| By Dennis
Prager
The bodies of the three teenage girls murdered by a fellow student
at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky were not yet cold,
let alone buried, before the students of the prayer group that was
shot at announced, "We forgive you, Mike," referring to Michael
Carneal, 14, the murderer.
This message of immediate and automatic forgiveness of a murderer
is angering and depressing, but not surprising. Over the course
of the past generation, the idea that the central message of Christianity
is to forgive everyone who commits evil, no matter how great and
cruel and whether or not they repent, has been adopted by much of
Christendom.
The number of examples is almost as large as the number of heinous
crimes. But one other recent example stands out. In August, the
pastor at a Martha's Vineyard church service attended by the vacationing
President Clinton announced that it was the duty of all Christians
for forgive Timothy McVeigh, the man who murdered 168 people when
he blew up the Oklahoma City federal building.
"I invite you to look at a picture of Timothy McVeigh and then
forgive him," the Rev. John Miller said in his sermon. "I have and
I ask you to do so. Considering what he did, that may be a formidable
task, but it is the one that we as Christians are asked to do."
Though I am a Jew, not a Christian, I believe that a vibrant Christianity
is essential if America's present moral crisis is to be reversed.
I also believe that despite some obvious differences in theology,
there is indeed a Judeo-Christian value system and that it has served
as the bedrock of American civilization. And because I do so respect
Christian America, and do regard it as the key to America's moral
rejuvenation, I am appalled, even frightened, by this feel-good
doctrine of automatic forgiveness that has taken over much of American
Christianity.
This doctrine undermines the moral foundations of both American
civilization and Christianity.
It undermines our civilization because it advertises the amoral
notion that no matter how much you hurt other people even unto murder,
millions of your fellow citizens will immediately forgive you -
and you don't even have to say you're sorry.
It undermines Christianity because it destroys Christianity's
central moral tenets about forgiveness - that forgiveness, even
by God, is contingent on the sinner repenting, and that forgiveness
is only to be given to the sinner by the one against whom he sinned.
This is unambiguously affirmed by the New Testament in Luke 17:
3-4: "And if your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he
repents, forgive him. And if seven times of the day he sins against
you, and seven times of the day turns to you saying, I repent, you
shall forgive him."
If one is automatically forgiven without repenting, why repent?
Indeed, theologically speaking, why not do all the evil you want,
knowing that after every act of evil, Christians will announce that
you are forgiven?
Why has this un-Christian and amoral doctrine become so popular
among so many Christians?
One reason is widespread ignorance of Christianity among many
lay Christians and even among some clergy. Since the 1960s, many
people who consider themselves religious have not deemed mastery
of their religion a necessary precondition to making proclamations
in its name. All that has been deemed necessary to be a Christian
speaking in the name of Christianity is to espouse undiscriminating
love and universal, immediate forgiveness.
One does not have to know Christianity - for many Westerners,
especially Americans, religion has become a form of social work
and/or psychotherapy, not an intellectual discipline or a standard
of behavior that adherents must study and follow.
For many Christians, Christianity does not have to be studied
before declaring an idea "Christian." All a Christian really needs
to know are two words, "love" and "forgive," and presto! One knows
Christianity and is a devout Christian. "God is love" and "It is
the Christian's duty to forgive just as Jesus forgave those who
crucified him" are two of the declarations most often made in contemporary
Christian life.
The first declaration is largely meaningless, and the second is
erroneous.
Of course, God loves. But that doesn't mean that God is love.
One can just as legitimately argue that God is anger or that God
is judgement, since God also gets angry, passes judgements, punishes,
and makes demands. Love is but one of God's many attributes, not
the only one, and not even the defining one. "God is love" is a
late twentieth century touchy-feely reduction of God.
As for forgiveness, yes, Jesus did ask God to forgive those who
crucified him. But there is no indication that Jesus ever forgave,
or asked God to forgive, or would consider forgiving, everyone who
commits evil against other people. At any time in his life, Jesus
could have gone to where thousands of innocent people were regularly
crucified and asked God to forgive their killers. He didn't presumably
because he recognized the simple and basic moral rule that while
all human beings have the moral right to forgive those who do evil
to them, no one - not even Jesus - has the moral right to forgive
evil done to others. You and I have no right to forgive Timothy
McVeigh; only those against whom he sinned have that right - and
those he murdered are dead and therefore cannot forgive. It is theological
and moral audacity for anyone living to "forgive" Timothy McVeigh.
Unfortunately, this immoral doctrine of forgiving everyone everything
has apparently seeped down to the next generation. The day after
three of their fellow students were murdered, the Heath High School
Christian prayer group announced that it had forgiven the murderer.
