The God Squad: After church murders, forgiveness a mighty sword against hate

We’ve been here before and we’ll be here again. But how should we respond?

After the tragic killings of nine people during evening Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., what is the big lesson we must learn that benefits our spiritual growth?

For some, the lesson is that we must find better ways to control and limit gun ownership in America. I understand this lesson but I cannot learn it. Gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right, and many of the weapons used in mass killings are purchased legally.

For others, the big lesson is that we must provide more options for the treatment of mental illness. I also understand this lesson, but there’s no way to purge the public square of every unbalanced and potentially violent mentally ill person without creating a police state. The problem is complicated by the fact that not all people who commit evil acts are mentally ill.

The big lesson for me I would pose as a theological and moral question: Is it right to forgive an unrepentant killer?

My dear friend Monsignor Thomas Hartman and I have agreed about most things. We don’t agree about Jesus and nearly came to blows when Tommy once ordered a corned beef sandwich on white bread with cheese. However, we’ve often argued over whether forgiveness needed to be earned. It is Peter’s question in Matthew 18:21-22 (King James Version):

“Then came Peter to him, and said, ‘Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Till seven times?’ Jesus saith unto him, ‘I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.’”

Tommy fairly took this teaching to mean that God always requires absolute forgiveness, without conditions. I took the position that I’m commanded to always forgive, but not until the sinner has asked to be forgiven.

Now, for the first time in my life, I think I may have been wrong. I’m often wrong, but until now I’ve never been in doubt. Now, I’m in doubt.

This doubt has arisen because of the breathtaking power of forgiveness expressed by the survivors of the Charleston shootings. These people could easily have been forgiven for screaming words of fury, bloodlust and hatred at the young man who shattered their lives and took the lives of those they loved. Instead, they brought the lesson of their Christian faith out of their blood-stained church and into the streets with words of forgiveness and love.

Speaking directly to the killer at his bond hearing, one of them said, “You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people, but God forgives you and I forgive you.”

“I acknowledge that I am very angry,” said Bethane Middleton-Brown, sister of one of the dead, but “she taught me that we are the family that love built. We have no room for hating.” (This is from the New York Times.)

I heard this pure love confronting pure evil once before in my life. In 2006, a man took hostages and shot 10 girls, ages 6 to 13, killing five of them, at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, and then killed himself. A grandfather of one of the slain girls said, “We must not think evil of this man.”

Another Amish father noted of the killer, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul, and now he’s standing before a just God.” Another commented: “I don’t think there’s anybody here who wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way, but also to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts.”

In the face of such responses, I’m consumed by two questions: How does God make people like this? And are they right?

I can’t answer either question. I’m simply in awe of the complete way these people have expelled hatred and replaced it with love.

A part of me still clings to the belief that only God can forgive horrific acts like the killings committed last week in Charleston. A part of me wonders what it even means to forgive someone who doesn’t even want to be forgiven. A part of me believes that anger at killers helps us rid the world of killers, and forgiveness has the same effect as sheep forgiving their slaughterers. It just produces more dead sheep.

A part of me believes that whether or not those who forgive depraved killers are right, I’m just not built that way. But all of me believes that these forgivers have achieved a remote human spiritual possibility. They may be wrong, but they are pure, and I am in awe of them all.

After the killings in the Pennsylvania Amish community, one of the Amish parents said, “Really, the only way to answer this is to toss it in the Lord’s lap and say, ‘You take care of it, I can’t.’”

Neither can I.

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