Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and the Frustratingly
Extravagant Call To Forgive
GAYLE GERBER KOONTZ*
Abstract: Jesus called his disciples to forgive Without limit. But in situations of
abuse an emphasis on immediate forgiveness of abusers, on enemy love, and on
reconciliation ignores the fact that forgiveness is an unfolding psychological and
spiritual process, that it includes a significant decision not to retaliate, and that it is
a generous moral act that may be separated from feelings of forgiveness and from
interpersonal reconciliation. In walking with both the injured and those who injure,
the church has a role in fostering restorative justice. This includes the offer of
healing relationships and resources to those who have been abused and the
initiation of relationships that call offenders to account with a view toward their
repentance and restoration. Within the framework of restorative justice, the offering
and receiving of divine and human forgiveness has deeper integrity.
If God were not forgiving, heaven would be empty.
- Zimbabwean proverb
That’s the theological bottom line: all of us fall short in the light of a
just and holy God, but the God known through the long biblical story is
also a forgiving God. But as true-and profoundly true-as this bottom
line conviction is, it ignores the complicated, practical fine print. Exactly
what does this conviction mean for those who have been abused, for
abusers, and for the families, friends, and churches who are called to
love both?
As contemporary theologians have been quick to point out, affirming
a God who forgives does not mean we should offer cheap forgiveness to
those who violate others. It does not mean we are free to blame those
who have been abused for their inability to forgive the people who
violated them. Rather, it means that appeal to divine justice in relation to
abuse must always be tempered by the divine offer of forgiveness and
call to transformation. It means that in our appeal to God’s forgiveness
we must remember that God’s restorative justice includes the pain of
taking responsibility for our Wrong actions as Well as the invitation to
129
*Gayle Gerber Koontz is professor emerita of theology and ethics at Anabaptist
Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind.
130 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
live differently. Affirming trust in a God who both judges and forgives
also means humility of spirit: we recognize that it is not we but God who
can truly judge the human soul.
Further, holding fast to both divine justice and forgiveness may call
for different responses from those who violate others, from those who
are violated by others, and from Christian friends who stand alongside
both. This suggests that we need a more nuanced Christian theology and
practice of forgiveness than we often assumed
HONORING THE VOICE OF INJURED ONES
Theological convictions, if they are to shimmer in our souls, must be
able to withstand the messiness of life, including the realities that color
the lives of those whom the Bible refers to both literally and symbolically
as "Widows and orphans,” “the poor,” “the exiled,” or “the least of
these.” A Christian theology of forgiveness that speaks to people who
have been violated must attend to the bodily experience and particular
feelings that emerge when one has been bullied, beaten, abandoned,
sexually assaulted, or abused. Consider just this one story of a high
school student getting ready to leave for college, a young woman who as
a child had been sexually abused by a churchgoing neighbor?
When she saw him turning the corner from the alley onto Main Street her
stomach dribbled down between her knees. She moved deliberately but
slowly so as not to have seemed to have noticed him. She positioned her
back in his direction, stared intently at the items in the shop window, and
held her breath, hoping she would disappear among those walking the
street. She would have to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. She did
not want to talk to him. Perhaps he didn’t want to talk to her either. It was
a short hope, slapped by his voice at her shoulder.
"Ann, may I talk with you a minute. " She didn’t want to hear his voice.
She didn’t want to turn and look at his bald head, wisps of gray at the side,
his thin, dry lips French-kissing hers, poking, sliding. She shivered
involuntarily and turned.
”Yes?" Stone-faced. “l/\/hat do you want?" She was being rude. She didn’t
care. Disgust surrounded her like a shield.
She held the shield guardedly, remembering the man in his dark bed
inviting three or four of them, neighborhood kids, inside for lemonade and
________________
1. This essay was substantially revised from Gayle Gerber Koontz, “As We Forgive
Others: Christian Forgiveness and Feminist Pain,” The Mennonite Quarterly Review 68 (April
1994), 170-193.