And on the second day after the murders, a sign reading "We forgive
you, Mike" was placed in front of the school.
That students, with the school administration's permission, put
up this sign rather than one expressing how much the murdered students
would be missed (for example, "Nicole, Jessica and Kayce, we will
never forget you") or one expressing condolences to the traumatized
families…is highly instructive. It reveals the moral and human
insensitivity that the forgive-everyone-everything doctrine breeds.
Those who hold this doctrine end up preoccupied more with those
who hurt people than with those who are hurt.
If a child of mine were murdered at school, and my child's classmates
hung out a sign announcing that they forgave my child's murderer,
my despair would be beyond description. Likewise, if a loved one
were among those blown up in Oklahoma City, and I heard a pastor
announce that it was the duty of all Christians to forgive the human
debris that murdered my loved one, I would regard that pastor as
morally challenged. My heart aches for the loved ones of the murdered
who have to endure insensitive calls to forgive their loved ones'
murderer.
This doctrine is also enormously arrogant. Calls to forgive Michael
Carneal and Timothy McVeigh are made by people who haven't been
directly hurt by these murderers. Who gave these Christians the
right to forgive on behalf of the murdered? The murdered? God? The
hubris involved in forgiving murderers, rapists, and torturers,
when one is alive and has been neither raped nor tortured, can only
be described as incredible.
The pastor's call to all Christians to forgive Timothy McVeigh
defies credulity. First and most important, McVeigh has never apologized!
The idea that one forgives a person who is not penitent and who
even boasts of his sin (as McVeigh did in court when he was sentenced)
is moral lunacy. If we are automatically forgiven no matter what
we do - and even if we do not repent - why repent? In fact, why
have God? If people are to forgive everybody for all the evil they
do to anybody, God - and God's forgiveness - are entirely unnecessary.
Thus, in addition to all the terrible moral consequences of forgiving
all evil done to others, there is a terrible religious consequence
to this practice - those who do it have substituted themselves for
God.
Lest this habit catch on further, I hereby announce - and invite
all those who agree with me to announce on their own behalf - that
if I am murdered, I do not forgive my murderer and forbid anyone
to forgive the murderer on my behalf.
When confronted with this argument, those callers to my radio
show who defended the students in Kentucky offered another defense.
"The students were not forgiving Carneal for murdering the three
students," these callers argued, "they were forgiving Carneal for
the pain he caused them."
This argument is so self-centered, it may have created a new theological
category - religious narcissism. To understand why, let us summarize
this mode of thinking: You murder my classmates, and the next day
I announce that I forgive you for the pain you caused me! That such
self-centered thinking masquerades as a religious ideal is one reason
why much of religious life is in moral disarray.
Some Christians have a more sophisticated defense of the forgive-them-everything
argument. They argue that victims should be encouraged to forgive
all evil done to them because it is psychologically healthy to do
so. Forgiveness, the argument goes, brings closure.
Even if this argument is valid, it is again primarily a selfish,
not a moral or a religious, one…
The pastor to the families in the tragedy, Dr. J. Kevin McCallon,
responded to Prager's essay in the Wall Street Journal with a 200
word essay of his own that Prager published in The Prager Perspective:
While I appreciate his encouragement of Christian involvement
in addressing morality in our country, I was offended by his efforts
to label the response of Christians in our area as people merely
interested in a kind of selfish idealism designed only to make themselves
feel good. He has listened to too much talk radio and not enough
Christianity…. I am saddened by his gross misunderstanding
of the Christian's mandate toward forgiveness… sets himself
up as an expert on a matter he (apparently) has little or no experience
or credentials to comment on publicly (mass murder and the response
of a society surrounding him)… I had to wonder about the many
other talk show hosts I hear regularly trying to gain callers or
listeners by taking an unpopular or even ridiculous side of an issue.
…Mr. Prager may not realize the sense of community of the
people of McCracken County, since he lives in the detached personal
life of Los Angeles…
PRAGER: If I have a gross misunderstanding of "the Christian's
mandate toward forgiveness," I share it with most Catholics…
It is inconceivable to me that Jesus advocated the automatic forgiving
of all people no matter what they did, no matter to whom they did
it and irrespective of whether or not they repented. If, God forbid,
someone were to rape and murder your daughter, and the next day
I publicly announce that I forgive this man, I would be a moral
idiot, not a good Christian imitating Christ.
Second, there isn't a hint in the New Testament of such forgiveness
being called for. You state that my citation of Luke 17:3-4 is out
of context. But you do not show how so. It seems to me that not
only is it in context, it is a perfect summary of the New Testament
position on forgiveness.
