Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Jesus Creed - Discussions on Hell (July 2014 - July 2015)

Universalism and Death (by Jeff Cook)

This post is by Jeff Cook, and I am committed to giving space to Jeff’s public ruminations because they are reasonable and give us space to think through challenging topics with rigor. Jeff Cook: I’ve become convinced this year that the traditional view of hell will not last as a dominant theory among scholars for [Read More...]

Repainting Hell: Jeff Cook’s Closure

Jeff Cook teaches philosophy at the University of Northern Colorado. He is the author of Everything New: Reimagining Heaven and Hell(Subversive 2012), and a pastor of Atlas Church in Greeley, Colorado. You can connect with him at everythingnew.org and @jeffvcook. One thing I admire about Jeff Cook is his willingness to put his thinking on the line for others to debate, [Read More...]

Repainting Hell: The Argument from Location (Jeff Cook)

A solid number of theologians and scholars over the past century have questioned whether the church has understood hell correctly. The most widely held view has interpreted “hell” as “eternal conscious torment,” but this view is not as easily justified through the scriptures or through reason as we might think given its prominence. I wish [Read More...]

Repainting Hell 3: Jeff Cook

Repainting Hell : The Argument from Desire  (Jeff Cook) As Thomas Aquinas once offered five ways to know a God exists, so too I hope to offer five ways to know that hell is not “eternal conscious torment.” Like Aquinas, my arguments will be philosophical in nature. Though I think there are many solid biblical [Read More...]

Repainting Hell 2 (Jeff Cook)

Repainting Hell: The End of Evil  (Jeff Cook) As Thomas Aquinas once offered five ways to know a God exists, so too I hope to offer five ways to know that hell is not “eternal conscious torment.” Like Aquinas, my arguments will be philosophical in nature. Though I think there are many solid biblical reasons [Read More...]

Does God’s Mercy Endure Forever, or Does it End?

Rob Bell asked the question if God’s mercy would endure forever so that people would have opportunities to turn to God in the afterlife (postmortem opportunity = PO) or if that mercy would end at death. Bell’s answer was a deft move in rhetoric: love wins, he said. Dante’s famous Divine Comedy disagrees for in it we [Read More...]

Repainting Hell: C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright (by Jeff Cook)

One of the features of this blog I like is the inclusion of disparate voices. I, Scot McKnight, am not the only voice; RJS is another voice; John Frye, Jonathan Storment, and Jeff Cook are other voices. And others send me posts and we post them to give yet more voices a platform to create [Read More...]

Is Heaven Vital for Morality or Not?

You may well recall the famous scene in Les Miserables in which Jean Valjean comes clean in public to take the place of another who was in fact on trial instead of himself (Valjean). The scene poses the moral theory called altruism, that is, that one does what is good for others in a disinterested manner. It [Read More...]

God’s Love and Hell

Here’s how he begins the chapter, with a question: How can hell exist if God is truly love and will bring his world to the perfect comic end we explored in the first chapter? The answer? Well, what I want to argue is that hell can exist precisely because God is love. Because God is [Read More...]

The Importance of Heaven and Hell

No one in the world has thought more about heaven, hell and purgatory than Jerry Walls. He has an academic, but accessible, book on each topic and now he has brought all his thinking together in one far more accessible, rearranged book called Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: A Protestant View of the Cosmic Drama. Just a few [Read More...]

Judgment Day: God’s Home Makeover

The very claim Christians have always made is that at some day God will judge us all.Every.last.one.of.us. The great, last judgment. The question many have against that claim is this: Is it all that simple, that God will save the Christians and all the non-Christians will be banned from God’s good, eternal blessedness? Yet, I think [Read More...]

“God is on a mission to get the hell out of earth”

I have been reading Joshua Ryan Butler’s The Skeletons in God’s Closet, the first major section in which is a study of hell – and how it fits into the Bible’s narrative. Hell without a story becomes a torture chamber. Butler begins by clarifying the all too common view of hell: We get hell wrong because we [Read More...]

Skeletons: Introducing Joshua Ryan Butler

I will tell you why I like Joshua Ryan Butler’s The Skeletons in God’s Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War. Because he’s young and is sensitive to some of the Bible’s most sensitive issues (see the topics in that subtitle?), because he forges his way into these topics [Read More...]

