In the last letter we left off with one of the most common challenges thrown at the Church – what has really changed? People still ail, they still die and historical atrocities seem to multiply exponentially. How can the Church even claim that something fundamental has changed?

In order to start answering these charges, we have to take a closer look at what forgiveness entails. Sometimes, we have a rather simplistic view of forgiveness as essentially giving evil-doers carte blanche to do whatever they wish because, in the end, it will all be all right and why should we worry about anything or expend any effort. Doesn’t forgiveness trivialize evil as if it really did not matter?

When we forgive someone we free ourselves and the perpetrator from being enslaved in the offence committed against us. But there is always a cost to our offering forgiveness – to our pride especially. Forgiveness is not a simple matter of ignoring that a wrong has been committed. It requires that the wrong be acknowledged, the evil be named and the perpetrator be named. This is done not in the spirit of vengeance or recrimination but in order to repair the relationship broken by the committed injustice. This opens the door to reconciliation and true and lasting forgiveness. We, in our desire to avoid conflict, will often ignore the intermediate steps in forgiveness, but they are an essential part of that whole process.

But, you may say that we are not to judge and therefore we should not name the evil or perpetrator of evil. This attitude leads to what I would call “cheap forgiveness” and it does not lead to reconciliation which is the chief goal of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not just a statement, not just words but action, painful action sometimes. One of the chief aims of forgiveness is to mend broken relationships.

Anytime forgiveness is practised it removes power from the forces that have enslaved creation to this point. Forgiveness is the power that the New Creation uses to consolidate its grip on creation. Forgiveness reminds us that the cross is a ‘judgement of judgement’. After the crucifixion and Resurrection we see all people from a different perspective which forbids us from judging people superficially by their actions or who we judge they are. There are many examples that I could use to illustrate the abuse that judgement brings and one of them is the way that the role of women was seen. Clement, one of the early Fathers of the Church wrote: “Woman has the same spiritual dignity as man. Both of them have the same God, the same Teacher, the same Church. They breathe, see, hear, know, hope, and love in the same way.” This was a clear statement that we should not judge, especially by external parameters. But this was not put into practice as the many discriminations against women attest.

So, to get back to the question that you asked and that many have echoed – what has changed – the answer given by the Church is that the world now is new but this victory has to be realized through the faithful followers of Christ. Christianity is not a magical faith at all – it doesn’t make things happen by one simple ‘magical’ action and then everything changes completely and immediately and irreversibly, and we have nothing to contribute. I would like to remind you that Christ often warned his followers that it would not be an easy situation for them, even after the Resurrection. They would be persecuted and arrested and tortured and murdered – this was what it means to follow Christ and this is what it means to be faithful to Christ and this is what it means how to start bringing the New Creation into fruition a task which is to be completed at some point in the future. Christ never promised them that they would have an easy time of it. We are all, together with what St. Paul and many others teach, to complete the work and suffering of Christ. And if you ask what has changed, then the countless lives of those who have followed Christ faithfully and who have alleviated suffering in this tragic world, have given testimony to what has changed. Maybe the change is not exactly what we expected nor in the form that we wanted, but there is no denying the historical truth that there has been a change for the good. But an even more fundamental answer to your question would be along the following lines. You do not see change because it is you who is called on to contribute to making this change real for you and for those around you. You realize the reality of love when you love; you realize the reality of the New Creation when you live the New Creation in love and forgiveness. You do not learn of your wife’s love by testing and questioning – you learn of her love for you by loving her.

And there is an additional point I want to make. If you take a look at all religions of the world, their default position centers around what they consider justice or more aptly, fairness. Isn’t the dogma of karma of Hinduism and Buddhism a search for this fairness? The wicked will be judged and found wanting and condemned for their actions and lives, and they will pay for their misdeeds in one way or another. Without exception, religions teach this general concept that the world eventually will be fair and justice will prevail. It is justice that is of paramount importance because if it is not, then the meaning of the world is lost and this is intolerable. This desire for justice and fairness is so strong that even within Christianity it strives to take center stage.

It is interesting that one of the most common charges against Christians by the Roman Empire was that they were atheists. You see, in a very real sense, Christianity is not a religion because at its heart what it calls for is not a strict adherence to a rigid code of rules or ‘fairness’ but, as someone once wrote, an anarchic sense of freedom and love offered by forgiveness. And the basis for forgiveness is compassion and love. St. John of the Cross wrote that on the last day, we shall be judged not by God but by our love. It is love for the other that enables us to see purpose and meaning in the world. For the saints of the Church, the suffering of humanity is an obstacle to knowing God. For the person without compassion, his connection with God is so weakened that this lack of love may even cause him to lose the belief that God is. A desert father stated that compassion allows us to speak freely to God. At the center of this love is the ability to forgive because every refusal to forgive deprives us of Christ. Does this mean that Christianity espouses amorality because surely, to neglect the edicts of justice is to lose sight of morality? Here we come to another very important consideration.

Every time that we pronounce judgement against someone, we are, in a sense objectifying them by indicating that they are defined through their actions alone. But in Christianity, it is the person who is of paramount importance, not their actions or activities. When we say “person” we do not mean their personality or how they are seen by the world because, you see, these are still only superficial attributes – they are not the core you. A person is something much more mysterious and deep. Personhood is our image of God. In a sense, it is our essence, it is the secret place within us that is imperishable and which enables us to have close contact and a relationship with God. And this core of us is defined not through our characteristics but through our relationship to God and to our neighbor. Let me just remind you of the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. This last word can also be written as “our selves”, it is the neighbor (and of course God) who creates our very self. Another, more traditional way to state this is to say that in each person, there is the image of God and no matter how much we may abuse that image through the actions that we or they take, it remains there. It is still there even in the greatest of criminals and it is of paramount importance to realize this when we look at these persons.

What Christianity calls us to do is to see the image of God in each person and this is sometimes hard to do especially when terrible wrongs have been committed. What Christianity asks of us is not simply to neglect morality, but to replace it with a new understanding of creation. We are to see morality in a very different manner. This understanding comes through the Resurrection and it is often reflected in the writings of the New Testament. Just look at what the Sermon on the Mount asks of us. Does it make any sense if looked at from the point of view of the way the world is and the laws under which it operates? The answer is – no – it does not make sense. And here is where we are forced to see things from a new perspective, one dictated by the ‘morals’ of the New Creation. And here, also, we come to see time in a different sense because the way we see time is of crucial importance to what forgiveness is, but this is a topic for another time.

I think the time has come for me to stop and we will continue in the next letter.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas