Misconceptions

Extreme Forgiveness

There has been an increased media attention on forgiveness in the form of news, documentaries, web-posts, etc. All of which are not surprisingly, on the sensational side, highlighting the most severe cases of injustice in which the victim must exercise “extreme forgiveness.” It seems similar to the growing popularity of “extreme sports” with events showcasing sensational, risky, attention-grabbing feats of extreme fitness, endurance, strength, and athleticism. Events like Tough Mudder and Iron Man, or sports such as free-style biking, BASE jumping, and speed skiing keep taking extreme to the next level. More and more, it seems the more dangerous the better; marathons, for example, are no longer extreme enough. A mere marathon has been topped with “ultra-marathons,” which can mean anything from a double marathon to a multiday race of 1000 miles or longer.

It can make one wonder, what is this drive, this need, for the extreme in our lives? Why this desire to see and witness others pushed to and beyond the normal limit of human capacity? Why does there seem to be such a focus on extreme cases while we brush over every day acts of heroism and virtue?

Are we becoming desensitized, less attentive and less responsive to every day struggles — our own and others? Is the media being driven by our demand for the extreme or are we being shaped and desensitized by the media’s push of the extreme?

I’m not sure which it is, the media or public demand, driving us to extremes, but I do think a reality check may be in order. This is not to diminish the true courage, compassion, and perseverance of those heroes who have forgiven in extreme cases of injustice. Rather, this is to point out what preceded those extreme acts of forgiveness…namely, the “small” acts of forgiveness we persevere in every day. How does one push past the so-called “normal” limits of human capacity, whether it’s sports or forgiveness?

When we witness extreme acts of forgiveness, we may wonder, would I be able to forgive someone if they did that to me? Would I be able to ever forgive someone who murdered my loved one? Who crippled me? Who abandoned me? The answer is “yes!” Does this unconditional answer seem a bit over the top, a little abnormal, counter-cultural? Well, it is! Forgiveness tends to be that way. How can I be so certain that forgiveness is possible? It’s called training. Much like an athlete trains for his sport, so too a forgiver strengthens his “muscles” of virtue and forgiveness through every-day forgiveness. Forgiveness becomes part of our lives as we practice it daily the best we can, as often as we can. Each time we forgive, it becomes easier and more ingrained into our being. And here’s the beauty of it — it’s never too late to forgive! We can even forgive those who we may not have been ready to forgive before.

Further, forgiveness is a process! This means, we can even forgive the same person, for the same injustice, over and over again, reaching new levels of forgiveness each time. The process of forgiveness takes times and cannot be forced or faked for true healing to begin. We should never expect others to forgive, nor should we allow ourselves to be coerced into forgiving. If and when this kind of “forced forgiveness” takes place, it is not true forgiveness; rather, it is a lie, a façade, often to appease others’ expectations. Take the example used in this documentary review from the Huffington Post:

In the case of the Amish shooting, theologians and counselors in the film also wonder if there is a kind of violence to the self that such a quick forgiveness might inflict. They worry that the suppression of natural emotions might stunt healing; and that a legalistic understanding of forgiveness could short-circuit the full response that such a tragedy requires. In a chilling anecdote, two boys are watching the destruction of the school house where the murders took place and one boy says: “They can take down our school, but they can’t take away the things we remember.” To which another boy replied: “You better be quiet don’t let people hear you say that — we are supposed to forgive.”

Hopefully, in their analysis, these theologians and counselors considered the fact that there is a difference between genuine forgiveness that is freely given (if and when a person chooses to do so) and forced forgiveness in which it is coerced. In the latter case, the victim may go through the actions in order to appear to forgive, but true forgiveness is an internal act of free will. So unless our exterior actions are motivated by the internal actions of the heart, they do not constitute real forgiveness, and may indeed do more harm than good. So, as in the above statement, “You better be quiet; don’t let people hear you say that” we are supposed to forgive. Not only does this response reveal that some kind of coercion may be taking place (or at least in the young boy’s perception), but also a deep lack of understanding about what forgiveness is. He seems to think that unless his friend forgets the incident, he is not forgiving. However, his friend’s remembering in no way conflicts with forgiveness. On the contrary, his friend has made a realistic and poignant point that is very much consistent with what it means to forgive. Forgiveness does not take away the things you remember. When you forgive, you remember what happened, but you begin to remember in new ways that give healing and hope. A false form of forgiveness may be occurring if one is under the misconception that by pushing the memory away, he is forgiving. This attempt to forget will more likely lead to suppression of his emotions rather than the healing that true forgiveness could give.

