paid when the courts say one’s debt is paid. But…*
I’d never emotionally invest in him or trust him anywhere near the moral dimension. I’d never go out of my way to help him out or hook him up with good works, unless I was specifically asked to do so and I internally determined that as @spin has said, my yes or no was more about who I am than what I thought about the other person.
That’s about the level of forgiveness that I would afford Michael Vick. That might make me a less-than-optimal Christian, but I am a less-than-optimal Christian. And I’m a less-than-optimal member of the Church of Rome, as I’ve pretty much taken a knee until we get a Pope who’s actually…what’s the word? Oh, yeah…Catholic.
*There’s a caveat to that. If someone grievously harmed a member of my immediate personnel or professional family, and the official sanction provided little or no justice (let’s say some rich kid pulled a Kapechne on one of my beautiful Mongettes, and received the same pitiful official result) I might seek to administer some additional redress. Too, I’d go into it with eyes wide open, knowing I was going to commit a sin.
Then I’d drive up to Doral, find a Venezuelan or Cuban Priest with little or no English and confess my sins. Vvvvppppttt! Father Julio’s Saturday Night Car Wash; go in covered in mud, come out squeaky clean.
Laughing so hard here. This is a man with a plan.
Sure. My point is that the Lord commands us to forgive because he knows that unforgiveness rots the soul. We don’t forgive so much to let the other person “off” or whatever. But to remove the rot from our soul. :-)
Don’t know.
With Vick, what forgiveness can we give him? His actions do not directly affect us. He hasn’t “sinned” against us in an direct form. Someone might say that his actions do affect us all because animals are great or whatever, and that’s fine. But he didn’t hurt my dog. So that’s a different level of forgiveness than if he actually did take my favorite dog and put him in a pit.
A different guy is David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam. That guy killed a bunch of people. He ultimately became a Christian in prison and does prison ministry. Now, can I forgive him for what he did? I don’t feel like I need to. Because what he did doesn’t affect me personally. So I can easily say “Yeah, I forgive him.” But what about the families of the people he killed? It would take a deep and strong faith for them to forgive Berkowitz. And if they do, great. If they never do? I can’t say as I blame them.
If you want to see a different level of forgiveness watch the movie “Forgiving Dr. Mengele”. Briefly, this is the story of a woman who, along with her sister, was subject to the experiments of Mengele. The film follows her journey to find anyone who can tell her what was done to her sister at Auschwitz, in the hopes of finding medical help for her. Through the process she meets a former Nazi and becomes friends with the guy. In the end she publicly forgives the Nazis for what they did to her. Some of the Jewish people didn’t like that, said she had no right. It’s an interesting thing to think about.
So, yeah I guess there is a spectrum…
That’s not an easy question, but the short answer would probably be: No, love your neighbor. To expound upon that I’d recommend reading 1 John 1-3.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+1-3&version=NKJV
Except for most people, forgiveness is about a personal interaction with somebody.
Is it magnanimous to forgive a Michael Vick who tortured and killed dogs, if the person doing the forgiving doesn’t care one bit about dogs, never met Vick and certainly would not give a rat’s patootie about him except for the fact that he was a phenomenal football player, and after his time in prison, he came out and played on the grid iron again? I mean basically all that person is doing is being a football fan. (And please, I am not suggesting that to be a good person an individual has to care about dogs. I don’t see that as true.)
So that person can coach his thoughts as being about forgiveness, or not. But I think it is a huge stretch to say this person was all Christian and holy about a situation like the one we are in with regards to Michael Vick. For after all, to forgive someone you have to be injured by them. Otherwise what the hell are you forgiving?
See my #38 above.
Also, let’s wave off until after Christmas. It’s no time to argue.
I think you miss the point. This isn’t really about Michael Vick, he’s just an example because that was the story that got me thinking, I could point to a hundred others. The point was that Christians need to be consistent, and follow the teachings of Christ even when someone commits a sin we see as worse than others. We all have our personal red line, but God holds us to a different standard than the world around us.
I don’t recall the Michael Vick story very well. He was convicted of offenses against dogs, correct? Not people. Dogs.
I really wonder why this is a big deal at all. I find it a major error to equate animals with people. I’ve had dogs since I was 7 years old — when I chose a dog for my birthday over a shiny new 10-speed. I’m quite the dog lover, I think. But maybe not, because I recognize that they are animals. My dogs are faithful and loyal, but they are not made in the image of God.
I am serious about this. We have a large group of people in this country who have no objection to dismembering an unborn baby in utero, or killing the old or infirm or even the depressed — and yet are distressed at the thought of animal deaths.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of animal cruelty, but you’d think that Vick had raped and murdered a bunch of children.
I feel ya, but what he did was pretty bad. Not unforgivable, though.
Your words as written in reply number 6:
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?
You intertwined your point with the idea that Vick’s remorse was something that the public must take at face value.
No we don’t have to do that. First of all, the crimes that Vick committed were not against the public – they were against dozens and dozens of dogs. And real people came in and rehabilitated those dogs, getting many of them into homes where they have beco0me family pets.
Forgiveness for a violation can only come from the person or creature who was violated. If the many people who helped bring the surviving injured dogs back to help, and the rescue folks who helped them re-orient their behaviors so they weren’t afraid any more, want to now spend their time evaluating whether or not Vick has sincere remorse or just ‘show remorse,” that is their business.
But any member of the public has the right to rely on psychological studies that indicate that most people who engage in absolute sociopathic behavior have a compulsion to do such things. Sure, Jeffrey Dahmer could say he was sorry – but he had been dreaming of eating people since he was in fourth grade and was sitting in a classroom trying to figure out how he could eat his classmates and get away with it. What exactly does such a “sorry” mean? And he knew as well as the rest of us that he should not ever be out in public as a free man.
I don’t know Mr Vick. I don’t care to know him. Forgiveness for his violations is not up to me. If he is the one in a million people who can throw off the type of compulsive behaviors that indicate that the inner psychological and thrill mechanisms of the brain are mis-connected and wired weirdly, good for him.
But he did not hurt me. So it is God and the dogs and the people who had to spend time helping the dogs recover who have the ability to forgive.
My wife once called out a liberal dog lady on that very point. She had nothing to offer other than triggered outrage and hypocrisy.
Negative. I was responding specifically to Henry’s statement that Vick’s desire for redemption was a “big if”.
I agree with everything you wrote except for the above. Neither Mr. Vick nor anyone else can transform himself except the Lord Jesus Christ. And He has the power to save anyone no matter what they have done.
That’s all I’m saying.