Is the Lake of Fire Torture? Josh Butler

IS THE LAKE OF FIRE TORTURE? by Josh Butler, author of the just-out and excellent book, The Skeletons in God’s Closet. More about Josh below. Many a street preacher has used the “lake of fire,” an image in Revelation, to depict God as a sadistic torturer who likes to roast unrepentant rebels like kalua pigs [Read More...]

Evangelical Alliance Examines the Conditionalists

The Evangelical Alliance is the UK’s version of a genuinely evangelical and ecumenical organization. If I may, American evangelicalism has never been able to get along well enough to form such an organization (unless I’m mistaken). It seeks to bring together all of the UK’s evangelicals; it does not attempt to show how other (supposed) [Read More...]

Can Hell be Restorative?

Christopher Marshall, a professor at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, thinks so. While I’m not entirely sure he resolves the problems he generates, and he generates them as well as anyone I’ve read, his approach to the problem of hell (Rethinking Hell) is somewhere along the line of conditionalism or annihilationism or final radical [Read More...]

Terrance Tiessen’s Journey to Solve the Hell Problem

This post is by Terry Tiessen, and I use the post with his permission. I set out to write a blog post that grew rather large. So I have decided to split it into two posts, of which this is the first. Here I will relate the story of my long journey in quest of [Read More...]

Do All Humans have an Immortal Soul?

If you believe in the immortality of the soul, so it would seem, you would have to believe in endless punishment of the wicked or universalism. In the history of the church, belief in the immortality of the soul has been a constant. Not all, but most have believed God made humans immortal. While N.T. [Read More...]

The Bible’s General Trend and Hell

In the exceptionally useful anthology of scholarly pieces on conditionalism (or annihilationism) in Rethinking Hell (ed. C.M. Date, GG. Stump, J.W. Anderson), one of the most important contributions is by Harold E. Guillebaud, whose work is now harder to find (I find no copies available through Amazon). Guillebaud lays down some strong lines to open [Read More...]

The Clobber Text for ECT-ers

The clobber text for those who embrace eternal conscious torment is Revelation 14:11,with vv. 9-10 preceding it. Another way of saying this is that this is the defeater text for conditionalism; another way is to say this is the one text conditionalists have to use gymnastics to explain. Here it is: 9 If anyone worships [Read More...]

Book Review - Do We Need the New Testament?

