Tagged: “Misconceptions”

I am a survivor of sexual abuse by my father, who is a pedophile. While I have healed fairly well from this (through therapy, medication, etc.), and pray every day to forgive him, I often struggle with feeling guilty over not visiting him at the nursing home where he currently resides. I pray every day for him, and sincerely do not wish harm to him. I fear that if I don’t visit him, I am not fulfilling Christ’s commandment to forgive him. Yet, I fear that visiting him might bring up some painful psychological memories, might put me back into a brief depressive/anxious state, and could lead me to an episode of Atrial Fibriliation (which for me seems to be provoked in times of extreme stress). A sibling of mine has been trying to get me to go visit my dad, and is of the belief that if we don’t visit him (“I was lonely and you visited me”, from Matthew 25), we might go to hell. Any wisdom you can share?

A key issue here is this: You are thinking that to truly forgive your father, then you must visit him in the nursing home.  Further, you believe that if you do not visit him, you are disobeying Christ’s commandment to forgive him.  Here is my view: To forgive is a process that unfolds over time as we work on that process of forgiveness.  You are working on this process of forgiveness by: a) praying every day for the grace to forgive him; b) praying for your father; and c) wishing no harm to him.  All of these are part of the forgiveness process in your case as a Christian.  You need not reach complete forgiveness right now in that you have to behaviorally reach out to your father with a visit.  I say this for this reason:  Your **intentions** toward your father are good in that you pray for him and wish no harm to him.  Further, your reason for not visiting him is honorable in that you need to protect your cardiac system.  In other words, if your intention for not visiting your father in the nursing home is to punish him, then this would indicate that you are not yet forgiving.  This is not the case for you.  You have a good reason for not visiting right now because you have to protect your health.  If, in the future, you think you are open to such a visit and, at the same time, you truly believe that your  physical and emotional health are protected as you visit, then you could re-think your current decision.  For now, I see no bad intentions at all on your part and so please keep praying for your father and for the grace to forgive and go in peace knowing you are doing the best that you can under the circumstances.

When we forgive, do we forgive situation or persons?

If forgiveness is a moral virtue in which we are good to persons who are not good to us, then this is a focus exclusively on persons and not on situations.  If you think about it, how can you practice moral goodness toward a situation?  You cannot be good to a tornado or to a traffic jam.  If persons are responsible for the traffic jam and if they are acting unfairly in some way, then you can forgive those persons, but you do not forgive the situation.

You said earlier to me that when we forgive we do not acquiesce to the other’s demands.  May I respectfully disagree on this.  I disagree because I have been reading recently and seeing on media videos some people discussing what they call “toxic forgiveness.”  To those who use this term, there is an element to forgiveness that is out of balance with fairness.  Is it not reasonable for all of us to be aware of how forgiveness can get out of balance to such a degree that it becomes “toxic” for the one who forgives?

I think there is a serious misunderstanding of what forgiveness is and what it is not by people who use the words “toxic forgiveness.”  They usually refer to people who “forgive” and then just put up with the unfairness of the other person.  This is not an issue of forgiveness at all, but instead of a serious misunderstanding of what forgiveness is.  When we forgive, we do not give in to the other’s demands.  When this happens, the one who supposedly is “forgiving” is instead deciding to turn away from a fair solution and then is calling this “forgiveness.”  Forgiveness as a moral virtue of goodness does not give in to unfairness.  Otherwise, it would not be a moral virtue at all.  Here is an analogy to make my point clearer.  Suppose a person wants to become physically fit.  This person walks about 200 steps, then sits down and eats a gallon of ice cream.  This occurs every day and the person gains 20 pounds.  Suppose now that this person says, “I have tried physical fitness and it is toxic.  All it does is put weight on me.”  Is it really physical fitness that is the problem, or a distortion of what it truly means to start a physical fitness program?  Suppose now that many people start saying that physical fitness is “toxic.”  Where does the error lie, with physical fitness itself or with a conceptual distortion, and a serious one at that, regarding what it actually means to engage in physical fitness?  It is the same with “toxic forgiveness.” People distort the meaning of forgiveness and then proclaim that forgiveness is “toxic.”

Consider Giving the Gift of Forgiveness This Year

In the season of giving, one of the most beautiful gifts you might consider giving is forgiveness.  The ideas that forgiving is a gift to those who have hurt you sometimes gets forgiveness into trouble.  In other words, people think it is irrational to consider offering a gift to those who are unfair.  The typical reasons for this resistance to forgiveness as gift-giving are these:

  1. It is dangerous to reach out to those who act unfairly because I am open to further abuse.
  2. My gift-giving might be a signal to the misbehaving others that their actions are acceptable, which they are not.
  3. Gift-giving to those who acted unfairly seems counter-intuitive to my own healing. I need to move on and not focus on this other person.

The ideas above can be countered this way: With regard to (A), you do not necessarily have to reconcile with an unrepentant person who keeps harming you.  You can give your gift from a distance, such as a kind word about the person to others or an email so that you can keep your distance if this is prudent to do so.  With regard to (B), you can forgive and ask for justice.  Forgiving never means that the other just goes ahead as usual with hurtful behaviors.  In other words, if you decide to forgive, you can and should ask for fairness from the other person.  With regard to (C), forgiveness will seem counter-intuitive as goodness to those who are not good to you only if your focus is entirely on justice or a fair solution to the problem.  If you begin to see that mercy (in the form of forgiving) and justice can and should exist side-by-side, then perhaps this idea of forgiveness as a contradiction or as inappropriate or as somehow odd may lessen in you.

Forgiveness can be a gift in these ways:

  • As you forgive, you are giving the other person a second chance at a trustworthy relationship with you. Of course, trust takes time to develop, but forgiveness opens the door, even if a little, to trying the trust-route with the other who behaved unjustly.
  • Forgiveness can be a merciful way of showing the other what the injustice actually is (or was), making possible positive change in the other. Those who behave badly and are offered this mercy may begin to see the unfairness more clearly and have the inner conviction that change indeed is necessary.
  • Forgiveness can be a gift to yourself as you shed abiding anger that could have been yours for many years. You have a second-chance at stronger mental health.
  • As you reduce toxic anger, this actually can be an aid in strengthening your relationships with people who were not the ones who acted badly. After all, when people carry around a lot of anger in their hearts, they can displace that anger onto unsuspecting others.  Your forgiving one person, then, can be a gift to others who do not have to endure your displaced anger.   

So, then, what do you think?  Do you see that in the season of giving, one of the most beautiful gifts you might consider giving is forgiveness?

 

 

I read your published article in the journal, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, in which you helped men in a maximum-security prison to forgive people who hurt them.  What is your next step, to open all the jail cell doors and let out everyone who has ever been hurt?

You are confusing forgiving and abandoning justice.  You can forgive a person and then seek justice.  As people in correctional institutions learn to forgive those who brutalized them when they were children or adolescents, this can lower their rage, making them less dangerous.  Advocating for their forgiving does not mean advocating for their release from the institution.