2. While this is a true story, based on personal knowledge, Ann is a fictional name. It is
based on the experience of a Mennonite woman from Ohio in the 1950s and 1960s.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 131
then to the dark place to unzip his pants. “Do you want to touch it?" She
had backed away from him, out into the sunshine and toward home, where
on other days she had watched him approach, each time hoping Mom
would be home from work soon so he could not come in alone and stand
beside her, reaching into her pants, rubbing, rubbing. The times she had sat
on the porch swing, shelling peas while Mother cooked supper. “I 'll help
shell," he smiled. "Sit closer. " Rubbing, rubbing. ”There, does that feel
good?” And the nod. The silent, reluctant nod.
"I just wanted to say, ” his voice broke, interrupting her memories. She saw
his pink eyes blur behind his glasses. She looked down at his rough gray
shirt and back at his face.
"What? " There was no pity in her voice.
”I’m sorry for those things . .
She stared at him, unsmiling. The fishing picnic. He had sent the others off
with worms and kept her behind on the blanket. Standing, he had rubbed
himself on her and put his hard thing in her pants and after a while he had
wet himself on her stomach, cleaning it up with his handkerchief saying,
”l’m sorry, I'rn sorry, ” but it was just dirty and she had felt sick.
“Will you forgive me?” His mouth trembled at the edges.
She did not look away, remembering the last time he had tried to kiss her
by the refrigerator in the kitchen while her mother was grocery shopping.
She had felt it growing for a long time, like a balloon gathering air,
silently, stretching, forming itself inside her and it had surprised him, she
knew, with its force. “No!” She had pushed him away from her mouth.
“Stop it! I don’t like it. Don’t do this anymore. And don’t ever bother my
sister.” He had left. She had told no one any of it. She had avoided him.
I-ler last words had hung between them for years.
“Will you forgive me?" he now repeated, quavering.
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like it. ” She turned and walked away. It was the
last time she saw him. Two years later, away at college, she noticed his
obituary in the hometown paper.
It would be easy, given Christian understandings of forgiveness, to
blame Ann for her attitude and action-or for her to blame herself. First
of all, there is the Lord’s Prayer. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors.” We repeat this pointed prayer over and over again with millions
of other Christians. It is part of the ongoing prayer of our community, a
formative prayer for our life together. ln Matthew, the prayer Iesus gave
us is followed by the Warning that if we forgive others their trespasses,
God will also forgive us; but if we do not forgive others, neither will God
forgive our trespasses (Mt. 6:14-15).
132 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
Even more direct for someone like Ann are those verses in Luke:
Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the
offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the
same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to
you seven times and says, "I repent,” you must forgive. (Lk. 17:3-4)
These words give all Christians pause. They are especially sobering
when we feel outrage at violent acts and repeated abuses. The more we
see and feel righteous anger, the more we have to forgive. And the more
personally we experience injury-experiences of physical violence,
significant losses, or manipulative emotional abuse at the hands of
others-the harder it is to forgive those who inflict it. How can we
forgive those who blatantly disregard what we know to be critical "no
trespassing” zones? Maybe Ann should forgive her neighbor, but what if
she doesn’t feel like it? Her abuser does, after all, appear to be sorry; and
his repentance seems to be genuine since the behaviors had stopped
years before. In any case, would it make any difference if he were not
really repentant but was acting out of fear for what she might do or say
to others? Should she not forgive him anyway?
It is true that Christian faith offers and calls us to extravagant
forgiveness both as a sign of the coming reign of God(3) and with the hope
of reconciling broken relationships among God and humans. According
to the witness of Scripture and the church, God offers to us human
sinners not measure for measure but divine forgiveness undeserved.
Even when we have not yet changed our ways, God’s spirit calls us-as
Jesus called Zacchaeus--to draw near.(4) God holds us hopefully, inviting
change. When someone is repentant and asks our forgiveness, we should
not deny it.
And yet we can understand Ann’s difficulty. For most of us, too, have
in some degree stood in Ann’s shoes-injured, angry, feeling relatively
powerless as we relive hurt or trauma. Significant injuries limit our
ability to trust others, engender false shame, isolate us, and often leave
us bitter and resentful. We may seek punishment in order to hurt the one
who hurt us or restitution even when there is no restitution to be had.
We may be bound to the past, to fear, guilt, or low self-esteem in ways
that infect our spirit, separating us from joyful life with God and others.
_________________
3. N. T. Wright outlines his understanding of Jesus’ symbols of the kingdom, including
forgiveness, which serves as a remarkable sign that God was indeed returning Israel from
exile and reinstating the Hebrew people as a "light to the nations." This and other signs
“replaced the praxis of Torah as defining characteristics of the restored Israel.” The
Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic,
1999), 69-70.
4. Mary Schertz, a professor of New Testament at A.M.B.S., offered this perspective on
the Zacchaeus story in a sermon at Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind., in 1993.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 133
In addition, Christians who repeat the centrality of forgiveness,
suffering love, proclaim a gospel of reconciliation, and emphasize
commitment to an ethic of peace and love of enemy can add injury to
injury. Presented with the duty to forgive and be reconciled when they
do not feel like it, Ann, and those she represents, feel shame for being
inadequate, unforgiving Christians. These cherished theological
convictions become another form of blaming the victim.
Does this mean that for the sake of the injured ones the church should
back away from emphasizing forgiveness and reconciliation? I do not
think so. Not only are forgiveness and reconciliation essential to a
biblically grounded, theologically sound Christian faith, our world
desperately needs communities of faith committed to reconciling work.
Political, economic, racial, ethnic, and sexual boundaries not only define
our identities but also set us in conflict and sometimes lead us to war
with each other. A Christian and Mennonite heritage has shown us
errors in our understanding and practice of forgiveness and reconciling
love; but it has also shown us the amazing power of God’s healing work
through them. For the sake of the world that God loves we have reason
to cling to these profound aspects of faith that have been tested over
time.
God’s saving purposes include the creation of a global, reconciling
community of men and women in Christ. To support this purpose we
need a rich understanding and practice of restorative justice. Christian
pacifists have often been criticized for being passive and ignoring the
need for interpersonal and structural justice while focusing on love of
enemy. Among Mennonites this critique has engendered a more holistic
theology and practice of peacemaking and restorative justice.5 However,
it is also a temptation for contemporary Mennonites standing in a
tradition known for its strong commitment to pacifism and suffering
love to speak more about justice than forgiveness, as a corrective for
what appears to be lack of care for victims. Focus on restorative justice for
both the injured and offenders is one way to emphasize that both love and
justice, repentance and forgiveness, are critical aspects of a reconciling
process.
While confessing pain and confronting those who injure are positive
steps toward restorative justice, adequate restitution for unjust acts or
________________
5. For a description of restorative justice and its theological basis see the pioneering
work of Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and justice (Scottdale, Pa.:
Herald Press, 1990); and the biblical interpretation of Christopher D. Marshall, Beyond
Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Eerdmans, 2001), as well as his more recent Compassionate Justice: An Interdisciplinary
Dialogue with Two Gospel Parables on Law, Crime, and Restorative Justice (Eugene, Ore.:
Cascade Books, 2012).
134 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
interpersonal wounds often cannot be made. Therefore the existence of a
Spirit-filled reconciling community depends finally on the gifts of divine
and human forgiveness. Injuries beget injuries, feed anger, and pluck the
fruits of the spirit from the community of faith unless members, who are
themselves rooted in God’s just and forgiving love, intervene to break
cycles of hurt with straight talk, and calls to repent, forgive, and receive
new spirits. For this reason, and because many cultures in which the
church resides encourage revenge as a proper response to injury, we
must continue to foster a strong, nuanced theological and spiritual
orientation toward forgiveness.
At the same time we need to take seriously some of the problems that
injured ones have identified with the cluster of convictions related to
forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation. Some changes can and ought
to be made.
FORGIVENESS IN LIGHT OF INJURED ONES
The theology and practice of forgiveness we formulate, teach, and
preach needs to respect the experience of those who have been scarred
by violent and abusive behavior. A church that seeks to witness to God's
transforming love and power cannot afford to mouth platitudes to the
injured. Further, if the church’s practice does not include confronting
abusers, the offenders often go on to harm others, not only perpetuating
injury but also mistrust of the church that deafens injured ones to its
teaching about forgiveness.
