"I Love Him Too"



Forgiveness is a learned behavior. It can be practiced, improved, and performed. This challenging claim serves as a thesis to a film called "A Step Too Far? A Contemplation on Forgiveness” that the Irish Churches Peace Project presented over four weeks in October, accompanied by lectures and discussion. The film used the case of the 2006 shooting in an Amish schoolhouse to frame its exploration of forgiveness. The objective of the Northern Irish filmmakers was to take the lessons learned from the stories and ethos of the Amish people, and offer them as a resource for the ongoing reconciliation project in Northern Ireland. Though the filmmakers intentionally organized their presentation for a Northern Irish audience, the possibility of reconciliation is a question of global import. If you have any doubt about that, a quick glance at todays headlines offers confirmation. Communities in Ukraine, Chicago, Missouri, Mexico, Syria, Burkina Faso, Israel and Palestine, and on Capitol Hill in D.C. ache for reconciliation, not to mention the need at the level of tribe, family, friendship, and individual.

Over four Wednesdays our conversations ran the gamut on questions of forgiveness: does forgiveness depend on the offense? Or on an apology? Is forgiveness demanded unconditionally by Christian ethics? Does it oppose the need for justice? Who is meant to benefit from forgiveness? All these questions emerged from the film’s surprising claims about Amish society. Within days of the massacre in the Amish schoolhouse, representatives of the Amish community connected with the family of the killer to articulate their forgiveness, and offer their friendship. The film offers a handful of similar stories, and submits that this remarkable forgiveness is not just a theological imperative for the Amish, but a natural response after years of socialization. This challenges a popular assumption that forgiveness must be in defiance of a natural urge for vengeance. The need for revenge is a cultural observation, not an objective reality. Forgiveness can come just as naturally, if we intentionally cultivate that behavior. Woah. For all of the countless times I have asked a child to say, “I’m sorry,” have I even once asked a child to say, “I forgive you?” I think it’s time to start.

 

 



A mural depicting the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 in Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland.



 

Forgiving is an exercise in humanizing the other; it refuses to reduce an aggressor to the crime that they committed. As Paul said, and as I cited in a previous post, “from now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16). My mentors and friends here have identified Northern Ireland as a “divided society.” That label hardly makes it unique, but it does suggest that forgiveness could have tremendous social benefit by allowing people to look beyond the categories of us and them to build personal relationships, departing from the legacy of violence. I would guess that is why the Irish Churches Peace Project invested in the film.

Suddenly I find the themes from those Wednesday evenings resonating in many other arenas. The radical suggestion that forgiveness is as much a decision as a feeling has implications for politics, parenting, and criminal justice. Speaking as an American, I can say with confidence that I grew up in a society obsessed with vengeance. Watch Sons of Anarchy on Netflix if you disagree. But I am encouraged by the story of Grady Bankhead, an Alabama inmate in the midst of a life sentence who shared with a film crew his response to the murder of his daughter. Speaking of the murderer he said, “He’s a human being… and I love him too; it’s a choice.”