So let us make a distinction between this kind of forced or misconstrued forgiveness and what the author above calls, “quick forgiveness.” We should be careful to distinguish between true forgiveness and pseudo-forgiveness as in the example above. We should also be careful in how we identify or label these false forms of forgiveness in order to avoid distorting the meaning of forgiveness. “Quick forgiveness” seems to imply that the act of forgiveness has been completed and done in the moment of stating, “I forgive.” Now, if a person stopped short there, by simply saying, “okay, I forgive, moving on now,” then, certainly, that would not seem to be a sufficient, much less healthy response. Again, this would be a form of false or pseudo-forgiveness. We need to remember that choosing to forgive is only the first step in the process and it doesn’t end there. The process starts with a freely-given choice, but can continue for days, weeks, months, and even years. Surely, in the case of the Amish school shootings, the victims will be recovering and working on forgiveness for a long time to come.

Theirs is a process that began with a unified statement and gesture of forgiveness as a community and will continue within each individual heart. It is a process for which each of them has been preparing for by living out forgiveness in their daily lives. This is a process in which they will need to support each other in their daily struggles to forgive.

So when asked if you could forgive as some victims of the Amish shooting, the Rwanda genocide, or the Nazi holocaust have, you can say, yes. Will we be able to forgive overnight? Do we need to choose forgiveness immediately? Will it be a “quick forgiveness,” done and over in a single breath? No, it won’t happen overnight or in a single act of the will. No, we don’t need to be ready to forgive sooner than we are ready. But with a clear understanding of true forgiveness, in its full scope and sequence, and by living the forgiving life through small acts of forgiveness, we can be prepared to exercise extreme forgiveness, should we ever need to. You might not be able to choose forgiveness immediately as the Amish did, and forgiving certainly won’t be easy, but it can happen when we are prepared by living an every-day forgiving life. Yes, extreme forgiveness is possible!

Forgiving the Chicago Cubs for Losing the 2003 National League Championship Series

It is the beginning of the baseball season, a time when no team is yet in last place. Hope springs eternal even for the futile. That is what makes early April so special as the baseball fan is allowed to have great expectations no matter which team is his or her favorite.

I read a recent blog in which one fan took great pains to explain which of the Chicago Cubs players he is forgiving for losing the 2003 National League Championship Series to the Florida Marlins. This exercise is occurring 9 years after the loss. He listed 5 players and gave detailed explanations of their underachievement as rationale for his forgiveness.

His forgiveness leads to three questions: Can we forgive athletes for losing? What if they were underperforming, which then led to losing? What if there were good intentions and yet they lost? Can this still be a moral wrong?

Let us take each question in turn. First, can we forgive players for losing? The question presupposes that certain behaviors are so reprehensible that they are deemed unjust regardless of intentions or other circumstances. And there are such behaviors: enslaving another person is an example. Yet, this cannot be the case for a sports loss because the game is set up deliberately so that one team loses. It is part of the game to which all agree, players, fans, everyone. The act of losing, therefore, is not unjust by itself.

Then, to our second question. Is underperformance unjust? Yes, we can think of certain instances in which underperformance is immoral. A mother who underperforms in feeding her infant, depriving the baby of much-needed nutrition, would seem to be behaving unjustly. Yet, our question centers on athletic performance, not on a failure to give crucial nutrients to an infant. In the context of athletics, underperformance by itself would not seem to constitute an affront—a disappointment, yes, but not an actual offense. There is no wrong, for example, in trying and underperforming in a sporting event. Thus, we cannot judge underperformance by itself without factoring in effort or intentions.

The third question centers on intentions. Can one forgive someone who has good intentions and fails? Yes, I suppose we can think of examples, such as a car driver who is not paying attention to the road, intends to drive well but fails, and runs into another car. The consequences of not paying attention are so great that good intentions here are not sufficient to exonerate the driver. Again, however, the example has taken us away from athletics. Surely, all of the Cubs were trying. This was not the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. The only consequence was losing. The outcome of losing, as we have already seen, is not an immoral act.

The act of losing in sports is not unjust and therefore is not a forgivable offense.

Underperformance by itself is not unjust in the context of sports. This is so if the athlete is trying.

Trying and failing is not unjust because the consequence, losing, is not unjust.

There is nothing to forgive here. The Cubs players did nothing wrong.

Are Tolerance and Forgiveness the Same?

It seems that tolerance is gaining ascendancy as a new, primary virtue. For Plato in The Republic, justice is the epitome of the virtues. Yet, in our society in which we do not wish to hurt the feelings of others, I wonder if tolerance trumps many of the virtues. If tolerance is gaining in popularity, perhaps it is time to ask the question: Are tolerance and forgiveness the same and if not how do they differ?

