![[Continued from 36. 10]](https://dragoncityjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/V037-03_deathvictorycrux.jpg){kind=link}
It’s Day 5 of the Mysteries of the Bible class and Donald lifts his head from the minute of silence that he invokes at the beginning of each session and wants to talk about forgiveness today. I was hoping we could get to something that would give me an indication of that the politics was of this group, but maybe there would be an opening.
Those who spoke did so mainly about how they felt that Jesus had brought forgiveness to themselves, how they felt “saved” by his death on the cross for their transgressions. It was pretty much chapter and verse stuff except for Sid, who sagely reminded people that we have to be able to “forgive ourselves” in order feel forgive. Sid’s angle on the subject went un-remarked upon, perhaps a touch too Talmudic for this crowd.
My chance came when the mic made its way. I took a cure from Sid. I said that I didn’t find Christians all that forgiving of others. For example, I brought up the recent incident in Pennsylvania where a deranged man kidnapped several grade school girls and killed some of them before killing himself. The girls were Amish, a pacific group of Christians, and though the killer was known in their community, he was not Amish. The parents of the murdered girls and the Amish community publicly forgave the dead man rather than condemning him and his actions. It was a very poignant— but anomalous —example of true Christian forgiveness in America, I remarked, adding that, at the same time, the President of the United States has blocked monies for condoms for countries in HIV-AIDS strife-ridden Africa because they also practice abortion. He’s not forgiving enough to be concerned about innocent women and children and rape victims, I stated flatly—and he calls himself a Christian.
Nobody seemed to want to take the subject up with me until Ron, an American evangelical said, in close to non sequitur , that if liberals like Edward Kennedy and John Kerry were so eager to provide condoms then why don’t they take some of their millions and buy them themselves. Ron added something about how the they use the tax laws to maintain their family fortunes. It was too stupid to bother with, especially with the billions being squandered in Iraq and the $10 billion Bush shuffles to Christian evangelicals for programs like teen sexual abstinence through his Faith Based Initiatives. It would have been nice if the English woman a couple seats away from me who had been a nurse-midwife in Niger for twenty years had come in on my side. I’d deal with Ron later; he couldn’t even forgive two politicians for being liberals. Hypocrite.
Which is ironic because, in my opinion, the thing that really makes Christianity acceptable to so many people is concept of forgiveness . I always thought that it was the key to its success. Think about it, what a deal—you can do just about anything wrong, but forgiveness is always there for you at the last minute. You can be “saved” on your death bed by accepting Jesus and asking His forgiveness. Read the Confessions if St. Augustine . He lived it up for years, but still ended up being a saint. Forgiveness is the engine that makes Christianity go. That’s what Jesus reputedly died on the cross for: our sins, past present and future.
Other religions are not so good on forgiveness. Islam seems to have the notion that one pays for some of one’s sins during one’s life. Allah meets out punishment sort of as you go along. Hinduism doesn’t seem to make much of forgiveness, but it gives you another chance through re-incarnation. Judaism has a religious holiday of “atonement,” Yom Kippur, however, which seems more about asking others for their forgiveness, but the guilt has a way of hanging on. Christianity has forgiveness front and center; it is reminded every day in its central event, the “sacrifice” of the mass. One minute you can be a drunken wife-beater, a low-down hooker, a rip-off accountant for Enron, and the next you can be swaying with the halleluiahs, prasin’ Jaysus, and you are saved (although I am not sure the fundamentalists mean this to this to apply to homosexuals and liberals). [1]
This forgives that Christ earned for us on the cross is related to what a Jesuit theologian who taught me (mostly to be wary of Jesuit theologians) is the “Death Victory” of Christ. Now this sounds quite like an oxymoron. Being killed, and by crucifixion, doesn’t sound much like being victorious. But remember, Christ was putatively about something much bigger; he was about fulfilling Messianic prophecy. By being a martyr he might be able to engender a movement, one that might not only reform his religion, but also get the Roman yoke off the necks of the Jews. There are a lot of ways we can say that Christ was victorious. [2] Whether he wanted to found Christianity, or not, there were people, particularly, Paul, who were ready to pick up the ball and run with it. And Paul was a great salesman. Eventually, Christianity, in the 4 th C, became the official religion of the Roman Empire. That was quite a victory, but probably the downfall of any form of Christianity the Christ himself would have had anything to do with. Christianity joined hands with secular power to become the official state religion—somewhat the same thing that evangelicals hanker for today—that could be very un-forgiving of people who weren’t Christians and didn’t care to sign on. [3]
If Christ’s death was a victory it was a short-lived one as far as the purity of his principles were concerned. [4] As has often been said: Christ wouldn’t recognize his Christianity today, especially in the likes of Ron.
Later, at lunch, I joined the table of the English nurse midwife who had served so long in Niger. She asked what I thought of the session, but I didn’t say anything her not jumping in on the business of AIDS in Africa. I said I didn’t have high regard for what I regarded as “contingent forgiveness” in contemporary Christian evangelists. “They seem ready to forgive homosexuals, for example, if ‘they change their ways’,” I said. Bush has also pumped a lot of funds into the hands of evangelical groups who have initiated programs in prisons wherein prisoners who accept Jesus get upgraded cells and other perks; those that don’t are not “forgiven.” [5]
She asked me if I regarded myself as a forgiving person. I had to reply that, like some people who I admire, I wished that forgiveness came naturally to me. “I really have to work at it,” I said.
“Really,” she said, with a note of surprise, “who might you find it difficult to forgive for something?” It would probably have been better if I kept my mouth shut.
“God, for starters.”
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©2006, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 12.12.2006)
[1] It should be noted here that the RC Church did come up with a place called Purgatory, in which people who employ this sin and confess method to excess may be required to do some hard time there to atone for the fun. But Purgatory is nowhere near as scary as Hell.
[2] Setting aside that He could go “Nan-nah, Nah-Nah-Nah” at the Romans because he was resurrected. But he had to stay dead, because if he comes back there is no Death Victory. He was supposed to die for our sins, not fake it.
[3] Ditto this attitude for the Muslims.
[4] And, of course, if you subscribe to the New Testament lore, Christ cheated death anyway with his “resurrection.”
[5]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/business/10faith.html?ex=1166418000&en=1018014e9f819204&ei=5070&emc=eta1