Follow up to the comment thread on "On Forgiveness and Guilt"

Several interesting things came up in the comment thread on my surprisingly controversial post regarding the growth I was able to show in my attitudes thanks to the issue of people picking Andrea as a friend on Facebook. 

As I like to do when there is something that requires a lot of thought, I left myself some time to consider several things regarding it before addressing them. 

Before I do, I should bring one thing up; from time to time, considering the very different nature of some of my friends, at times the comments seem to me, as an interested third party, to be a bit personal in nature so I will make this request; please, do comment, as I greatly appreciate it and do read and think about every response. 

At the same time, I would ask that responses to other people on here be made toward the comment, not the person.  I appreciate it and believe it will make this a friendlier spot for all concerned where we can discuss controversial topics without people feeling attacked.

With that said, the responses showed the wide range of beliefs on what forgiveness entails and what responsibilities people have towards forgiveness.

I find it interesting that there is such a wide disparity, but not surprising. After all, there are many complicated Scriptures that deal with it.

Jesus, on the cross, asked God to "forgive them, for they know not what they do"...yet earlier, speaking to the Pharisees, when they claimed they would not have slain the prophets, he essentially foretold how they would treat Himself, the Apostles and believers and in so doing bring the blood of the prophets on their own and on their descendants.

Stephen, while being stoned, said, "lay not this charge against them".

It is hard to argue in either case that those committing the sin, either of crucifying Christ or of stoning the Godly Stephen, were seeking forgiveness AS THEY COMMITTED THE SIN. Yet both times, the victims sought forgiveness for their attackers.

It is interesting to note neither said, "I forgive these people" but rather each one asked God to forgive. Why the third party? 

And obviously, since both instances involve the death of the one seeking forgiveness for the perpetrators from a third party, forgetting could not possibly be part of the equation...or could it?

Hebrews 10:17 says, "and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more"

Naturally, God has capabilities that we do not. For example, the first time Andrea cheated on me, it was with a co-worker of hers at Haggen. Obviously, when we reconciled, I wanted her to quit the job so she would not be around him. She did not. As a result, every time she went to work, I had a fresh reminder of the event there and a certain part of natural concern there would be a repeat performance with that individual.

I never brought that up to her once things were settled, not even once. To all appearances, I had "forgotten" as part of the forgiveness, a stance many of the the church leaders at the time held to be the correct way to do so.

But it was not possible for me to ACTUALLY forget, no matter how hard I tried. I could sublimate it to other things by doing my best to redirect my thoughts whenever it came up. But I could not just "forget"it. It happened, I knew it happened, and I lived with that awareness.

I would challenge anyone to demonstrate to me how I was wrong to act in that way. I did not use it as an excuse to misbehave towards her, I did not use it to mistreat her, I did not hold it against her, but I did know it was there.

From a Scriptural standpoint, did I do all I could? I believe so. I believe I continued to do so as the number of affairs she had mounted. I believe I continued to do so as she thrice claimed to be with child as a result of the affairs and thrice turned to me for comfort when she "miscarried". 

Well, partially to me and partially to someone who we knew had gone through that tragedy of miscarriage several times and it was a sensitive issue to.

In fact, it was when I learned Andrea now claims to have never been pregnant that the forgiveness to the point of remaining married stopped. Here is a secret never before revealed, not even to Dad.

Had she not gone to this person for help when she miscarried and then said she was never pregnant, I would not have left after the last affair. Greg and Ivan argued very hard that I needed to stay. And I very nearly did.

But what she did without hesitation to another person not once, not twice, but three times...that was more than I could bear. That was more than I could live as if I had forgotten.

Not that I had forgotten...just that I lived as if I had. To force someone to relive the sinless tragedies of their own life to forge a lie of your own? I cannot stomach the thought of the horrificness a person must possess to do such a thing.

And this was after numerous chances. Yes, I do take to heart the admonition Jesus gave Peter to forgive a brother who sins against them "70 times 7" times IN ONE DAY. That indicates a certain level of intent, does it not? To sin against one person so often that you must lose count?

But this is one place I believe we diverge from the Godly example; most if not all of us have been told that if someone deliberately mistreats you that you are no longer obligated to forgive if they seek it. But that seems to run counter to the above passage; but wait, it gets more complicated.

think of the parable where Jesus speaks of the man who owes a great deal, goes and begs for time and instead is forgiven of the debt.  He then goes out and demands payment from a fellow slave who owes him an insignificant amount, and when not paid he begins to beat the slave.

We then find his forgiveness retracted and he is thrown into prison until he shall repay the debt.

So is forgiveness retractable? Does it include forgetting? Is it to be given even when the perpetrator does not seek it? CAN it be given if not asked for? Can it be requested on behalf of a third party?

