by David Ellis

Created on: July 19, 2009

Recently I had a conversation with someone who argued that we always have a moral obligation to forgive. Of course, embracing forgiveness is usually a sensible policy when it comes to one's relationship with loved ones, family, co-workers and even casual acquaintances in regard to the everyday trivial (and sometimes more than trivial) wrongs we all experience on a regular basis. But that isn't what this man had in mind. He believed that a person is morally obligated to extend forgiveness even in the case of someone who tortured, raped and murdered that person's child-even when the perpetrator feels no remorse at all for the deed.

His reasons, as is so often the case with blatantly unreasonsable beliefs, were religious.

To be blunt, I just don't buy it. There are some deeds for which a harsh justice, rather than forgiveness, is the appropriate response. The Old Testament God, as portrayed in the Bible, understood this. Even if in many other respects he was less than admirable at least on this sort of issue he's badass where he needs to be. Modern Christians would do better to follow his lead on this issue rather than on the ones they actually do turn to him for.

I'm reminded of the John Grisham novel A Time To Kill and I have to say I have far more approval of the father in that book, who shoots and kills the rapist of his daughter, than I do for one who says "I forgive him because that's what Jesus wants me to do." Though I would certainly say a more balanced middle ground, prosecution and imprisonment, is more sensible.

And this isn't just an abstract philosophical issue. The discussion which inspired me to write this essay was centered on the genocide in Rwanda and christian missionaries who encourage converts to forgive men who brutally murdered or raped them, their children or their wives. It seems to me that these well-meaning missionaries may be doing more harm than good in telling people that we have a moral obligation to God to forgive under such circumstances. The victims of such horrible acts have already suffered more than most of us here in the United States can imagine. To add to their loss and emotional pain a sense of guilt over not being able to perform a nigh-superhuman (and, in my opinion, unwarranted) feat of forgiveness seems just plain wrong-headed.

The last thing we should be doing when counselling those who've been through something that traumatic is to base our opinions about what they should do on ideology and dogma rather than on the actual needs of the victims and their families.

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