It is important also to remember that abusers injure not only the direct
recipients of the actions. Often those close to the recipients are injured as
well.6 When a suicide bomber kills himself and those around him, many
people besides those killed or physically wounded also suffer injury and
loss. In relation to sexual abuse by church leaders, the families of the
abused and abuser are often shamed and sometimes isolated, and the
congregations and institutions with which the leader is associated may
bear the shame and stain of the abuse and the related mistrust of the
watching world.7 Our identification of those who are "abused" should
_____________________
6. Christopher Marshall makes a distinction between primary victims and secondary
victims. He suggests that when injustice or bitterness created by an offense is still felt by
later generations there are also "subsequent victims of the offender, who may also need to
find a place of release from their pain through forgiving the absent offender . . .” -Beyond
Retribution, 265.
7. Karen A. McClintock in Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2001) notes how the shame of a leader “infects the whole body of Christ with a heavy
sense of moral failure, whose powerlessness can become chronic." In order to heal this,
"clergy and congregations will need to address sexual issues openly," which requires prior
steps of education and conversational skill among both leaders and congregational
participants. See chapters 2 and 8.
Severity Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 135
take this into account. The actions of those who injure individuals or
groups harm people in widening circles.
Sometimes even offenders are victims. They may themselves have
suffered physical or sexual abuse as children. Less dramatically, in a
process of church discipline abusers may have been treated unfairly or
believe they were treated so. Church members may refuse to trust a
discipline process carried out by leaders and therefore foster rumors and
resentment that unjustly harms a repentant offender. Although the focus
for offenders must be on their own repentance, insofar as they harbor
bitterness and desire to retaliate, they also are called to forgive those
who they believe have wronged them.
A theology of forgiveness and reconciliation that has integrity in
relation to people injured by physical or emotional violence and abuse
would have at least the following dimensions.
1. It would articulate a vision of a community in which justice and love
embrace.
It would reflect a holistic biblical understanding of God’s saving work
in the world, marked by both justice and forgiveness. God’s desire for
just and loving relationships among humans-rather than an apparent
harmony that hides injustice-suggests several important actions when
injury has occurred: the silence that isolates injured ones must be broken;
abusers must be confronted with the wrongness and results of their
actions and steps taken to hold them accountable for ongoing actions;
and resources for healing must be directed to the needs of those who
have been injured. Forgiveness is not the first or only word when
Christians face injury.
In addition, remembering God’s passion for restorative justice
includes supporting just power dynamics between the injurers and
injured. Injured ones are likely to feel extremely powerless and are often
in fact quite powerless economically, socially, or physically in relation to
those who injure them. Ann, who was injured as a relatively powerless
child, was not ready to forgive, perhaps in part because she continued to
feel powerless, disadvantaged, and shamed in relation to the abuser and
their social contact. She was isolated in her embarrassment: "She had
told no one any of it."
Some cultural roles and ideals for women also contribute to low self-
esteem and a sense of powerlessness in relation to abusers. For example,
consider formation that discourages girls and women from expressing
initiative and anger, presses them to be "nice" all the time, expects them
to yield to the needs or desires of others, and assumes they should be
ready always to understand and forgive. British playwright and novelist
Fay Weldon writes in Female Friends:
136 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
Understand, and forgive, my mother said, and the effort has quite
exhausted me. I could do with some anger to energize me, and
bring me back to life again. But where can I find that anger? Who is
to help me? My friends? I have been understanding and forgiving
my friends, my female friends, for as long as I can remember ....
Understand husbands, wives, fathers, mothers .... understand fur-
coated women and children without shoes. Understand school-
Jonah, Job, and the nature of Deity; understand Hitler and the Bank
of England and the behavior of Cinderella's sisters. Preach
acceptance to wives and tolerance to husbands; patience to parents
and compromise to the young .... Grit your teeth, endure.
Understand, forgive, accept . . _ O Mother, what you taught me!