I am going to go with an unusual argument for me; I am going to argue it is a malleable issue that requires intelligent judgment of a situation. Not everyone is a "brother in Christ", not everyone is acting in ignorance, and so forth. 

There are situations where certainly forgiveness entails forgetting or at the least, acting to all intents and purposes as if it was forgotten. At other times, there must be awareness of what has transpired in the past.

In any case, the original point I was making not only stands, I believe it has been expanded on. Forgiveness is something a Christian must not only stand ready to do at the slightest provocation, at times they must offer forgiveness even when it is not sought. That, it seems to me, is the closest to the principles and examples offered by Scripture. As for forgetting..well, it seems to me that only God has that capability, but we can certainly act as if we did.

On forgiveness and guilt

Regular readers might have noticed a dearth of new material on here recently. That includes my NYR book, currently stuck at 13, fully 4 days behind. I will be catching that up shortly and returning to the humorous posts, as well.

However, do not look for humor here. This one is a very personal post taking a look at where I went wrong and figuring out how to fix it. That is primarily what I have been doing for the better part of this past week.

This goes back a short way to the question of Facebook friends first written about here. 

Between then and now, a lot has happened. I spent a week formulating a pair of letters. The first one essentially said, 

Choose your friends carefully. Nobody has any excuse to not know who and what Andrea is. Think of how you would feel if someone who had betrayed you in the most horrible ways suddenly showed up as a friend to people you had long considered friends and family. Then think about how you would feel if someone cheated on you, you remarried, and later, your spouse found out that your friends had befriended your ex. 

Think about those actions, and let me know what you are thinking.

After about a week, I was going to send a second letter essentially saying the following.

I would never tell you who you can or cannot be friends with. I will, however, tell you that I choose my friends with great care and so long as you are friends in any way, shape or form with Andrea, please consider yourself unwelcome in my house and I will do the same for you. I will not be friends with someone who is friends with Andrea.

That would have included anyone. Friend, family, whatever. No exceptions. That is how serious I was about it. 

The wounds go deep in this situation. I have never really fully recovered from the damage done in the relationship with Andrea and the aftermath. The results have been catastrophic.

As I explained to one of my brothers, I am fully aware of the negative impact the situation had on my influence on them and example for them. It has adversely affected my relationships with my brothers, sisters, Dad, and friends. Even today it heavily influences every aspect of my personality.

Every year that passes moves me a little further away from the freshness of the pain of the past. There has been a great deal of help in that regard, and certainly a great deal of positive has come from it, no small part of that from my relationship with the Goose for which I thank God every day. 

At the same time, she is also an innocent bystander suffering somewhat due to events she had nothing to do with...namely, my relationship with Andrea.

I have discussed the situation with several people, and with the one exception of Kev's comment on the initial post, people have universally not only agreed with me, but, in at least 2 cases,  thought I was not moving fast enough to cut ties with those who would befriend Andrea.

The main reason for my hesitation was a strong desire to word my letters in ways that would communicate the situation clearly without being offensive. I would never have sent it as stated above in italics, I was working hard to make sure it could be dealt with logically rather than emotionally, by myself as well as others.

I have often found in the past that putting time between the occurrence of an emotionally charged event and the resolution allows for the removal of emotional reactions which exacerbate the situation.

In this case, it also allowed an unrelated matter to come to the fore.

From time to time, I do some writing for a variety of entities, all of it volunteer and covering a broad range of subjects. During this time period, I received a request to write a religiously oriented article on an interesting subject: guilt and forgiveness.

It is important to recognize a few things about the following piece: the intended audience is  Christians who are reading the Bible regularly and have better than a basic understanding of the issues involved. The passages referenced are assumed to be familiar to the reader and are therefore not clearly outlined.

Here is the result of that request:

Romans 3:23 is explicit. Guilt is something experienced by every person who reaches the “age of accountability”. The question that faces each person who comes to awareness of this fact is how to deal with that guilt. The easy and obvious answer is to search for forgiveness for that guilt.

The Christian has a real advantage in this regard. The writer of Hebrews dealt extensively with the issue when he explained the importance of Jesus being the High Priest for our faith. Jesus experienced the same temptations we experience. While He did not fail as we do, He nevertheless understands what it is that we go through.

In fact, among the last words He spoke on earth were His pleas that the death ahead be spared Him. It was a temptation more severe than any we face.

His status as understanding High Priest bears relevance to our guilt because we, as Christians, need to follow His example.

The natural progression would be to examine more of His final words, the famous, “Father, Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Certainly that applies, but even more immediate would be the oft-misquoted and more famous, “judge not that you be not judged” of Matthew 7:1.

