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The Call to Write on Forgiveness
It was about two or three months ago when I felt a call to write on the topic of forgiveness. I had it all neat and outlined–all the reasons why forgiveness is a staple of the Christian life, why a lack of it robs us of peace, and so on and so forth.
But two months ago, Charlie Kirk was alive and well. His wife and children were content. There was no mention in the news of assassins or incoming reports of evidence.
In light of the speech Erika Kirk recently delivered last month in which through teary eyes she proclaimed “I forgive [my husband’s killer]”, it feels almost silly to now attempt preaching on the topic of forgiveness. I can’t outdo the example she’s given. Her courage is unmatched.
But make no doubt about it: what was done was not weakness; it was courage.
The Shock of Evil and the Darkness of the Human Heart
I know and you know well that people suck. There’s no way around it. Human beings do awful, dark, irrational things. Things that make you doubt humanity itself. And they’ve done it literally since the dawn of time. All of the senseless killings, all of the injustice done to the most innocent, all of the heinous words exchanged like bullet wounds to the soul. And all of it, all of it deserves justice. No excuses.
Taking just a few glances at the internet whether in recent times or simply at any point in one’s lifetime will show you some of the worst humanity has to offer. To see people smiling, giddy at the brutal murder of a devoted husband and father, a fellow American citizen is nothing less than infuriating. We’ve arrived at a point in time where reactions that were unthinkable only a few generations ago are now seen as liberating and even quirky. I remember being on Instagram the day I heard news of Kirk being shot and seeing a note posted from someone I had followed that exclaimed joy at the news. The sheer smugness and denial of humanity staggered me. And if it does to you too–good. That means you still have soul.
When Justice Feels Like the Only Option
In the face of this, in the face of a time where political violence, especially violence against conservatives or even just center-right folks, has become a new norm, to talk about forgiveness almost seems the same as admitting defeat. “We need to avenge”, “The time for talking is over”, “No more Mr. Nice guy.” These are new thoughts and words being spoken now, and look, I get it. Justice is a virtue. It is good to see evil earn its comeuppance, to not let it off the hook.
But that’s not what forgiveness is. It never has been.
I remember once years ago attending a high school class on Politics, the professor had posed an assignment to the class: if you could create any one new law what would it be? To this day, I never forgot what one of my classmates had proposed: if anyone is raped or killed, the family has license to take any action they want against the perpetrator. The logistics of such a law set aside, what they hit on was not a sentiment so unthinkable. Of course, if an innocent party was subjected to something as heinous as rape or murder, it’s a natural response to want revenge. The desire to deal the same pain in response to how one has dealt with you is natural and at one point in history was the very rule of law my classmate was fantasizing about. The rise in wrath over mercy, though it seems new, has ancient roots in a pre-Christian antiquity.
The Christian Revolution: Forgiveness as Strength
However, the words Erika Kirk shared to the conservative movement at her husband’s tribute and the force that animated them is not weakness. They are the very reason why we care about evil being done to the innocent at all in Western civilisation. It’s the reason why we generally believe war to be a bad thing as opposed to a good thing. It’s the reason why a punch to the face is (usually) seen as the last resort. It’s the reason why the poor are fed and children are protected. It’s the very thing Charlie Kirk believed made us a great nation.
In his book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, historian Tom Holland traces the impact Christianity had upon the whole of Western civilisation, starting with the pinnacle image of the cross:
[Medieval audiences’] response to the spectacle was far removed from the mingled revulsion and disdain that had typified that of the ancients to crucifixion. Men and women, when they looked upon the image of their Lord fixed to the cross, upon the nails smashed through the tendons and bone of his feet, upon the arms spread so tightly as to appear torn from their sockets, upon the slump of his thorn-crowned head onto his chest, did not feel contempt, but rather compassion, and pity, and fear. There was certainly no lack of Christians, in medieval Europe, to identify with the sufferings of their God. Rich still trampled down on poor. Gibbets stood on hills. . .And yet for all that, something fundamental had indeed changed. ‘Patience in tribulation, offering the other cheek, praying for one’s enemies, loving those who hate us’: such were Christian virtues. . .derived from the recorded sayings of Jesus himself
He goes on to write:
That the Son of God, born of a woman, and sentenced to the death of a slave, had perished unrecognised by his judges, was a reflection fit to give pause to even the haughtiest monarch. This awareness, enshrined in the very heart of medieval Christianity, could not help but lodge in its consciousness the visceral and momentous suspicion: that God was closer to the weak than to the mighty, to the poor than to the rich. Any beggar, any criminal, can be Christ. So the ‘last will be first, and the first last’ [emphasis added] (Holland 9, emphasis added).
