Forgiveness, Part II

The difference between justice and forgiveness: to be just is to condemn the fault and, because of the fault, to condemn the doer as well. To forgive is to condemn the fault but to spare the doer. That's what the forgiving God does. (Miroslav Volf)

If you read my post from yesterday on Forgiveness: The Heart of the Matter, you might be left with the impression that I don't appreciate the depth of sin. On the contrary, it is because I take sin very seriously that I believe that the only way forward is to forgive. But this needs to be unpacked. Otherwise we are left with what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace."

I think that the most powerful witness to what I mean here can be found in the work of The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, set up in South Africa to both tell the truth about what happened under apartheid and to find a way forward by offering forgiveness.This happens on much smaller scales between people whenever one person says to another, "I'm sorry" and the other says, "I forgive you."

One of the great challenges, of course, is when people refuse to confess their sins and to acknowledge the hurt they have caused. How can we forgive one such as this, one who refuses even to admit the truth of what they have done?

I've been re-reading M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie which I commend to readers of this blog. But be forewarned: it is a painful and difficult read. Even so, it is important to understand why Peck wrote the book. The clue is in the title in what comes after the colon: the hope for healing human evil. You cannot begin to heal what  you refuse to acknowledge.

Peck distinguishes between ordinary sin and evil. We are all sinners. But the central defect, Peck says, of evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it. It is narcissism on steroids that allow some to consistently "cross the line" and commit the same sins over and over again, destroying relationships in the process and yet absolutely refusing to admit that they have done anything wrong. They lie, and not just Hope Hicks "white lies." Eventually it is all they know how to do.

How then to find a way toward hope for healing? Peck says that evil hates the light: the light of goodness that shows them up, the light of scrutiny that exposes their lies, the light of truth that penetrates their deceitfulness. Like the sociopath, Peck writes, people of the lie are continually engaged in sweeping the evidence of their evil under the rug. Clarity and truth-telling are the only way forward, which I think is what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was all about.

This is deep stuff, but real and heck, it's Lent! I consider myself a progressive Christian. But one of the dangers of progressive theologies is the inability to name evil in this way. Progressives are good at naming the isms and we should: sexism, racism, heterosexism and all the rest. Sin and evil can be institutionalized and enmeshed in society in these and other ways. But what Peck writes about can make us a little more nervous. Yet when we refuse to name evil or ever speak of it, grace will always become cheap.

Bonhoeffer had to wrestle with the evil of not just one man - Adolf Hitler - but of a nation that became "possessed" by the demon of National Socialism. To keep on saying that we just forgive in such a context suggests not just naivete, but complicity with evil.

Miroslav Volf wrestles with the same kind of large stage in Exclusion and Embrace. There, as well as in his later writings (especially Free of Charge)  he is as clear as Peck and Bonhoeffer about evil. Even so, in the quote with which this post begins, he insists that the heart of the matter is still forgiveness. We forgive the doer even as we condemn the fault. But if the doer won't even acknowledge the fault then it falls upon us to allow the truth to see the light of day.

Most of us do this work on much smaller stages than that of Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa or in the former Yugoslavia. Even so, we live in families and in neighborhoods. Every time there is a mass shooting we have to listen to the litany of NRA talking points that insist that their second amendment rights (as they interpret them) are more important than the victims' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Some have experienced clergy misconduct that violates trust and threatens to destroy faith communities. Some have been entangled in abusive relationships and then gaslighted on top of it all. Each of these encounters with evil challenge not only our faith, but sometimes our grip on reality. They call us to question how we can possibly forgive the unrepentant.

Unfortunately these experiences are also a part of the human condition. We try to make sense of what is not in fact sensible. But at least when we can find words to name our experience we can begin to address it. In those moments when we come face to face with evil, we rediscover the difference between "cheap grace" (which holds no one accountable) and the amazing grace that brings clarity and truth-telling. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness still cannot overcome it.