And what a miserable, crawling, sniveling way to go, the worn-out
slippers neatly placed beneath the bed, careful not to give offense.(8)
When a person has been encouraged to develop the habit of
indiscriminate forgiveness, eagerness to forgive may express lack of
respect for oneself and one’s own worth. Women struggle to determine
when it is appropriate to understand and forgive and when it is
appropriate to blame and be angry rather than to be “careful not to give
offense.” Such women sometimes find themselves in a psychological
Catch-22 when they are faced with the need to forgive someone who
injured them. If they forgive too quickly or inappropriately they may slip
back into the ocean of unworthiness and lack of self-respect-the sea
from which they are just emerging. If they refuse to forgive they fail not
only to be ”nice," but to be truly "Christian."
Christian ethicist Beverly Harrison's essay "The Power of Anger in
the Work of Love”(9) has been helpful to many injured ones who have
rightly felt anger and blame toward their abusers but have then felt
shame for feeling angry. This shame is exacerbated when others in the
church reinforce it by criticizing the injured persons for allowing the sun
to “go down on your anger" (Eph. 4:26). A cycle ripe for the growth of
resentment has begun. Harrison suggests that one way to break this
cycle is to recognize the valid role that anger and blame play in the work
of love. If injured ones can accept and value their anger as a sign of
moral sensitivity rather than of moral insensitivity, and if they can
recognize the cultural dynamics at work so they can identify when they
feel a false sense of shame for being angry, then they will be freer to
direct the energy from their anger into creative acts toward change.
____________________
8. Quoted from Jeffrie G. Murphy, "Forgiveness and Resentment," Midwest Studies in
Philosophy 7 (1982), 503.
9. Beverly Wildung Harrison, Making the Connections (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 3-21.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 137
A step that could help to prepare Ann for the drama of forgiveness(10)
would be for others to help strengthen her sense of social and personal
power. If she could find the space to share her shame, fear, and
resentment with some other members of the Christian community who
could hear and receive her hurt and anger, affirm her right to blame her
abuser, and offer her respect and acceptance, she might gain voice, self,
and a sense of empowerment that could eventually contribute to the
freedom to forgive her debtor.
Additional expressions of respect for justice in relationships might
include providing advocates for injured ones in confronting abusers or
doing so on their behalf, and protecting the public identities of those
abused if it appears that transparency would add to further social
shaming.
2. A theology relevant to those who have been abused would highlight not only
the gift of God 's grace in healing from sin, but also God 's grace in healing from
injury and shame.
Much Christian theology and teaching has focused on God’s grace as
it heals our guilt and sin." However, in his book Shame and Grace, Lewis
Smedes suggests that many people need healing from false or
undeserved shame.
Many who bear false shame are overly conscientious, responsible, and
moral people, but they feel "inadequate, defective, unworthy, or not
fully valid” as human beings.”(12) Undeserved shame arises from “an
image of what we ought to be that is concocted out of false ideals."(13)
Sources of undeserved shame include unaccepting parents, graceless
religion, false cultural ideals, and social shame-when we are rejected
because we belong to a group that is despised or mistrusted.
Clinical psychologist and Methodist pastor Karen McClintock notes
that when shame is related to taboo sexual experiences in the home,
church, or community, the feelings of shame grow and intensify. "An
extremely shame-bound person cuts empathetic ties to others to protect
him or herself from re-experiencing these feelings." And feelings of
shame “keep the secrets secret."(14)
_____________________
10. Lewis B. Smedes refers to the process of forgiveness as a "drama in five scenes.”-
Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don't Deserve (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 136-17.
11. For example, the article on "Grace" in the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics,
ed. Iohn MacQuarrie and Iames Childress (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), refers only to
grace in relation to sinners.
12. Merle Possum, quoted by Smedes, Shame and Grace, 3.
13. Smedes, Shame and Grace, 38, 53.
14. McClintock, Sexual Shame, 24.
138 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
Smedes concluded that while the answer to guilt is ”pardoning
grace,” or forgiveness for wrongs we have done, the answer to shame is
“accepting grace.” Since the fear of rejection and abandonment stands
behind the feeling of shame, the experience of being accepted for who
one is with clear awareness of what one has been through-rage, pain,
mistrust, and all-is the beginning of healing. The good news for those
suffering from false shame is that the God we know through Christ
accepts, cradles, holds, and affirms us “totally as the spiritual stew we
are." Grace heals by removing our fear of rejection based on false
shame.”