First let us examine the similarities between these two moral qualities. Both include patience as the person restrains from harshness toward someone who is annoying or unjust. Both include mercy at least in the sense of restraining oneself in the face of one’s own anger. Both respect the other as a person and so one’s own thoughts, beliefs, or actions are not imposed on the other or others.

Now to the differences between these two seemingly-similar terms.

First, when one tolerates another’s actions, he or she can do so at a distance. To tolerate is to “put up with” another’s behavior. I can tolerate a screaming child and not attend to him or her and not enter into that child’s life. To forgive is to make oneself available to the other, to try to enter into the other’s world through loving that person. Of course, this will not always happen if the other does not wish to reconcile, but I want you to see that forgiveness is far more than “putting up with” a person’s actions or the person him- or herself.

Second, to tolerate means to recognize and respect the rights of others. Because a right in this sense is never a wrong, tolerance cannot be forgiveness, which takes place in the face of another’s wrong.

Third, “to put up with” certain actions is not always moral. If you put up with a person’s compulsive gambling habit or drug addiction, you are hardly helping this person in a moral sense. So, there are aspects of tolerance that degenerate into immorality—an offense of omission or a failure to act when it is appropriate to do so. Forgiveness in its true sense is never immoral. Please see our post in Ask Dr. Forgiveness (March 28, 2012) on the issue of “false forgiveness” for more information on this.

Are tolerance and forgiveness the same? Although they share certain moral characteristics, there is a substantial difference between them.

Is Forgiveness Against Our Nature?

I read a newspaper article recently in which the writer stated that forgiveness is against our nature. It was a small sentence with a profound implication. Is this true, that forgiveness, or at least the capacity to forgive, is not something that is part of us (built-in) as persons?

I read a different newspaper article recently in which the writer was taking a book author to task for suggesting that children forgive more easily than adults. The criticism was coming from one particular conservative Protestant Christian perspective, with the point that we are not born “good” and have to grow into goodness.

Two newspaper articles, at least two views of forgiveness: one that we are born with a tendency not to forgive and the other that we are born with such a tendency.

Of course, as will all large questions like the “nature of man,” which this question addresses, we will find differences of opinion based in part on one’s existing world view. Here are four world views that address this issue of forgiveness and our nature.

First, from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology, we can see where one person would make the claim that forgiveness is not in our best interest because it can make us vulnerable to another’s attack, his or her injustice perpetrated on us for the purpose of dominance. We are then less likely to pass our genes to the next generation as we make ourselves vulnerable to offending others through forgiveness.

Sociobiology, on the other hand, might make the claim that we need to be in community to survive (for the purpose of passing on our genes to the next generation) and so forgiveness aids in the recovery of social harmony following a rift.

From the viewpoint, not of biology, but of theology, as discussed in the above-mentioned newspaper article, there is a third perspective, that of original sin. We are born with a tendency for injustice, not justice and so forgiveness would be foreign to our basic nature as the adults in the community socialize the child for goodness.

A fourth perspective, also from theology, states that we are all made in the image and likeness of God and therefore, despite a tendency to offend (the original sin issue), we nonetheless have a certain divine spark that helps us, innately, to be good at least to a point. The combination of the tendency to offend and to be good exists in this viewpoint.

When we put the four perspectives side-by-side the most subtle conclusion is that we have within our very nature the capacity for perpetrating injustice and the capacity for good. The ultimate burden then, if this is the case, is on the adults in any community. It is so because the adults, in the family, in schools, in places of worship, and other venues where children are present, have the opportunity to bring forth the good every time they interact with a child. This is a strong rationale for forgiveness education, and that rationale is sound regardless of which of the four world views above someone holds.

“My Ex- Cheated; I Will Never Forgive; I Now Trust No Woman.” What Price Unforgiveness?

I was browsing the Net today and ran across a quotation similar to the one above. It seemed so tidy and so succinct and……..so utterly incorrect. Look at that final statement closely, “I now trust no woman.” That can be one of the fall-outs of unforgiveness—a view of the world that is pessimistic. If you think about it, if he enters into another relationship, the woman may be entirely trustworthy, but he very well may not see it. In such a case, both lose. It is not her fault that he is bringing mistrust into the relationship. She will be hurt directly by his unforgiveness of someone else in the past. The irony of it all is that this new woman in his life could be a source of love and joy for him (and he for her), which are both unlikely to happen if he keeps an emotional arms-length distance to protect his wounded heart.

“I will never forgive” has its consequences both for the one who says and lives it and for those directly affected by the refusal and resulting pessimism. Is it worth it to proclaim and then to live out, “I will never forgive”? Perhaps he is not ready today, but he should consider keeping the door open in the future so that the initial emotional wound of the break up does not lead to more wounds for himself and others.