Do We Need the New Testament? A Review

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 6.14.14 PMJohn Goldingay. Do We Need the New Testament?: Letting the Old Testament Speak for ItselfDowners Grove: IVP Academic, 2015. ISBN 978-0-8308-2469-4.
Review by Michael C Thompson, doctoral student at Northern Seminary.
Every now and then a book comes along that grabs your attention just by the topic or, as in this case, the title. Do we need the New Testament? is probably a question which most modern Christians have thought about before, and perhaps has the potential to disrupt more than a few people in the pew. But here Professor Goldingay goes directly at the issue of whether or not the Hebrew scriptures have lasting value in light of the New Testament. Given his passion for what he calls ‘The First Testament,’ he is certainly the right person to have authored a book such as this, which finds its foundation on his conviction of a certain unity and continuity between the two Testaments (9).
At the outset Goldingay gives us his answer, and also issues a challenge, “Yes, of course, we do need the New Testament, but why?” (7). This takes the all-too-common discarding of the significance of the First Testament in many contemporary expressions of Christianity and turns it on its head. As the author highlights the importance of the First Testament, the reader is met with statements that will certainly give pause for thought. “In a sense God did nothing new in Jesus. God was simply taking to its logical and ultimate extreme the activity in which he had been involved through the First Testament story” (12). The underlying perspective here is that we cannot rightly understand the New Testament – most importantly Jesus himself – if we do not pay attention to what we have been given in the First Testament. Does such a conviction still exist in our churches today?
The challenge given by Goldingay doesn’t allow for a simple check-the-box acknowledgment of inerrancy, but pushes the reader to better understand the significance of the Hebrew scriptures as a part of God’s grand story and revelation. “God’s promises are not all fulfilled in Christ (in the sense in which we commonly use the word fulfill), but they are all confirmed in Christ” (26, emphasis original). This, of course, leads to the question that is found in Chapter 2: Why Is Jesus Important? In framing this part of the discussion the author states, “In none of the Gospels does Jesus tell his disciples to extend the kingdom, work for the kingdom, build up the kingdom, or further the kingdom” (34).
This pushes the reader to a reconsideration of who Jesus was and what it was that he did. It appears that Jesus came to announce the kingdom, and to draw people into an experience of the kingdom. Thus, the church is called to live in holiness and spread the knowledge of God throughout the world (46). “Implementing God’s reign is fortunately God’s business” (47).
From this the book goes on to explore the presence of the Holy Spirit in the First Testament, and the nuance of language that expresses the understanding of the Spirit in that context. In this fourth chapter Goldingay introduces what he calls Middle Narratives, smaller narrative units that express the Bible’s story (72). The Bible does not come simply as one overarching theme, but also incorporates other “extensive expositions of part of God’s story” (88). This helps the reader better understand the movement of scripture’s story as well as its interconnectedness.
Key to this reading also is Chapter Five: How People Have Mis(?)read Hebrews. This particular discussion is quite insightful, as Goldingay seeks to recalibrate what many casual readings of Hebrews get wrong. It centers on the nature of sacrifice. In keeping with the overall theme of the book, Goldingay pushes the reader to consider the importance of the First Testament as foundational for understanding what the New Testament says of Christ. The notion of a new and better covenant is a key element as well, and here the connection is made between the church’s role as analogous to Israel’s role (97). In the end it is the uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice that is highlighted, in that he offers an eternal salvation, which is not found in the First Testament (100). Such a reading is vital for understanding the story of salvation.
Chapter Six identifies the loss of First Testament spirituality, a lament for that which goes missing whenever the church ignores its spiritual heritage. This section centers on the way the First Testament presents a worship that is intended to encompass the whole of life, drawing the community deeper into God’s narrative as found in the gospel. Goldingay asserts that in the forfeiture of First Testament use this is lost: “But in worship we have given up on those” (107). He believes that the way forward in this (Chapter Seven) is in recovering a sense of memory as part of hope and life. There are some good perspectives on Israel’s memory found in this chapter, as Goldingay identifies it as the means by which preserves history and ethic within the community, even when such memories conflict (124).
So, what about those times when the New Testament changes the ethical ideals of the First Testament? Chapter Eight addresses this question, and the notion that the New Testament presents a higher or better standard of ethic. “Jesus’ talk of fulfillment and his subsequent examples, then, point to one aspect of what is involved in interpreting the ethical implications of the biblical material” (141). Once more, the continuity of the biblical story becomes key to understanding these dynamics. There is a hermeneutical discussion about how the New Testament interacts with the First Testament, and this chapter has good examples of this as well.
The final chapter is a good summary of the method of theological interpretation from which Goldingay works in this volume. In a sense, this conclusion is the drawn-together theory his study as a whole. As such, he makes good and challenging statements to the process of biblical interpretation: “Theological interpretation is proper exegesis” (160). Goldingay admits that there is a diversity in the New Testament’s view of the First Testament, in that there are a variety of readings that can be identified throughout (161), and he strongly asserts that being christocentric is not the aim of the biblical story, or even of Christ. Rather, the story of scripture and the work of Christ is to be theocentric, which helps define the unity of the two Testaments (162f.).
In the end, this book is accessible to the pastor and a good deal of laypersons, though many in the church might not be ready to think about biblical interpretation quite at this level. But for those asking questions about the relevance of the First Testament to the church, this is a great tool to begin such an investigation. Foundational for this study is the understanding of the work of Jesus, not in bringing a new revelation, but in his life and message that give significance “in who he was, what he did and what happened to him, and what he will do” as the central figure of God’s grand story (177).
Source Link - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/07/18/do-we-need-the-new-testament-a-review/

What Forgiveness Is Not (Part 1) & What It Is (Part 2)




What Forgiveness is Not
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/what-forgiveness-is-not

by Thomas Jay Oord
August 1, 2015

A series of painful events in my life have me pondering anew the meaning of forgiveness. Family and friends have also asked for help as they struggle to forgive those who hurt them. I want to share some ideas I’ve found helpful in my own efforts to forgive in the midst of pain.