If our proclamation of the good news in Christ focuses only or
primarily on God’s gracious response to our sin and guilt, the message
about the healing and transforming power of divine grace for those who
suffer from shame they do not deserve will be hidden or undermined.
3. A theology attentive to the effects of abuse would speak about forgiveness or
letting go of the injury for the sake of the injured one.
Christians have traditionally talked about the importance of
forgiveness for the sake of the offender and to pave the way for
reconciliation between the offender and the injured one. In recent years,
secular as well as faith-oriented counselors and peacemakers have begun
to speak of the significance of the act and process of forgiveness for the
injured ones themselves. (16)
Albert Haase, a Franciscan priest based in Taiwan who has given
workshops on spirituality throughout the United States, has observed
that “it takes a lot of emotional and psychological energy to keep a
wound open, to keep a grudge alive. The longer I allow a wound to
fester, the more bitterness, anger and self-pity poison my blood and eat
at my heart."(17) Resentment and mistrust affect the relationship of the
injured one not only to the offender but to others as well.
In addition to the way injury affects an injured one’s ability to develop
trusting and healthy relationships, other challenges remain. Mennonite
psychologist Carolyn Holderread Heggen has noted that for women who
are physically and sexually abused, issues of faith and spirituality, self-
esteem, and humiliation of the body make the process of healing even
more complex and difficult. They also make healing critical for the sake
of the injured one. As we become aware that our shame is undeserved,
________________
15. Smedes, Shame and Grace, 107-108.
16. Christine E. Gudorf is among those who have attempted to rethink Christian faith
and ethics while taking seriously the experience of those who suffer from moral injury.-
Gudorf, Victimization: Examining Christian Complicity (Philadelphia: Trinity Press
International, 1992), 93.
17. Martha Sawyer Allen, "Forgiveness Brings Joy,” Elkhart Truth, Nov. 27, 1993, B1, 2.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 139
we often feel increasing resentment toward those who contributed to our
sense of false shame. Resentment hinders the healing of shame.
"Forgiveness is a process which allows the victim to let go of the
intense emotional pain associated with her abuse and replace it with
inner resolution and peace,” Heggen has written. “Forgiveness disarms
the power of abuse to continue causing pain and turmoil and
revictimization"(18) She believes it is possible for a victim to forgive an
offender even when the offender remains unrepentant, and that doing so
can help the injured one.
By letting go, the offended refuses to let herself be held captive by
the offender’s unwillingness to repent .... Extending unrequested
forgiveness empowers the survivor. It frees her to experience God’s
grace, healing, and joy in her life despite the lack of reconciliation
with her offender.(19)
Smedes counseled those suffering from undeserved shame not to wait
too long to forgive-to let go of the resentment caused by the injury-
because in time “resentment becomes less what we feel than what we
are.” Surrendering it, then, means tearing away a segment of our self,
which is more difficult and painful to do.(20)
Ronald Rolheiser, a Jesuit priest, believes, like Heggen and Smedes,
that healing from abuse is not only a psychological process, but also a
spiritual one. In The Holy Longirzg he turns to the Easter narrative, a
powerful spiritual frame for dealing with losses of various kinds,
including the loss of innocence and joy, the loss of trust, the loss of
health, and the loss of being loved and honored in a relationship, all of
which can be part of the experience of abuse. These losses represent a
real death, like the death of Jesus on Good Friday. Don’t minimize the
violence and pain, he says. Mourn them. But don't cling to them; don't
cling to the past as perhaps Mary of Magdala wanted to do when she
met and wanted to hold on to the resurrected Christ in the garden. In
order for the disciples to receive a new spirit at Pentecost-the kind of
spirit needed to live with the power of the Holy Spirit but without the
human body of Christ-they needed to “let go” of the Jesus that had
been with them in the flesh. They needed time to adjust to living without
Jesus. They needed the "letting go” of the ascension in order to receive a
different, new life-a life that contained the loss of Jesus, but that also
_______________
18. Carolyn Holderread I-leggen’s Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches
(Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1993) articulated this in a significant way for Mennonites.