Third, regarding my "blanket statement" about Jesus: I wrote,
"Jesus did ask God to forgive those who crucified him. But there
is no indication that Jesus ever forgave, or asked God to forgive,
or would consider forgiving, everyone who commits evil against other
people. At any time in his life, Jesus could have gone to where
thousands of innocent people were regularly crucified and asked
God to forgive their killer.
…Since you feel that my specific statements about instant
forgiveness of Michael Carneal offended so many people, how could
you blanketly offend the millions of people who live in Los Angeles.
If you really believe that living in Los Angeles necessarily means
living a "detached personal life," you have been in Paducah too
long. There are beautiful and ugly parts to Los Angeles urban life;
and there are beautiful and ugly parts to small town life. Indeed,
my wife, born and raised in Bluff City, Kansas (pop. 150) has told
me enough about small town life to make me aware that no place has
a monopoly on social health. Moreover, healthy places don't produce
young mass murderers - and we are hearing more and more about young
murderers in Small Town, USA.
REV: We cannot choose the way of Mr. Prager - holding onto
anger…
Prager: I said nothing about anger. All I said was that only victims
may forgive their oppressors, and that since the victims of murderers
are dead, murder cannot be forgiven by people, only by God. But
since you mention anger, what is wrong with holding onto anger when
it is righteous and moral anger?
Tuesday, March 31, 1998
LA TIMES
PERSPECTIVE ON THE JONESBORO KILLINGS
It's Too Soon to Ask Forgiveness
The Sunday sermons should have addressed why a loving, just God
permits such evil, not called for absolution.
By JACOB NEUSNER
If you lost a daughter to the pre-pubescent snipers in Jonesboro
last week and came to church for solace this past Sunday, you found
only confusion. The message being preached was not why does a loving
and just God permit evil in the world? It was a demand for Christians
to forgive the children's murderers.
Surely the grieving families, the community of Jonesboro and the
nation are puzzled over the enduring mystery of monotheism: Why
is there such evil in the world of the one and only, the all-powerful,
loving and just God? The preachers didn't deliver the message that
we cannot explain what happens but have to accept and be grateful
for what we have had--the lost children and heroic teacher, the
legacy of memory. Nor did they preach what is certainly the human
challenge of the hour: acceptance, reconciliation, solace in hope
for life to come and the classical Judaic and Christian response
to death of accepting the gift of faith.
No, the message the preachers offered the grieving town and the
world beyond was that right now, on the spot, we have to forgive
our children's murderers. How brutal.
That grotesque distortion of monotheism hardly exhausts available
Judaic and Christian responses to the crisis of catastrophic death.
When Cardinal Richard J. Cushing committed John F. Kennedy to the
ground, he spoke of how, even at that hour, the murdered president
was entering heaven. The Catholic message of resurrection finds
its match in the Judaic response of acceptance of God's justice
and dominion. When the state of Israel buried Yitzhak Rabin, it
was in the silence surrounding the words of the Kaddish, the prayer
recited, among other circumstances, as a requiem affirming God's
rule. Cushing did not ask forgiveness for Lee Harvey Oswald nor
did the Israeli rabbinate bless Rabin's assassin.
But what defines the Protestant-Christian message these days?
At the moment of grief, the Southern Baptists tell us only that
forgiving the sinner defines the urgent spiritual task of this hour,
as though hatred and recrimination defined the human situation of
parents who have lost their innocent children, a husband his heroic
wife, a town its purity.
In the heavy months to come, the mourners will find ample occasion
for recrimination. Then sermons on forgiveness and reconciliation
will find their occasion; surely not now.
But the reason for the inappropriate sermons heard Sunday cannot
really be, as one of the ministers explained on TV, merely that
the sermon had been written, so why compose a new one? It is rather
what that particular Christianity finds to say, defining what it
deems the spiritual challenge of the moment.
The Jonesboro message finds its match in Billy Graham's dispensation
of cheap grace to an unrepentant president. Bestowing a kind of
preemptive forgiveness, Graham invokes charismatic sexuality to
explain away the president's circumstances: Women go wild and he
gives in to temptation. The president need not confess or atone
or ask forgiveness. It's all done up front.
That's not a religion, it's an exercise in fatuity. I wonder what
Graham will have to say to Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler, whom,
by his theology, he will meet in heaven. After all, a place of such
easy access in the no-fault-theology of the times surely can't keep
out anybody.
On Sunday TV, responding to the same tragedy, a political conservative
spoke of evil in the world and a political liberal of "rooting out
the causes" for two youngsters' premeditated acts of murder.
When the country turns to politics, politics rehearses its familiar
routine. But surely we had reason to expect of religion a message
that matched the moment.
- - -
Jacob Neusner Is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University
of South
Florida and Professor of Religion at Bard College
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