An impressive scholarly literature is available on forgiveness. The field of positive psychology, for instance, offers some impressive research. And various religious and moral traditions offer wisdom on the matter.

As a Christian theologian, I’m especially interested in what the Christian tradition says about forgiveness. I like to contemplate, for instance, what it means to say God forgives. I also wonder why horrible things happen if God loves everyone and can control anything, a question usually called “the problem of evil.”

In this blog, I’ll set aside the question of why God doesn’t prevent evil. I’ve addressed it elsewhere, and I have a book coming out in November that tackles the subject.[1]

For this essay, I mostly want to ponder what it means for humans to forgive.

Forgive and Forget?

I sometimes hear that those who have been harmed ought to “forgive and forget.” Most people interpret this phrase to mean that forgiving requires ignoring or overlooking the harm others have done. We must disremember, they say.

I reject the idea that forgiveness requires forgetting the harm done. I reject the idea, in part, because such forgetting may be impossible for some people. If forgiving requires forgetting, those who cannot forget will never be able to forgive.

Forgiveness does not mean burying the pain deep inside. It does not demand we ignore the damage done. Victims must acknowledge harm was done.

In fact, forgetting the harm can be extremely unhelpful to the victim and to others. Forgetting may allow perpetrators of evil to continue their dastardly deeds. Forgetting may lead to failing to change structures that permit evil. As Nazi holocaust survivors know, for instance, we must remember as a way to resist repeating past sins.

Sometimes we must remember past evil to inspire us to prevent evil in the future.

Forgiving as Warm Fuzzy Feelings?

Some people assume that those who forgive no long feel repulsed by those who have hurt them. True forgiveness, they say, means having warm fuzzy feelings toward perpetrators of evil. Positive feelings must completely replace the victim’s pain, outrage, and other negative feelings.

I disagree with this view too. Those who have been hurt may wish to feel positive feelings. But such feelings often take time or never come at all. Negative emotional histories rarely transform overnight!

If forgiveness means that victims must have warm and positive emotions toward those who harm them, forgiveness is not possible for many people — at least not possible in the short term. Fortunately, forgiveness doesn’t require that we always feel warmth toward those who have injured us.

I’ll address later how we replace negative feelings with positive ones. But for now, I simply want to deny that forgiveness requires our feeling warmth and positivity toward those who have hurt us.

Forgiveness as Gladness?

Related to the misconception that forgiveness requires warm feelings is the misconception that those who forgive completely should thereafter feel bright and breezy. Those with a particular view of God’s blueprint for life sometimes even say God wanted the harm and pain we endure. I strongly disagree!

In reality, anger toward evil is an important part of being a morally mature person. Because evil undermines wellness, we are right to oppose it. Feeling angry is appropriate when evil is done, and we can be angry while simultaneously acting for good.

These words of Scripture seem wise to me: “Be angry, but do not sin” (Eph. 4:26). I take this to mean that we are sometimes justified in being mad about what has happened to us or to others. Injustice sucks! But we must not allow our anger to become revenge, spite, resentment, or retaliation. Besides, “eye for an eye” and “tooth for a tooth” leaves us blind and edentulous!

What we ought to do when we’re “good and mad” brings me to…

Forgiveness as Complacency?

A widespread misconception says forgiveness requires the forgiver to accept passively what has happened, with no active response. Those who promote this misconception usually pair it with the correct notion that forgiveness does not retaliate. But they explicitly or implicitly add that in the face of harm, forgivers should be quiet, inactive, or compliant.

In my view, forgivers are activists. They have experienced injustice first hand and they are choosing to do something about that injustice. Instead of striking back, however, they mobilize to change some part of the world for good. Positive world changing involves numerous types of action. But it does not involve apathy.

Because forgiveness is not complacency, harmful institutions and individuals ought to brace themselves when forgivers respond to injustice. Forgivers don’t run away and hide. They act for the common good, often passionately and persistently, in response to the harm done. When victims forgive rightly, their righteous activism often pushes harmful institutions or individuals to make reforms and offer apologies.