While this book needs updating-to include, for example, more on sexual abuse of
children-it remains a pioneering work on the subject.
19. Heggen, Sexual Abuse, 134.
Smedes, Shame and Grace, 139.
140 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
eventuated in new power. Only after letting go of the past and adjusting
to a new present did the believers experience Pentecost.” Healing from
abuse involves letting go of the bitterness and desire to retaliate that
stem from the pain of the past in order to receive Spirit-filled gifts of
renewed trust, hope, and joy.
4. It would distinguish between the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation.
This distinction has grown in significance with the development of the
idea that forgiveness is important for the sake of the injured person.
Forgiveness is a moral act of the injured one that is independent of a
restored relationship between the offender and injured person. In the
words of a commentator on pastoral care, “Forgiveness is not the
equivalent of reconciliation _ _ . ; it is the means by which barriers to
reconciliation (which may or may not follow) are removed."(22)
In a historic peace church that cherishes a strong theology of
reconciliation, it is easy to assume that if someone who has suffered from
violence or violation has come to forgive an abuser, then she should be
ready to be reconciled with the person who injured her. However, as
may be the case with a third party's call to forgive an abuser, a call for
personal reconciliation may feel like a moral club to an injured one,
pressing her to relate to an offender when she does not feel strong
enough to do so.
In a Christian perspective, the ultimate hope is for reconciliation and
communion-with God, other humans, and the earth. The healing of
relationships that have been scarred by abuse is part of this. However,
such reconciliation is not always possible. Sometimes an offender refuses
to acknowledge responsibility for the injury. Sometimes the injured
person does not know or loses contact with the injurer as may be the case
in rape or situations of genocide. Sometimes an injured one is not ready
to forgive until after an offender has died, as was the case for Ann.
Sometimes the hurt is so deep that the injured ones choose to offer
forgiveness but do not have the strength or desire to continue in personal
relationship with those who abused them. However impossible
reconciliation may seem or be, forgiveness of offenders remains both
possible and a Christian hope.
________________
21. Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing: The Search for it Christian Spirituality (New York:
Doubleday, 1999), 141-166.
22. B. H. Childs, "Forgiveness," Dictionary of Pastoral Care and Counseling, ed. Rodney
Hunter (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), 438.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 141
FORGIVENESS AS MORAL AND EMOTIONAL LETTING GO
What exactly does it mean to forgive someone who has injured you if
it does not entail reconciliation? It is first of all a moral act rather than a
feeling, though the two are related.
Consider for a moment the economic image of an owner and debtor,
the image to which Jesus appealed in the Lord’s Prayer. Someone who
has access to wealth loans some of it to a poorer person. As so frequently
happens in tenant systems, the debtor may become more and more
dependent on the owner until he or she loses everything or falls deeply
into a debt that can never be repaid. There is no way out, except either
bankruptcy or forgiveness of the debt. The rather literal principle is
simple: rather than exact justice, people who hold others in their power
economically ought to forgive those who cannot pay their debts. This
generous spirit reflects God's spirit in relation to us.
We can expand this principle to include not only material debts owed
us but also moral debts owed us because others have trespassed against
us. When another injures us, that person "owes" us at least an apology
or perhaps restitution or reparations. If they consistently or deeply injure
us, their moral debt to us may increase to the point where they cannot
make restitution. As far as we are concerned they are “morally
bankrupt.” There is no way out for them but to declare bankruptcy and
for their debt to be forgiven. Jesus’ principle continues to apply: rather
than exact justice, powerful people ought to forgive weak ones who
cannot pay their debts.
But does this apply to those who have been abused? They are not the
“powerful ones” in the relationship, are they? They are the ones who
have been robbed of physical or emotional well-being. Even though it
seems counterintuitive, the one who has been harmed in a relationship is
more powerful than the abuser in one significant way: morally. In an
essay translated from Swedish, Christian ethicist Carl Brakenhielm has
defined forgiveness as a “remotivating act" in a situation of moral
conflict.” A moral injury, he wrote, robs people of rights that belong to
them as human beings. The injurer has used personal power to rob
another, to establish a relationship in which the injurer says, in effect, ”I
am up here and you are down there.” However, from a moral
perspective, it is the injured one who is “up” and the offender who is
"down.” When Ann as a young adult met her abuser on the street, for
example, she was "up" and he was “down” in this sense.
