Posted by Doug Showalter on February 10, 1998 at 04:42:07:
In Reply to: Forgiving Others according to Jesus! posted by E.O. on January 30, 1998 at 19:03:18:
Dear E.O.,
Thank you for your message. It's obvious that you have done a great deal of thinking about Christian forgiving and that it is an important topic for you. I assume that your presentation reflects an Evangelical Protestant approach to the issue, as is also suggested by the link you provide.
It interests me that I have had discussions with some Evangelical Protestants who maintain that Christians should withhold their forgiveness until the person who injured them repents. Clearly that is not your view, and neither is it mine. In fact, I stated my reasons for strongly disagreeing with that view, in the message [#15 on December 17, 1997] I posted on this board, entitled, "Is it unbiblical to forgive the unrepentant?"
I appreciate a number of things about your message:
--Your essential affirmation that forgiveness is important for Christians--i.e. not an issue to be taken lightly or ignored;
--Your linking our forgiveness of those who hurt us with God's prior forgiveness of our own many sins, as noted in Jesus' parable of the "Unforgiving Servant"--certainly this forgiveness from God is one of the most important reasons for Christians to forgive others;
--Your encouraging Christians not to give into the temptations of harboring bitterness or acting upon feelings of revenge--the rejection of revenge is certainly one of the hallmarks of Jesus' teaching;
--Your advice that Christians ask Jesus to remove all resentments from their hearts--it does seem that God's grace is ultimately required for such removal to take place completely;
--Your caution that forgiving does not necessarily mean fully trusting the person who injured us again--particularly in circumstances which are the same or similar to, those which led to our injury; and
--Your essential point that our failure to forgive has consequences, not just for the one who injured us, but for us!
We share a number of views in common concerning Christian forgiveness. However, I also see some distinctive differences which I will mention, not for the purpose of entering into a debate here, but to clarify my views, as the ongoing webmaster of this site. I have no doubt that likely you will strongly disagree with the following views, which I sincerely hold as a person of deep Christian faith. But that is all right, as I certainly respect your sincerely held beliefs and your right to disagree.
To begin with, I will say that I am a Mainline Protestant, and probably somewhat toward the "liberal" end of that particular spectrum. Coming from a Mainline perspective, my interpretation of the Bible takes into account critical biblical scholarship. Here are three very basic differences I see:
1. I believe that God is the creator of all human beings, thus the loving parent of all.
You are absolutely right, John 8:42-44 does portray Jesus as saying that his opponents have the devil as their father. However, I do not interpret that as an absolute statement of fact. I see it as a derogatory comment which Jesus hurled at his opponents in a sharp debate, a comment which may well be colored by the conflict between early Jewish Christians and orthodox Judaism, which was intense at the time this Gospel was written [possibly in the 80's A.D.?].
2. I believe that God is always loving and forgiving.
I believe that God, like the father of the prodigal son, forgives us even before we repent. The father in that parable ran out to his returning son and forgave him, even before the son could get his words of repentance out. However, to experience God's forgiveness and have it benefit us, we need to receive it through repentance, and through our forgiving others. We need to appropriate God's forgiveness through our own forgiving.
3. I do not believe in any supernatural evil, or a being like a devil.
I believe in the supernatural goodness of God's love, which accomplished the resurrection of Jesus, and which continues to transform and enrich our lives today. I believe that human beings experience temptations and commit acts of evil--some of those acts being even too terrible for words. I believe organizations and systems can also create and perpetuate evil. I believe there is altogether too much evil and temptation in our world. But, I have never felt the need to believe in a supernatural evil force in order to account for the existence of that evil and temptation.
I understand that in the culture of Jesus' day, it was common to explain the presence of evil and temptation by referring to a supernatural force and a devil figure. It's also my understanding, that these concepts were mostly imported into Judaism from other cultures, in the period of time in between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
I remember, a few years back, seeing a televised report on a teenage girl who was believed by many to be "demon possessed." In watching that poor, suffering girl thrash around, what I saw, in my opinion, was not any supernatural event [as seemingly portrayed in Hollywood's dramatic movie, "The Exorcist"], but rather a mentally disturbed young woman having a relatively ordinary fit.
Again, thank you for your statement, for the time you devoted to composing it, and for the personal conviction with which you wrote it, to be of help to others. Your statement certainly adds to the variety of perspectives presented on this web site. Best wishes,
Doug Showalter