The particular acts that accompany forgiveness depend on what well-being requires in each case. It may mean acting to prevent perpetrators from doing more harm. It may mean raising awareness of injustice. It may mean acting to transform institutional practices or social customs. It may mean seeking counseling for oneself and others. The ways of forgiving love are almost endless!

Activist forgivers pursue various activities to bring health and wholeness in the face of evil.

Forgiveness as Reconciliation?

Many use “forgiveness” and “reconciliation” interchangeably. But I think we would be wise to separate these two words.

Forgiveness is something one person or a group can do in response to an evil act or hurtful relationship. Forgivers act irrespective of what perpetrators may do. Those harmed need not wait for confession from those who harm them. Instead, they act to forgive despite what others may do.

Reconciliation, by contrast, requires all the estranged parties to act positively toward one another. Reconciliation requires all involved to choose positive unity and healed relationship. Reconciliation takes a least two.

Let’s be honest: Sometimes those who harm seek forgiveness and reconciliation mainly to avoid public scorn. They say they want reconciliation, but they really want something else. Their motives are not primarily to restore or help those they have injured. They mostly want to avoid some negative consequences without actually doing the work of repentance (being transformed).

Because it can be difficult to judge rightly the motives of those who harm us, bringing in third parties (e.g., counselors) is often necessary for genuine reconciliation.

Forgiving Waits for Others to Ask to be Forgiven?

The final issue I want to address here is the idea that forgiveness requires that those who harm first admit their wrong and ask forgiveness. Fortunately, victims need not wait before they can act to forgive.

If forgiveness requires waiting until evil doers confess and repent, perpetrators of injustice would maintain a kind of control over their victims. But a major reason forgiveness is so powerfully good is that it can set victims free from such control. Forgiveness does not require that those who have hurt admit their guilt.

We who have been harmed can forgive even if those who harmed us don’t care that they have injured. We can forgive even if those who harmed us are unaware of their injuring. We can forgive even when those who harm feel justified in their harmful acts!

I can’t help but insert my own situation as an example. As far as I know, no individual, group, board, or team has apologized for harming my colleagues, my family, or me. Perhaps none feels responsible and therefore thinks an apology would be inappropriate. Perhaps some worry about the legal implications if they were to admit guilt. Perhaps some feel their actions were justified, because they think NNU would be better without me. Perhaps some rationalize what they have done by saying, “Tom will end up just fine,” meaning I will find another job. I honestly don’t know all the reasons.

Whatever their reasons for not apologizing, I don’t need to wait for them to ask for forgiveness. After all, an apology may never come. But I can choose to forgive them now.

What is forgiveness, then?

I’ve spent most of this essay talking about what forgiveness is not. I thought I’d clear away some of the misconceptions before offering what I think are helpful conceptions.

I’ll explain what forgiveness is and a little about how we can forgive in my next essay, which I will soon post.


* * * * * * * * * *




What Forgiveness Is
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/what-forgiveness-is

by Thomas Jay Oord
August 4th, 2015

In my previous essay, I talked about what forgiveness is not. Now let me talk about what it is.

As I write this, I’m aware that I can’t cover all topics related to forgiveness. And I’m aware that I speak primarily from my own experience, aided by my interpretation of the wisdom found in Scripture, religious and moral traditions, and scientific research, especially in psychology. I definitely have much to learn. But I want to share what I have found helpful.

What Forgiveness Is Not

Let me begin by recapping some ideas from my previous essay, “What Forgiveness is Not.”

In that essay, I said that forgiveness does not require that we forget the harm done. I reject the idea that we must forgive and forget.

Forgiveness does not mean that we must feel warm fuzzy feelings toward those who have hurt us. Forgiveness does not mean excusing the wrongdoing. We who have been hurt also do not need to believe our pain is part of God’s plan.

I also said that forgiveness does not mean complacency or passivity. Instead, forgivers are activists. They repay evil with good. We can be angry at the harm done and yet still forgive the harm doers.

Forgiveness is not reconciliation either, because reconciliation requires that all estranged parties be united. We can forgive even when those who have harmed us think their actions were justified.

Finally, I said that forgivers don’t need to wait for those who have harmed them to express regret. If such waiting were required, those harmed would remain at the mercy of the harm doers.