But the next verse is the one we should key in on. “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”

Think carefully about the implications of that verse.

“By your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”

There are disagreements over who can forgive, whether it first must be sought, and so forth. But the Scripture seems to leave us a very clear, thought-provoking possibility.

If my standard of measure affects how I will be judged then it certainly behooves me to err on the side of mercy and excessive forgiveness. I believe Scripture backs this up.

Ephesians 4:26 tells us, “Be angry and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

In other words, do not hold a grudge. Do not hold wrongs, real or perceived, against those who caused them to you for someday, your actions will be held up before God the Father and Jesus the Son. It will certainly be easier to face that judgment having led a life of excessive forgiveness and mercy for the wrongs done us when we are called to account for the wrongs we have done God.

If the standard of our measure is the measure we will be accountable to, let us err so far on the side of forgiveness and mercy that we can stand confident before God.

Certainly I think there is a great deal of food for thought in there. It should be noticed that nowhere does Scripture equate forgiving with forgetting. One can forgive a wrong suffered without forgetting what was done.

However, the part I am pressing here is my dealing with people whose actions were hurtful. It is irrelevant whether their actions were deliberate, accidental, thoughtless, or just done in ignorance. What matters is not their actions but my reactions.

It is important to note I am not disappointed that it caused me moments of anger. As the above referenced passage, Ephesians 4:26, points out, there will be moments of anger at times and that, I believe, was a justifiable moment of same.

It is also important to note I have not changed my opinion of Andrea's actions or what type of person she is.  I can be very aware of those things without holding grudges and so forth.

However, there is an onus upon me to follow, to the best of my ability, the attitudes, teachings, and mindsets, as much as possible, of Christ. 

And that leads me back to where I went wrong. Although it is speaking about lawsuits between believers, I do believe that I Corinthians 6:7 when it says, "Why not rather be wronged?" I would refer also to Matthew 7:2. I can be aware of wrong being done without taking it to heart.

The duty that falls upon me, according to Scripture, is to have compassion and mercy, to have a standard of forgiveness that is beyond what frankly I often think is possible for me. Yet that is a standard I must seek to attain.

I need to have much lower standards for what it takes to upset me. For what it takes to make me feel wronged, or, in Scriptural vernacular, sinned against.

Furthermore, when there are situations where I feel wronged I should simply ignore them, let them go. I should have such loose measures for forgiving, showing mercy, as it were, towards people as to be seen as being among the most compassionate, forgiving people that you could encounter.

I must put in my heart the ideas of Matthew 12:7 (I desire mercy rather than sacrifice) and Matthew 7:2. I should have standards of mercy that are far higher than I do.

The irony in all this is I had talked with one of the people who had Andrea as a friend and they and their wife had already independently come to the same conclusion and the resolution was already in place, and later my wife spoke with a third person and they had also come to the same conclusion, leaving just one more person I know of who has her for a friend. 

I will not be speaking to him about it, nor will I be holding it against him. In fact, should any of those I have spoken to about it change their mind and want her for a friend, so be it, that is their choice. I myself would choose otherwise if the roles were reversed..but that is me and not them.

I like to think that if the same situation were to reoccur, I will have grown through this and the happy convergence of events that led to a new and, I believe better, understanding of my role and duty as a professing Christian to act with mercy and compassion, even towards those whom it  might seem are not deserving of it.

After all, some day I will stand before God asking mercy and I know it is not something I deserve. I am not greater than God, so I need to have as much compassion as possible.

Unintentionally hilarious; the politics of abortion

My belief that abortion = murder is hardly a well-kept secret. And I make a point of continuing to read a great deal of information from multiple sides of this issue. Who knows, maybe someone has that magical formula that will somehow convince me that my foundational beliefs are based on misconceptions. And maybe we will soon have a President who is completely trust worthy, law abiding, and full of integrity as we did when...let's see, who was the last one that fit that profile...Lincoln? Washington? was in office.

With that in mind, I found an article that was hysterically funny. Check out these quotes;

In one mailer, Ohio candidate Ted Strickland spoke of his desire to give all children "every opportunity to reach their God-given potential. This includes working together, across our differences, to reduce the need for and numbers of abortions."

Apparently, for Strickland, the God-given potential for many children peaks about 2 weeks after conception when Dr. Kevorkian's hero takes care of the "termination" as abortions are referred to elsewhere in the article. Now there is some potential! But hey...a few months or weeks is still a longer life expectancy than a fruit fly, is it your fault that is all the potential you had? But as classically hysterical as that quote is, "megachurch" pastor**...a combination of words which already demonstrates a lack of mastery of language...Hunter goes one better.

This fall, Hunter plans to urge his congregation of 10,000 to support politicians who work hard to reduce abortions — even if they don't share the goal of protecting every single one of the unborn."It's past time to reach out," Hunter said. "There's so much more that can be done without compromising our principles."

So let me get this straight; your goal is to protect every single unborn but it is not a compromise to allow a few babies to be aborted/terminated/murdered, whatever term he prefers? And that isn't compromise? Let's just take a look at what you did; you gave up part of your goals in exchange for your opponent giving up some of their goals. You moved your position closer to theirs in exchange for them moving closer to your goals. Yep, you are right, you did not have to compromise* at all. (insert eye roll here)

Sometimes the best laugh you can get is people involved in politics trying to make serious statements when they unintentionally engage in some of the best stand-up going these days.



* com·pro·mise /ˈkɒmprəˌmaɪz/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kom-pruh-mahyz] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -mised, -mis·ing.
–noun
1.
a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
2.
the result of such a settlement.
3.
something intermediate between different things: The split-level is a compromise between a ranch house and a multistoried house.


5.
to settle by a compromise.
–verb (used without object)
8.
to make a compromise or compromises: The conflicting parties agreed to compromise.
9.
to make a dishonorable or shameful concession: He is too honorable to compromise with his principles


** "pastor" is an elder whose responsibilities, according to the Bible, differ markedly from those of an evangelist or minister. however, men, being smarter (in their own eyes) than God, have elected to select that title as more prestigious. Ironic, isn't it, that a title initially given to those who, in God's structure for the Church, most closely resembles a servant or even slave, is now regarded as "prestigious"? Of course, the very fact any church member or office should search out prestige is a sad commentary in itself...the religious world has seriously lost its way.

News from a sane, peaceful religion

I do not recall how old I was when Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses. I do recall reading a blurb about the book and having a complete lack of interest in reading it. I also recall the furor in the Muslim world over the slight to their prophet...and the death sentence pronounced on him that was taken seriously enough that he went into hiding.

About the same time, relatively speaking, there was an artist who titled his artwork with a title so blasphemous that I refuse to repeat it, but his "work" was taking a cup of urin and putting...was it a cross or a so-called picture of Jesus in it? I don't remember for sure and, much like the Rushdie work, I had no interest in it.

The "right-wing zealots" of the U.S., much like the Muslim world, quite upset, reacted by trying to get such projects defunded so instead of their tax dollars paying for deliberately offensive "artwork" it would be used elsewhere.

Just stop for a few seconds and consider the differences in demonstrations of "hate". "We will kill you for offending us" compared to "I don't want to pay for you to deliberately offend me." Yet the "fundamentalists" of "Christianity" are compared to the "fundamentalists" of Islam. Forget the differences...such as the Bible that so-called Christians follow having commands such as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "Love your neighbors and prey for those who persecute you" and "Insofar as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men" as compared with the Koran which justifies lying to kafirs (unbelievers) until you have the upper hand, killing those who refuse to convert and so forth. As obnoxious as some of the more outspoken members of groups such as The Moral Majority or the 700 club or those heinous butcheries of Scripture to be found on TBN might be...their efforts pale in comparison to the efforts of the representatives of Islam.

Examples abound. You have the killings between and of Sunnis and Shiites. The Eleveners and Twelvers have no tolerance for each other even though they allegedly follow the same book (yes, I am eminently aware of the wars of catholicism, and should anyone ask I am more to happy to demonstrate conclusively with extensive historical documentation the difference between catholicism and any form of Christianity, although there are segments of that which have almost equally disappointing records in regard to following Scripture. However, history is also replete with stories of groups who strive to follow Scripture...groups such as the oft-maligned Hugenots who were so intent on following Scripture's peaceful tenents that once, when fleeing for their lives, some of their number threw stones at the pursuing soldiers. The leaders were so mortified that they sent a letter of apology to the King of France for this act unbecoming Christians. THAT is how Christianity should be.)

Fortunately, the tide is turning. Islam is becoming more reasonable. The death fatwa for Rushdie's book was thrown out. Instead they wish war with England and death to Rushdie because he is being knighted. Good to see they are becoming more reasonable...

He's Holier than thou...and can prove it!

One of the great criticisms of the religious world is the "holier than thou" attitude. It is an article of faith that such a personal and nebulous concept has no standard of measure. Not so. Take Myspace netizen Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje. If he claims to be more holy than you I suggest you listen...there are only two people on earth more holy than the Black Hat Lama.

Now, it might sound like I am mocking him but do you really believe I would mock someone who enjoys the Simpsons?

Or a religion that actually ranks the holiness of its leaders? Especially when the third most holy person watches the Simpsons?

Yeah, it is still me, so yes...I will continue to mock even the third holiest buddhist. Best...mock....eeeeeeevvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeerrrrrrr