The Slitheriest Owl

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FINALLY HERE IT IS:

Ivan's Guide to Illusion Magic

Disbelief: That can’t possibly…

…Oh. Not only is that his English name, it’s a legit (if on the rougher side) translation of his Japanese name.

But it’s never “you should seek forgiveness from those you have wronged” or “you should try to fix the wrongs you’ve caused”?

22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!

23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”

(From Matthew Chapter 18, NLT)

First off, there are absolutely Christian communities where the concept of forgiveness is abused and religion is used to browbeat victims into "forgiveness" where they just remain in abusive situations. This is also how our secular culture broadly defines forgiveness, as not seeking justice or remaining in a situation that causes you harm, and we have strong inclinations in our secular culture as well not to seek justice in a lot of situations, especially if it happened within a family. And there are places where Christianity makes that worse and...I would really hesitate to say that there's any places where Christianity makes it better except

In the class I took we worked with theological writings on the subject as well as sources from psychology and from a secular peacebuilding perspective. All of these fields operate on an essentially different definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness isn't necessarily the forgoing of justice or continuing a relationship, forgiveness is release of the debt/charge/harm that enables the victim's "return to subjectivity." This is the victim's ability to see themselves as whole, to not define themself as a victim, and to psychologically and emotionally heal. It's not something you can require of someone, it's something that people achieve over time with support.

You can forgive and seek justice. You can forgive someone and refuse to reconcile with them; reconciliation is a separate process from forgiveness. That might not sound permitted in this passage, but if we go back a little to Matthew 18:15-17, we have a really famous set of verses on Christian living, essentially Matthew's Guide to Resolving Church Conflict. It starts with tell your brother he has sinned in private. If he doesn't listen, get witnesses. If he still doesn't listen, go before the church (your local congregation; this is pre-institutional Christianity). and if he STILL doesn't listen, "let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." So while 18:21-35 might seem to tell us that we have to let people keep transgressing against us, no matter how much it hurts us, 18:15-17 just gave us permission to break ties with the unrepentant. In Matthew, not everyone is your brother or sister. This is intracommunal advice.