Jesus is always a breath of fresh air, even as by the Holy Spirit we’re convicted to do what repentance demands — to face the people and situations in our lives that deserved better so that all may walk free of whatever bondage impales us.[1]
Jesus never requires us to wed with bondage. It’s always freedom to which we’re invited.
There is a bondage that Christians may become entrapped in and it surrounds the issue of forgiveness. I want to suggest it isn’t what you may think it is.
A heinous and abusive theology has abounded
An abusive theology around forgiveness has made its rounds in the past five or so decades.
That sinful theology proceeds from the thought that whatever sin a person does to us, forgiveness is required of us; to let them off the hook, no matter what they’ve done, no matter whether the perpetrator of the sin owns it or not.
That’s right. Forgiveness has been required of the survivor even if they’ve been abused (bearing zero percent weight of contribution) and the perpetrator of the abusive act refuses to acknowledge it and therefore does not repent of it.
Worse, many times the perpetrator prospers, and the survivor of the abuse has their life seriously curtailed; not truly because of ‘bitterness’ but more accurately, because their abuser’s wilful heart has poured contempt on the Holy Spirit in that abused person. (How many have walked away from the faith because of unreconciled abuse?!) It might be said that the ‘Christian perpetrator’ will not themselves be forgiven by God (Deuteronomy 29:17-19; Mark 3:28-29).
If there is anything that commands our attention as far as living right with our brothers and sisters, it’s what we stand to experience when we MEET our God and can no longer refuse to acknowledge the truth.
But the knowledge of this is spurned by the Christian perpetrator, and in that very act they deny their faith in God — they may as well be saying, “I don’t believe I’ll ever need to account for this!” There could not be a more commanding example of folly. All face God, eventually.
Now the blight that is on this church is this: the abusive theology has preferred to favour the wicked and it is abhorrent in God’s sight.
Let’s explore the biblical Joseph
God has directed my thinking of late to the story of Joseph in Genesis 45. First of all, I was directed to that polarising text in Genesis 50:15-21. Really these two passages couldn’t speak to one another more.
As Christians we hear people speak of the Joseph account of Genesis 37, 39-50 as kind of a prooftext that God can work in a heart (Joseph’s in this case) and can cause a person (anyone) to forgive a perpetrator.
But with Joseph’s narrative a case in point, I think we might find that forgiveness for Joseph — at least from an abuse survivor’s perspective — is a fait accompli. For Joseph, a man abused by more than one group of people, we can see why forgiveness is possible.
Before I unpack why, I want to suggest that nobody understands how impossibly difficult forgiveness of an unrepentant perpetrator is for a survivor until they have been abused to such a degree that they asked for none of it and absolutely no justice has yet been (or may ever be) done.
I suggest it merely because those who haven’t had these experiences may struggle to comprehend it and may find it to be excuse-making. The latter couldn’t be further from the truth!
The issues for Joseph were that he was the one who had come into great power — his abusive brothers who had been in the power role had since been rendered powerless. That doesn’t always occur in life, and I would suggest that RARELY does it happen that the tables are turned; the powerless becoming powerful and vice versa. This is a nuance that must be taken into account, because it is comparatively easy to forgive someone who pleads for our mercy. What about cases where there is no such pleading; where there is no repentance and no seeking of forgiveness?
Another important issue for Joseph is that he could see God’s purpose in his suffering, or at least he could by the time his brothers cowered before him. And of the issue of Potiphar’s wife and that wicked imprisonment, there again is a purpose in that; the deciphering of Pharaoh’s dream.
Being able to see God’s purpose in our suffering will get us through anything. But for many survivors of abuse there is no such purpose to be seen — it feels senseless. This propounds the issues of an abuser’s contempt for their God, which is the sort of blasphemy that sets the perpetrator at odds with God’s forgiveness.
There is possibly more to see in this Joseph account that instructs us that this is not a fair biblical example to cast upon the situation of the survivor of unreconciled abuse.
~~~
I just want to say this, having built the above context. I don’t know any survivor of abuse, whether by face-to-face interaction or online (and I know scores in both camps), who has been able to come close to a sustained forgiveness-of-heart for a perpetrator who does not confess, acknowledge or repent, and who usually prospers despite their abuse.
Churches must understand that nobody can demand a person forgive their more powerful abuser who hasn’t repented. Churches should also extend grace upon grace for those who, for no fault of their own, are cornered in a grief that may seem ‘bitter’ but really is not. This ‘unforgiveness’ is not a sin; it’s not helpful, but it’s also not sinful.
The only thing that reconciles abuse situations for many people is justice.
Thank God that that justice inevitably is eternal. Nobody escapes justice forever, and it is wisdom for all people to face it now, this side of death.
Who would risk the eternality of their relationship with God but the one who says they believe but, by their unreconciled abusive actions, really they don’t?
A pastoral response to a dilemma
I’m sure pastors and churches feel duty bound to fix problems and people. That’s God’s job. Many, many situations in life are unresolved. There is a great deal of maturity in accepting this truth. It can seem despairing at times.
The worst thing a church or a pastor could do is expect one party — the innocent party — to do the work of reconciling what is broken to make it whole again. This is a burden churches and pastors are not asked to bear.
An effective pastoral response to a dilemma is lament — to properly mourn that which can only be grieved, and yet do so in the hope that comfort will come (Matthew 5:4). Pastors and churches are called to be faithful sojourners with survivors.
Nothing in this article suggests a full forgiveness of a perpetrator by a survivor is impossible; indeed it is possible, just not common, and it requires a special grace of God that isn’t afforded to everyone. We customarily take too much credit for this grace; it’s God’s work and not our own.
[1] Both the perpetrator and the survivor are bonded by a sin — the perpetrator to the sin of denial, the survivor is hamstrung by that denial. But, the repentant themselves walk free whether they’re forgiven or not, for they have honoured God’s truth. And as the survivor hears an attempt at an amends made, they walk into at least the possibility of more freedom than they have previously experienced. If the repentance is real, the survivor may indeed receive complete release from the bondage that held them.
Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.