Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
To Forgive, Divine
Many complain about the post-Christian slough of contemporary America. We point to the coarsening of pop culture, the dissolution of the family, and the battles over religious liberty in the courts. Those issues are important, but more troublesome is the decline of the deeper virtues.
Forgiveness. Mercy. Beauty.
Before the blood cooled in Charleston, the internet devolved into the usual partisan bickering. Warring sides screamed of confederate flags and gun control and racism and religious hatred. It’s easy to get lost in the daily political battles; to lose oneself in the outrage of the day. I know I’m often guilty of condemning my opponents personally when I should focus on the arguments they make.
But in a South Carolina courtroom Friday, the victims’ families demonstrated those deeper virtues rarely broadcast in this secular culture. The judge allowed the grieving to share their minds directly with the dead-eyed young man accused of killing their mothers, sons and sisters.
Felicia Sanders told the accused, “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with open arms. You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts, and I’ll never be the same. Tywanza Sanders was my son, but Tywanza was my hero. But as we said in the Bible study… may God have mercy on you.”
“I will never talk to her ever again,” Nadine Collier said of her mother. “I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people, but God forgive you, and I forgive you.”
Rev. Anthony Thompson said, “I forgive you and my family forgives you, but we would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Repent. Confess. Give your life to the One who matters the most — Christ — so that He can change it; to change your ways no matter what happened to you and you’ll be okay.”
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
— St. Paul, The Epistle to the Romans 12:19-21
Amen.
Published in Culture, Religion & Philosophy
I just got around to watching the last installment of 24 (subtitled Live Another Day). Jack Bauer threw the terrorist woman out a window. I cheered. You forgive whomever you like, but I cheered.
Forgive, yes. It will help the family and friends let go. If the criminal repents, he can find forgiveness from God in the life to come.
The state, however, should hasten his departure to the life to come in the shortest amount of time that comports with a fair trial and due process.
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
St Paul, a little further on in that Epistle to the Romans 13:4
It says a sword, not a spanking stick, time-out chair, or life without the possibility of parole.
If it is true that he almost abandoned his plan after being welcomed so warmly — he is not immune to human feeling. One wonders whether those words reached him.
There is nothing inconsistent with what the family said and what Nikki Haley said. That is important to understand — forgiveness does not negate justice.
And the whole church says, “Amen.”
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
— St. Paul, The Epistle to the Romans 12:19-21
Given that this (coc forbidden) aimed to incite a race war, seems St. Paul was on to something.
Forgiveness is best administered after the culprit has paid for his crime. In this case, he should be forgiven as he mounts the scaffold.
It is a beautiful sentiment, but is there not a degree of unintended hubris in forgiveness when you are not the primary victim? Surely the families of the dead are suffering the worst right now. But murder is the great unforgivable sin because the dead have no power to forgive. We cannot do so on their behalf.
The memory is forever burned into my mind of my father driving to church the night of 9/11 to pray. There were a few dozen parishioners doing the same at an emotional ad hoc service. I’ll never forget the woman who went up to the podium and counseled forgiveness and not filling our hearts with hatred. Even as a young boy, I found that idea appalling. New York was still in flames and the dead uncounted, and here was this woman “forgiving” Muhammed Atta when she herself was not the victim. It bothered me then and it still does.
I was one of the responding officers at that scene.
The forgiveness and decency of these families is profound. They are living examples of Christian love. They are better people than I am.
The Tac Deputy on the left, the one looking at Roof as if he is calculating which bone to break first, should he be given a reason?
That man speaks for me.
Forgiveness is indeed beautiful, and one cannot praise highly enough the forbearance, strength of character, and sense of unity demonstrated by the people of this parish. Jon is exactly right that these people are embodying virtue much more highly than the chattering classes that took to Twitter to use this event to vilify the other side in an ongoing debate.
That said, forgiveness is a virtue in the minds and hearts of individuals; it is not a public virtue that can provide for the ordering principle of law.
Office holders have a duty to those they serve which is equal to the moral duty that calls each Christian to forgive his enemies in his own heart. This duty in part consists of providing for the common defense against both beasts and men who behave like them, and of seeing to it that justice is done: that might is jointed with right.
This young man should be given a trial, and the public authority should protect him until he is tried and punished by law. If found guilty, his punishment for this crime should be swift and ruthless execution. That execution is not meant to be a deterrent, nor is it meant to be a cathartic out-pouring of vengeance for the individuals wronged (though it may do those things in some way); rather, that execution is meant to be a simple statement: “there are crimes we will not put up with, for which you do not get a second chance.” Performing that duty is the charge of civil servants by the nature of their office, and they too should pray that they perform their duty with wisdom and true justice.
Prior to his execution, the young man should be visited by a priest, and asked if he wishes last rites performed and his confession heard. That is the mercy the law ought to extend to him.
I wonder if you’d consider writing a bit more about this, given that you were one of the responding officers. I think we’d all value hearing from you.
I’m sorry you had to see this, and far more sorry still for the victims — above all, as Byron points out — and their families. I agree with Byron that it’s indecent to offer forgiveness on behalf of men and women who have been murdered. Perhaps we can speculate that they would have offered it. The company they kept says much about the quality of their characters, and what they might have said or felt. But it isn’t ours to offer on their behalf.