Love is the Heart of Forgiveness

There is no common definition of forgiveness in the scholarly literature. But there are a number of characteristic aspects of how definition is discussed, and those can help us understand what it means to forgive.

As I see it, forgiveness is a form of love. At its core, love involves promoting well-being. It encourages flourishing, positivity, and abundant life. Love advances the efforts of healing, health, and wholeness. Simply put: Love does good.[1]

While love takes many forms, forgiveness is a form of love that means intentionally acting to do good to those who have harmed us. Forgiveness usually involves a pardoning statement of some kind and subsequent actions that treat well or wish wellness to those who have treated us poorly. It also typically involves a change from negative attitudes or emotions to positive ones.

Jesus said love does not repay evil with evil. Instead, those who love repay evil with good. That’s what forgiveness does: it expresses goodness in response to evil or harm.

Incidentally, I define agape as a kind of love that promotes well-being in response to actions that promote ill-being. Agape love chooses not to retaliate against those who have done injury. In other words, agape repays evil with good.[2]

As I see it, agape and forgiveness are closely related.

The Ability to Forgive Comes from God

I believe the power to forgive comes from God, whether we believe in deity or not. God not only calls us all to forgive, I believe God empowers us all to forgive. Just as we love because God first loved us, I think we can forgive because God first forgives us. I think some people love and forgive without consciously being aware that their ability to do so comes from God.

In recent days, I have repeatedly asked God to empower me to forgive those who have harmed my family, my colleagues, my friends, and me. Many have asked me for advice on forgiveness. My wife and I have talked much about what forgiveness requires. “Forgiveness” is a frequent topic of discussion in my house right now!

I believe that God calls me to forgive in the manner God has forgiven others and me. God is in the goodness business. And forgiveness brings the goodness of healing, wholeness, and health – in a variety of ways – to a world of hurt, pain, and suffering.[3]

Give gives us the ability to forgive. And forgiving as God forgives allows us to live life to the fullest.

How Do We Forgive?

So… what does it take forgive those who harm us?

Often the first step in forgiving is simply deciding to forgive. Deciding to forgive means acting for the good of those who have been bad to us. It means wishing them well in our thoughts and actions.

Forgiveness does not seek revenge. It does not harbor bitterness or resentment, but it deals with those negative feelings when they arise. Forgiveness is not vindictive. It consciously chooses to do right to those who have done us wrong.

Saying, “I forgive,” just once is seldom sufficient. Our thoughts and emotions often bring us back to the hurt. We must frequently say, “I forgive,” to deal with painful thoughts and emotions.

I repeatedly decide to forgive. I often say to myself and to others than I forgive those who harm me. Like an athlete who practices her sport so that the sport becomes second nature, I practice forgiveness in the hope that it becomes second nature to me.

Fortunately, the more times we decide to forgive, the more we talk about forgiveness, and when we participate in communities that promote forgiveness, the likelier we will be to choose to forgive when we are hurt. Strong habits of forgiveness make us the kind of people who find forgiveness normal.

The Emotions of Forgiveness

Deciding to forgive, in a moment or in a long series of instances, is usually also accompanied by a second step. This second step is sometimes more difficult and often not entirely within our ability to control.[4] The second step involves transforming our emotions.

Transforming our emotions rarely occurs overnight. Transformation takes time. But forgiveness research and various religious and moral traditions tell us how to replace the negative emotions we experience when hurt with positive emotions of health and healing.

Interestingly, those who forgive typically reap greater benefits – e.g., improved physical health, improved psychological health, and improved social/relational health – than the perpetrators of harm they forgive. Bitterness, cynicism, and hatred plague those who choose unforgiveness. Unforgiving people live wearisome and anemic lives. Forgiving people can live life fully.

Empathy

We can deal with negative emotions and thereby have a change of heart when we empathize with the perpetrator of our pain.[5] To empathize is to feel the feelings of others. Empathizing involves identifying with the other person’s basic humanity.

Empathizing often involves placing ourselves in that person’s shoes, thinking about that person’s own history and motivations. When we empathize, we see those who have hurt us as broken, insecure, and injured persons themselves. We also try to see the world from their perspective. This helps us understand their motivations a little, without requiring us to justify or condone when they have done.

