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After talking with someone here about the general issue of teaching forgiveness, I decided to open a new thread to discuss that topic directly. So, how do you view forgiveness – and how do you think it should be taught in the Church?
It should be taught with the following in mind: 1. People need time to grieve after difficult experiences where they have been wronged. They need to work through their anger. Simply quoting the parable where a man is thrown into prison because he didn’t forgive and walking away is not what people need during their sensitive period after being hurt.
2. Focus on the positives of forgiving — how it brings peace to the soul.
3. If you wrong someone, then recognize you have LOST YOUR RIGHT to coach them on forgiveness. It is now the role of someone else, not you.
4. Don’t emphasize that if they don’t forgive, they have the greater sin. That is heinous in my view when someone has been severely wronged. God may look at it that way, but for men to hurl condemnation on the victim is not the place of any man or woman on earth.
IMO, the only way to teach forgiveness is by teaching the atonement and the healing power of repentance right alongside. We teach forgiveness alongside the atonement because the Savior modeled forgiveness by suffering a complete injustice so that His own offenders could be redeemed.
We teach it alongside repentance because we have to understand how it works to our benefit as trangressors in order to realize the healing power forgiveness offers to our own offenders. We have to desire that healing for them in order to become partners in their salvation.
We also need to understand that forgiveness means laying aside our claims to justice. It means laying down our stones and refusing to demand the blood of even the justly accused. Only by doing this can both offender and offended be redeemed.
As a practical matter, true forgiveness can come only through the Savior. We have to make Him the mediator between us and those who have offended us. We have to see Him interceeding on their behalf and pleading with us to let Him bear the burden for them. Healing comes when we are able to see our brethren through God’s eyes, when we feel His love for them, and when we see that sin is always the result of a deep unmet need (Pres. Kimball). That’s where we find healing. We desire to see our brethen saved as well as ourselves, our will becomes aligned with God’s and we lay the burden down.
At least, that’s how it has worked for me. And it seems to be how it worked for the Amish, Corrie Ten Boom, Chris Williams and Victoria Ruvolo.
Amish:
http://lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/the-healing-power-of-forgiveness?lang=eng Corrie Ten Boom:
http://lds.org/manual/young-women-manual-1/lesson-23-forgiveness?lang=eng&query=corrie+ten+boom Victoria Ruvolo:
http://lds.org/general-conference/2005/10/forgiveness?lang=eng Mercyngrace: Still not ready to tell my story. Maybe one day.
Quote:Forgiveness Brings Love and Blessings
Story
“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
“It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’
“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
“And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
[Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.]
“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’
“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
“‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.
“‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’
“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.
“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’
“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’
“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then” (excerpted from “I’m Still Learning to Forgive” by Corrie ten Boom. Reprinted by permission from Guideposts Magazine. Copyright © 1972 by Guideposts Associates, Inc., Carmel, New York 10512).
Just read through this, and would love to hear MercyNGrace’s story whenever she is ready. I need to hear this stuff in a non-Church context…
Our 5th Sunday lesson today in PH/RS was led by the Bishop and his wife and focused on Matthew 7:1-5 – the section about not judging others. It was wonderful – a very open, direct and loving discussion of the practical things that keep us from being able to refrain from judging each other. I mentioned my participation in Mormon-themed blogs and used cwald’s Jonah / Sunday School story to mention believing that our opinion is Truth and judging those who believe differently is a common example of pride. The Bishop agreed and said that we have to accept that all of us can look at lots of things very differently and still be united as Zion – that the first step is eliminating that type of pride. As part of that discussion, we watched a mormon.org clip about a man whose wife and two children were killed by a drunk, teenage driver. It was really cool, because it was focused on how this man came to forgive the teenage boy who killed his family and the relationship they developed.
The part that I liked the best, however, was that the man made it perfectly clear that he went through an intense grieving period when forgiveness wasn’t on his mind at all. He had to come to terms with his loss before he could begin to work on forgiving the young man.
(On, and just as an additional aside, our Bishop said, essentially, “I encourage everyone to go to mormon.org and watch some of these clips. They show how diverse the membership of this Church is, and we have to accept, embrace and celebrate that.” Have I mentioned I know how fortunate I am to live where I live?)
Ray, That’s Chris Williams. I linked to his video in my first post above.
I probably should have paid attention to those links, m&g. 😳 Interesting that you would link to it and I would watch it in church on the same day.By example. doug wrote:By example.
:thumbup: Well, you all know how I feel. I will sum it up quickly again and jet out of here, but I think it is a HUGE mistake to think we always have to combine forgiveness with repentance. Huge mistake. Two entirely different concepts. It bothers me that so many church members don’t understand the difference. Out.
Old-Timer wrote:…So, how do you view forgiveness – and how do you think it should be taught in the Church?
The way I see it the main reason for forgiveness or “repentance” should be for people to feel better afterwards because they will no longer be harboring pent-up feelings of resentment or guilt assuming there was a legitimate reason for them to feel that way in the first place. Does the Church really help people resolve any real problems by acting like they are authoritative intermediaries between us and God and piling on public shaming and disapproval over some of the most petty of supposed offenses?
I don’t think this approach really helps the situation at all; in fact I think they actaully make some people feel much worse about themselves than they ever would have otherwise in many cases. Basically, it looks to me like they are mostly just adding more unnecessary stress and suffering when it comes to the idea of “repentance” and that’s why I think they should back off and leave people alone more than they do now and stop pretending that they know exactly what is best for people in every case. If anyone has the power to forgive someone permanently it seems like it would be God not some men with a special title.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:… If anyone has the power to forgive someone permanently it seems like it would be God
not some pompous men with a special title.🙂 You know you’re going to get in trouble for that right.🙂 How should forgiveness and repentance be taught? My answer: Using “Believing Christ: The Parable of the Bicycle and other Good News” by Stephen E. Robinson as the textbook.
Also, flattening the sin spectrum. Let’s spend less time ranking sins, and more time being better people. Sure, some sins harm people more than others. Murder isn’t the same as not keeping the Sabbath day holy. I get it. But we have way too many “sins” on that same category list as murder, do you know what I mean? Too much is made too big a deal out of. And when you make a big deal out of everything, nothing ends of being a big deal.
How should Forgiveness and Repentance Be Taught? Hmmm? How about not together, for starters.
🙂 Brian Johnston wrote:How should forgiveness and repentance be taught?…Also, flattening the sin spectrum. Let’s spend less time ranking sins, and more time being better people.
THANK YOU!
I view forgiveness as the prime divine action on earth. I would love to hear it taught that the key to the slightest grasp of the divine on earth lies in learning to forgive someone that does not deserve to be forgiven.
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