Anger, Justice, and the Paradox of Mercy
The Christian ideal of Christ nailed on the cross struck not only people two thousand or one thousand years ago, but presses itself on our hearts, minds, and consciences to this very day. For a mighty king, a god no less, to willingly allow himself to be humiliated and tortured in such a way by his enemies is no less than shocking. How can it be anything less than a complete and utter failure? If that’s the case, then the Christian ideal of forgiveness indeed, was weak and deserved to die away in the recesses of time. But as Holland pointed out, that very paradox was what changed the world from ancients’ “might equals right” logic to upholding the lowly and seeking peace always.
Now, don’t get me wrong here: that isn’t to say that anger is inherently a sin, or always unjustified. Anger, or the desire to see justice met when there is a perceived injustice is a natural, God-given emotion meant to order us towards right action to paraphrase psychologist Gerry Crete.1
So if dealing out hate in response to evil is bad, but the desire to see evil met with justice is good, then how is forgiveness not weak?
Here is where the beauty of the faith, unlike any other religion on earth, shines forth. Christianity, precisely because it opposes evil so much, is ultimately concerned with breaking the cycle which keeps it operating. The very cycle which originated all the way back to Adam and Eve and lives on in the heart of each one of us. Not just in those radical leftists or the crazed jihadists or the sick criminals on the street. In you.
When we’re wronged, it is normal and natural to desire justice and respect, and vengeance often offers a quick fulfillment of those desires. But like Batman refusing to kill any of his most heinous enemies despite the fact that it was once a criminal who murdered his own parents, paradoxically so too can we do the most good. If there is ever to be an end to evil once and for all, it can only begin with humility–not a denial of justice or recompense–but a choice to come to accept that You are a human being, and so am I. And so we are sinners–that makes us equal.
“There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness,there is not even one” (Rm 3:10-12).
The Witnesses of Forgiveness
If we want to see the saving power of humility and forgiveness at work, we needn’t look too far into the lives of the saints. Most people’s reaction to surviving a shooting would likely involve time spent in a court room and a firm restraining order against their shooter–which is just and good. However, Pope St. John Paul II (whose feast we celebrate this month)’s response to his would-be assassin Mehmet Ali Ağca after being shot twice is nothing less than astonishing, almost scandalous. While still raw in recovery, the then pope expressed publicly that he prayed “for the brother who struck me, whom I have sincerely forgiven” and that “[u]nited to Christ, Priest and Victim, I offer my sufferings for the Church and for the world.2”
By calling Mehmet his “brother”, John Paul II acknowledged his shared human condition with his killer, acknowledging that both of them are in need of salvation. And two years after the fateful attempt, he ventured to meet Mehmet in his prison cell for a one-on-one conversation, forgiving the criminal and gifting him with a rosary.
It Ends With Me: The Christian Way Forward
Shocking stuff, isn’t it? It’s that kind of depth of spirit which makes one feel small in his own struggles. The truth is that few of us will thankfully ever have to deal with the tragedy of murder or attempted murder firsthand. It’s easy to think that kind of holiness is just reserved for great men and women. But each of us do have to deal with that occasional passive aggressive remark from a friend, the kind that hits us just a little too close to where it hurts or that person who said they’d be there on time but instead showed up late again. How about the spouse who promised to do the dishes but instead opted for time in front of the tv?
Sin, whether committed by us or against us, always leads to death, even if it’s not a death of the body. The only cure to stop the bleeding is forgiveness. Had either Erika Kirk or Pope St. John Paul II had given into immediate instinct and wished for the damnation of their perpetrators, justice would indeed be served. But to harken back to Christ’s words: “For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Mth 7:2). Because everyone is guilty before God, that same standard by which we judge others we will be judged by ourselves.
This is why when we choose to zoom out of our own headspace and into God’s big picture, evil can only be defeated not simply by our own efforts at justice but by His, and the more we try to take it out of His hands and into ours, the more we ironically screw it up and cause more havoc. To forgive as Christ did on the cross, as the saints did, as the Kirks did, is heroically trusting. It’s to trust that God will take care of things, so you don’t have to, even if His way is not how you originally hoped your situation would play out. It’s easy to wish (or to post) that our enemies’ pillows “always be warm”. It’s gratifying and self-righteous. But it requires true strength of character to say “It ends with me”.
Footnotes:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8mFUXiDhHA&t=3475s 1:01:45-1:02:00
- https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-05/gun-shots-fear-prayer-and-forgiveness.html
Other articles by Tacianna Bennet:
https://splendidtruth.com/a-quiet-place-day-one-the-power-of-silent-retreat/