This point is so important I want to emphasize it: When we empathize with perpetrators of evil, we need not approve or endorse the evils done. We can feel repelled, repulsed, and angry at the pain they have caused. But in empathy, our “hearts go out” to those who have been hurtful. We seek to understand them and their lives in some redemptive way.

The process of empathizing with those who perpetrate evil often involves admitting that we too have harmed others. We have also sinned. We should humbly admit that at times in our lives we have caused harm to others.

Perhaps our sins have not been as awful as the sins of others. Perhaps our victims are less hurt than we have been. But we also need to be forgiven. We all sometimes hurt others.

Helping Others Who Hurt

Finally, countless examples suggest that those who forgive well often work to help others who are hurting. Turning inward and becoming entirely self-focused often leads to depression. But reaching out to others is a powerful act that helps us and those we want to help.

I’ve been moved in powerful ways by the stories found in the book/film, Half the Sky. In fact, I have often shown the DVD in my NNU classes on love.

Half the Sky addresses the evils done to women around the world. One episode features Somaly Mam, a woman sold as a sex slave at a very young age. Mam escaped her hell on earth, however, and now rescues other young girls from the sex trade. She speaks about the pain she endured, her work, and forgiveness:

“This pain never leaves me,” says Mam, “I have lived my life day by day, with love and forgiveness, and the belief that helping others could give them voice and choice and create change.”[6]

The old saying “It is better to give than to receive” has a portion of truth in it. We can and should work toward our self-help and self-healing. But often the best way to find help and healing for ourselves is to seek help and healing for others.

Community

Forgiveness most often occurs in community. This community can come in the form of a wise friend or professional counselor. It can come in the form of a small accountability group or caring friendship. Books and other literature can channel this community that encourages forgiveness.

Some of the most powerful communities seek not just to help their own people deal with evil and pain. They help those outside their communities. They seek to cooperate with God to heal themselves and the world.

At its best, the Church are a people who forgive. They foster an environment that promotes forgiveness. At its best, the Church helps those outside it to discover the benefit of living lives of forgiveness.


Conclusion

In my own situation, I am choosing to forgive. I choose to forgive various people who have hurt me in the past weeks, months, and years.

My choice to forgive is one I repeat often. I repeat in my mind or aloud my commitment to forgive. I repeat my commitment to forgive when additional harm is done. I repeat my commitment when hurtful memories invade my mind or negative emotions press upon me.

I also try to empathize with those who have hurt others and me. I accept their humanity, complete with its ignorance and limitations. I remember the harm I have done to others. This helps dissipate some of the negative emotions I feel toward those who hurt me.

In my forgiving, I also seek to be active in helpful ways. I try to help others who have also been hurt. Forgiveness combats injustice and tries to change structures that do harm. It repays evil with good.

To forgive is to love. Among other reasons, I forgive because I want to imitate a forgiving God by my living a life of love that resembles the loving life Jesus lived. (Eph. 5:1).

I chose to forgive. And I am continuing to choose forgiveness as I seek to live a life of love.


Notes…

[1] Love is defined in various ways. In this blog, I will not take the time to defend my understanding of love. I offer my defense and definition of love in many books, but I especially recommend my book, Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010).

[2] I explore in depth the meaning of agape in Defining Love and in The Nature of Love: A Theology (St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice, 2010).

[3] See my book, The Nature of Love, for more on this issue.

[4] I am grateful to my NNU colleague, Joseph Bankard, for teaching me about the relative lack of control we have over our emotions when forgiving. See his current work titled, “Forgiveness as Process and Virtue: How to Overcome Feelings of Anger and Resentment.”

[5] For a very helpful book on forgiveness research and on how to forgive and seek reconciliation, see Forgiving and Reconciling: Bridges to Wholeness and Hope, by Everett L. Worthington, Jr. This is a revised edition of his previous book, Five Steps to Forgiveness.

[6] Simon Marks, “Somaly Mam: The Holy Saint (and Sinner) of Sex Trafficking,” Newsweek 5/21/2014. http://www.newsweek.com/2014/05/30/somaly-mam-holy-saint-and-sinner-sex-trafficking-251642.html