His Point of View

The (Un-)Forgiven

by on Jul.08, 2009, under My Thoughts

Today I came across this article  which is about a church that was robbed during a Sunday Baptism service.  Allegedly two robbers stole electronics from the church and were scouting cars to rob in the parking lot.  I think we can all agree that this is a pretty low bunch of thieves. 

My concern is the church’s statement which basically stated that “The two men are already forgiven but that the church plans to prosecute if the men are found and arrested”.  In my opinion that is a contradictory statement.  If you have truly forgiven someone, is it possible to press for a prosecution via the legal system while still claiming that you have completely forgiven the offenders?

It is my opinion that once you “forgive” someone you must treat the individual(s) as if they had never offended you.  If you wish for further punishment you can not claim to have granted forgiveness.  Am I alone in that belief or can you still hold a grudge while claiming to have forgiven?

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  • Celise

    You cannot hold a grudge while claiming to forgive but the purpose of the law and consequence is for a person the see the ramifications of their actions. So, I get raped and I forgive but the criminal should not pay for their actions? Yes, I’d press charges. Not out of spite but because I have a right to have my rights protected. If I had a child that stole from me, I’d press charges. I could do that without malice, hatred or harbored ill feelings. It’s for that child/person to learn there are laws and rules and regulations and they are set forth for the sake of boundaries. The reason for laws and punishment are for the unruly and the lawbreakers. What kind of world would we have to not have guidelines? I can certainly say if we all knew there would be no consequence to our actions, the vast majority of us would mistreat, use and abuse any and everyone we come in contact with. The reason we don’t? Because we’ve been taught if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime. Yes, the church can forgive but should they lay down and be a doormat because it’s a church? There are sooo many misconceptions about church and Christianity. Being a believer doesn’t mean you give the green light to accept and receive abuse at the hand of others.

  • JP

    It’s not about punishment, but rather redemption and protection. If those criminals continue robbing people, it just continues the cycle of them hurting themselves and others. However, if they go to jail, they are prevented from doing that, as well as given the opportunity to reform themselves.

    Allowing them to continue their harmful behavior without consequence is just enabling them, like with an alcoholic or drug abuser, sometimes you need to send them to rehab. If only our prison system was more about rehabilitation than punishment.

  • mrggfep

    I don’t disagree that the law should be enforced I am simply saying that people wishing for punishment can’t honestly claim to have forgiven the offender.

    My reaction applies for anyone, I am not singling them out because it was a church spokeman who made the statement. It just so happened that the subject of this article was a church.

    Prison and laws have a purpose, and I am not saying that people should not go to jail. I am saying is that if you have truly forgiven you can’t press for further punishment. If you want someone to go to jail that is perfectly fine, but you can not claim to have forgiven them. If you forgive them after they complete their sentence I can understand that and tha tmakes perfect sense, but you can’t forgive someone and then wish for them to go to jail or be punished in any way.

    Sending someone to jail does not protect your rights at all. The past is the past, no matter what the judge says or does your rights were already violated, and that can never be un-done. You can not protect yourself from an event that already happened. Even if the offender is in jail for 20 years or sentenced to death, you were still the victim of a crime in the past. Sending someone to jail does not deter the next guy from violating your rights either. So this idea that jailing petty criminals protects rights is simply not correct. The only way that jailing someone will protect your rights is if it is done before someone commits a crime against you, but that makes no sense right? One of the very few cases where this makes sense is if you jail policy makers (in business or govt.) who are planning to create bad policies which infringe upon your rights.

    But again I say if you wish to advocate that a person go to jail that is fine, and in certain cases I would do that myself… but don’t say you forgave them while you push for prosecution. Besides…our prison system (in the US) does not rehabilitate anyone, in fact it has been shown that minor offenders come out of jail/prison and committ much more serious crimes than ever before. But that is a whole different topic.

  • mrggfep

    JP,
    As I stated in my previous reply, I am not saying that crimes should go unpunished… My point is on the word “forgive.”
    To address another point here, our US justice system does not rehabilitate anyone. Jails have removed most educational programs beyond a GED level, and for the most part they offer little assistance with reintroducing the ex-cons back into the real world. The fact that ex-cons can’t get living wage employement due to their record, even if they are rehabilitated they would not be able to get a decent job, therefore crime is always an option for survival. It’s already hard for those of us with a clean record to get a decent job.