I agree, but this is different in at least two ways. First, if that woman was representative of a certain strand of liberalism I remember after 9/11, she failed to grapple with evil, and ignored the need for justice.
These people did not play down the evil. They looked it right in the face. If you read their statements, they replayed exactly what he had done even as they offered forgiveness.
Second, these families are showing full confidence in the testimony of the dead. Their loved ones stand in the presence of God. The suffering is here on earth. That woman who has lost a son can perhaps forgive only her own loss, but her loss is the greater. And perhaps she can forgive because she has that confidence — and because that cringing murderer before her is a broken man with no hope.
Hear, hear!
I know I brag about my state a bit much around here, but I’m going to do it again. We can get into the meaning of forgiveness and whether or to what extent it means anything to our criminal law, but compare the reaction in Charleston (to a true outrage, mind you) to St. Louis and Baltimore. Civil society is still alive and well here.
There is temporal judgment and then there is mercy. The province of man is judgment and mercy belongs to G-d. Like the late Tim Russert who attended a boys Catholic high school I was reminded of that by the priests and brothers when I spent some time in detention. Mr. Russert was misbehaving and when one of the brothers confronted him he asked for mercy. The Brother replied: Mr. Russert G-d deals in mercy I deal in judgment.
Wylee I’m sorry that you had to witness the aftermath of such a tragic scene. No matter what an officer has seen in the past there are still tragedies that can generate feelings of anger and sadness.
Thank you so much for serving your community, especially in this horrifying situation. I can’t imagine walking into that and maintaining anything like professionalism.
I don’t believe that these people consider themselves the primary victims. But the killer did sin against each of the family members who spoke to him — he stole their loved ones. They forgive him for that sin, just as Christ forgave his executioners while they were still committing the act.
None of this makes sense from an earthly vantage point. Of course the killer doesn’t deserve forgiveness or mercy. (If you ask me, he deserves cruel and unusual punishment followed by particularly painful execution.) But Christianity isn’t about giving people justice alone; that’s what the courts are for.
The family members are demonstrating what Christ commanded His followers to do; to emulate Him and forgive truly despicable people, just as He forgave them (and us). Saul of Tarsus murdered church members too; then he accepted forgiveness and wrote half the New Testament.
None of this is to say that the murderer shouldn’t be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But even if he somehow escaped from jail and was never heard from again, Christians are commanded to forgive him still. Like the verses above note, they are to trust God to mete out the wrath and vengeance.
Here’s the problem in a nutshell: Revenge is different than justice. The world is the story of alternating periods of revenge and suppression, by nations, by races, by individual families.
Right now the left is in its ascendancy of revenge. Groups exchange roles of oppressed and oppressor without end. The only thing that breaks that cycle is forgiveness. But nobody wants to be the first.
Why do we consider Japan and Germany to be our friends and allies? Because in 1945 we shed the idea of collective guilt and offered forgiveness. (That doesn’t mean we forget.)
We would all be better off if we could be like these admirable South Carolinians. When enough people come to their senses on the left and when the realization sets in that oppressing Christianity is not the answer to gay equality, that the answer to elevating other cultures is not to completely denigrate and tear down Western tradition, we have the strength to say, “It’s ok, we forgive you. Now let’s respect each other and move on together.”
Moving together does not mean traveling in the same direction, just accommodating each other at our intersections.
God bless the victims of the Charleston shooting and their families, friends, and church community. They appear to be giving us an extraordinary example of Christian discipleship and obedience in the face of a horrific evil.
I sit about 2,000 miles away, and I do not believe that I know anyone involved in Charleston. It appears that the perpetrator, Roof, has been caught.
I don’t want to forgive him. Assuming that he is guilty, I want him convicted and hanged, and I want him to burn in Hell. I know, we don’t hang people any more, but that is what I want right now.
I will not for a moment blame any relative or friend of any victim for wanting the same thing that I want.
But I don’t think that God wants what I want. I think that God wants to forgive Roof. I know that Roof deserves to die and burn. I know that I deserve the same thing, though I don’t feel that way about myself. I’m always very forgiving of myself (in the worst self-serving way).
It is amazing that any relative of one of the Charleston victims wants forgiveness for Roof.
So I’m going to try to follow their example. I’m going to put aside my anger and righteous indignation, and I’m going to pray the Roof repents and is forgiven through the blood of Christ. Even though I don’t want to.
I don’t think that these family members are purporting to speak on anyone else’s behalf. They can forgive on their own behalf. Complete forgiveness is up to God, who actually is the primary victim, though it doesn’t seem that way to us.
Me, too.
The woman at my church who counseled forgiveness (she also mentioned “legitimate grievances”) had a bumper sticker on her car that said “There’s No Excuse For Domestic Violence.” She wanted us to forgive Mohammad Atta, but not the local wife-beater? Might he not have “legitimate grievances?”
This kind of forgiveness is emotional, facile and (frankly) phony.
You guys do realize, don’t you, that you were cheering at a fiction?
Is forgivness due if the young man does not repent? I believe the accurate term would be sorrow, otherwise.
Re : comment # 7
When we forgive a person who harms someone we love, we’re forgiving him for whatever, or whoever, it was he took from us by doing that. (I imagine.)