    How do you suppose a person reforms themself while they struggle to stay alive and healthy in a prison enviornment which offers no more help than books from the librrary and a small black and white tv? If people had that type of self control and motivation the prisons would be empty. Perhaps if one could serve time without threat of rape, robbery, and murder there would be many more people who could redeem themselves while serving their time.

    Please don’t think I beleive criminals should not go to jail…Jail does get them off the street for a while so they can’t prey upon society for a limited time. But they will get out at some point with few exceptions, and when they do get out they are usually worse then when they went in. So ultimately the cycle continues, for a majority of ex-cons.

  • Celise

    What is forgiveness? That goes full circle. Okay, I forgive but the person victimizing continues to go on a rampage of destruction? That’s the problem today. To make a person really see their actions is not a cruel thing. It’s the best gift you can give in prevent self destruction and wreaking havoc on society. Okay if me “not forgiving” would aide in one coming to the light and switching gears to a better life, rather then cause their own demise. Is that not the better. It seems to me you think take the high road is the bigger thing to do. Helping to say a life is always better. So no, then if not forgiving helps in a grander way, then I say that’s the route to take. In all of your scenario, you left out God. More people should read and see and research more into him and his standards. Yes, he’s all loving and all forgiving if you repent and forsake but not once does he ever sleeps on wrongdoing. Like I said it was him that established justice. It’s mankind that’s skewed and misuse and misappropriated. As I mentioned earlier, I love my child to death and yes I can and will forgive but not before trying to teach and relay the outcome of bad actions

  • mrggfep

    Celise,
    I think you are failing to sepreate the meaning of the word forgive from the meaning of punishment. I never said that people should not be punished or go to jail for wrong doings. What I said is that you can not claim to forgive someone and then advocate for their punishment. Advocating for punishment is all fine and dandy if that is what you want to do, but when you do that you are showing via your actions that you have not forgiven the person for their acts.

    The definition of “forgive” in Webster’s dictionary is :
    1. To give up resentment of or claim to requital for (requital is defined as compensation or retaliation)
    2. To cease to fee resentment against

    If you are asking for punishment, by definition you can not have truly forgiven someone.

    I am sure you are familiar with the saying “forgive and forget” The spirit behind that saying is that once you forgive someone you must act as if nothing bad ever happened between you and that person. Of course we can not force ourselves to literally forget anything, but you must act as if you did forget to truly claim to forgive someone. Along the same line I am not saying that you ever have to forgive anyone, you may harbor ill feelings toward a person until you die, and that is fine if you so chose. But you are living in a sense of false comfort if you think that you have forgiven someone yet you wish they recieve more punishment.

    I understand that some say that sending someone to jail for wrong doing is an act of love for that person… but I disagree. Sending someone to jail is an act of punishment and a form of retaliation for their bad deeds. If you think criminals sit around in jail and ponder their evil deeds and trying to figure out how to make the world a better place for you and for me… you are grossly mistaken.

    Inyour last line you said that you love your child, and you will forgive them… AFTER you have relayed the outcome of their bad actions. That is exactly what I am getting at here, I agree with you when you say that you can forgive your child after they have been punished. But by definition you can not forgive someone before they have recieved the punishment if you still desire that they be punished. To forgive you must release any desire for further retribution/punishment/repayment/etc…

    If you want to see true forgiveness, look at the families of murder victims who perhaps at one time advocated the death penalty, but at some point in their life they gained a true understanding of what it means to forgive someone. I have see this happen when these same families turn around and advocate for the death row convict who murdered their loved one, to be removed from death row. These people have truly gained an understanding of what it means to forgive. When you can write a letter to a judge asking to extend the life of a person who killed your loved one, a major transformation has occurred, and that my friend is forgiveness at its finest.

  • Celise

    We can agree to disagree. By the way, like “His Point of View.”

  • Celise

    I’ll be back with more visits. I saved in my favorites.

  • mrggfep

    Thank you, and you are always welcome… even if you are wrong…just kidding… but not really… LoL :-)

  • Celise

    “even if you are wrong” On that note, forgiveness is never about the other person but you and your inner being. Which is why I can never feel an our of malice or hate knowing a person being punished for their deeds is in their best interest. Have you never made a bad choice against the advice of your parents and although they loved you still, they allowed you to experience the consequence of your actions? Not once did they stop loving you and I’d venture to say it pained them to see you endure. Aside and even further than parental love, they knew it would make a better you.

    Now we can agree to disagree (insert smile emoticon)

  • mrggfep

    That example of my parents letting me experience life for myself is not the same as them wishing hardship upon me based upon something I did wrong to them. Forgiveness is about an inner feeling, yes forgiveness is about you letting go of all ill feelings about a person sincerely.
    I suppose if one really believes that prison is going to help a criminal to become a better person that line of thinking might allow you to forgive someone while asking for them to serve a prison sentence. The problem is that that is erroneous thinking, prison is not about rehabilitation. There are no state or federal criminal rehabilitation centers, we have Detention centers and Corrections centers… the problem is that corrections centers don’t correct anything… LoL
    If prisons and jails provided rehabilitation services and opportunity for education I might be right on board with you and your claim that jail helps criminals reform… but the fact is that people come out of jails with HIV/AIDS, more drug addictions than when they went in, and knowledge of new crimes to commit on the outside.

    OK, how about this, I see that your ultimate goal is to make people better in the long run. Prison does not do that at all. Prison makes very ,very,very few people better. If you wanted to help a person who wronged you you would try to get them into counseling, drug rehab, and a job training program… that is what most criminals need, if they have any part of themself that wants to do right, but they need guidance and an opportunity. Granted there are some people who will do wrong no matter what, and those people have to be locked away.

    But really this post was not supposed to be about jail and rehab… its supposed to be about forgiveness… but oh well, we are where we are.

  • Celise

    “not the same as them wishing hardship upon me based upon something I did wrong to them” After this, I’m done on this one. Depending upon how you view (from you statement), wanting someone to learn from their mistakes is far removed from wishing hardship.

  • mytwocents

    Asking someone to be held accountable isn’t equal to holding a grudge at all. Those seeking redemption must first fully acknowledge their wrongs and try not to repeat them if they want to repent. I don’t believe forgiving and pressing charges are mutually exclusive because they have own how the church was wronged but trust that God and justice will prevail before they can truly let it go.

    And I’m a perpetual fan of the underdog, sir, but you seem to enjoy rooting for those in the dog house! LOL

  • mytwocents

    Oh yeah, compensation would mean demanding payment for stolen goods. Retaliation would be seeking to inflict the same or similar thing to cause an equal amount of pain. Resentment requires bitterness and/or ill will to be carried into the future. Exacting punishment requires NONE of these things and in fact, often relinquishes these kind of lingering thoughts if they’re somehow still present.

  • mrggfep

    Exacting punishment is a form of repayment and/or retaliation. Punishment can be any number of things, financial penalty, confinement, revocation of privileges, acts which cause physical pain, among many other things. Forgiveness has nothing to do with whether the offender seeks redemption or if the offender acknowledges their wrong doing. Forgiveness is all about the person who was offended releasing all negative feelings, feelings of revenge, and other ill feelings toward the person who committed the offense. Perhaps a requirement for you to forgive someone might be that they receive punishment first, but that is not a universal requirement, many people forgive others with no enforcement of punishment.

    I understand what you and others are saying about crime and punishment…and I am not saying the crimes should go unpunished. I am just saying that people have a mis-understanding of the concept of forgiveness. I have no issue with the fact that someone might want punishment enforced, but if you wish for this you can not by definition of the word say that you have already forgiven the offender.

    If knowledge that someone was punished causes a sense of relief, there is no way that this person had really forgiven the offender. If you forgive someone completely you will not gain satisfaction from their punishment because their offense would have been wiped clean in your mind, they no longer would have had a debt to repay as far as you are concerned.

  • mytwocents

    You misconstrued my example about repenting – I didn’t say it had anything to do with the wronged party. I’m pointing out that if you want redemption, you must first acknowledge it before the rest of the process which follows. However, your opinion from the flip side is that the original incident should totally be ignored, the wronged party basically should pretend it never happened. So if the one who should seek redemption needs to acknowledge it, why wouldn’t the wronged party have the same opportunity? This is why I don’t agree that they can’t forgive and prosecute too. We’ll probably stay at an impasse on this one.

  • mrggfep

    I did not say pretend as if it never happened. Acknowledging the past is completely different than being able to not have any ill feelings toward someone who wronged you in the past. I think you are not recognizing the difference between forgiveness and acknowledgement. As I said before we can not force our minds to forget events. But we can determine how we react to those events.

    I mean read the definition of the word “forgive” and tell me how you can forgive a person while still asking for something to happen to them? We all have our own definitions of what the word forgive means, but I am asking you to read the Webster’s Dictionary definitions of the word without any bias based on your personal beliefs and understandings of what the word means and tell me what you think then.

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