_________________
23. Carl Reinhold Brakenhielm, Forgiveness, tr. Thor Hall (Minneapolis:
Augsburg/Fortress, 1993), 15.
142 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
When others injure us morally or rob us of our right to be respected as
persons, they "owe" us an apology or restitution. If someone or a group
consistently or profoundly injures us-as in physical or sexual abuse or
systemic racial injustice-that person's or group's moral debt to us may
increase to the point that the offender(s) cannot make adequate
restitution. The offender is “down” in relation to the injured one’s moral
rights.
Forgiveness is a remotivating choice and process that changes the
moral character of a relationship that has been injured by moral offense.
Brakenhielm explained it this way: Someone who truly desires the
forgiveness of another person seeks to affirm the human rights and
personal worth of the injured person. The one who grants forgiveness
affirms the offender’s human worth, which the injury obscured.
Forgiveness entails both moral criticism, the source of resentment, and
the effort to affirm the recipient’s worth as a human being and child of
God. While the injured person lets go of the moral debt, he or she does
not let go of the commitment to justice, which is the root of moral
criticism. Forgiveness is not saying, "It’s OK,” as if there were no
significant moral failure. If there were no serious wrongdoing, there
would be no need for forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean letting go
of justice, but holding on to God's restorative and compassionate justice.
In this perspective, “forgiveness is a way of pursuing justice, not the
abandonment of justice.” (24)
Forgiveness requires extravagant generosity of spirit because the
injured one has to let go of the moral advantage she holds over the
injurer. It may be the only thing the one who has been hurt can withhold
from the offender in order to retain some power and self-respect in the
relationship and to communicate the depth of the injury. Sometimes
church members blame those who have experienced abuse, their
families, and others close to them for their inability to forgive without
understanding this dynamic. Without also intervening to stop the abuse,
to surround and empower the injured ones, they drive the injured ones,
who are already alienated in significant ways, further from the arms of
the church.
When there are adequate and sensitive resources for healing from
injury, however, those who have been abused can and should nurture
the disposition to forgive. A disposition to forgive arises from gratitude.
__________________
24. Joseph Liechty, ”Forgiveness,” Vision (Spring 2007), 47. For a more extended
discussion of the place of forgiveness in restorative justice see Joseph Liechty, "Putting
Forgiveness in its Place: The Dynamics of Reconciliation,” in Explorations in Reconciliation:
New Directions in Theology, ed. David Tombs and Joseph Liechty (Aldershot, England:
Ashgate, 2006).
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 143
for God’s forgiveness of our own injuries to God and others as well as
from the joy and confidence of being accepted for who we are in contrast
to the rejection we may face from others. As Brakenhielm has put it,
l cannot at one and the same time believe in God’s forgiveness [and
acceptance] and be hardened against other persons whose life is
under the same grace that mine is .... Thankfulness for God’s
forgiveness [and acceptance] is not really thankfulness if it does not
also come to expression in humans in turn forgiving other
humans.”
Focusing on gratitude to God for what is life-giving in ongoing daily life
rather than focusing on injuries and their effects can become part of
nurturing a disposition to forgive.
When there is the intention to forgive in light of God's reconciling
purposes, the injured or shamed person can take various steps. Joseph
Liechty, who spent many years working and teaching in Ireland on
themes related to reconciliation, has suggested that the first dimension of
the process of forgiveness is letting go of the right to vengeance. This choice
may coincide with intense anger and hatred,(26) but it is a foundational
step for eventually overcoming them. While refusing to retaliate is not
the whole of forgiveness it is a profound step in the process.” Even when
we feel hatred and pain, we can pray passionately for God’s grace to
break in and heal what is twisted and broken in us and in those who
have injured us. We can pray that God will soften the hearts of offenders
and that they will truly repent. We can pray that God remove our desire
to retaliate. We can pray for our enemies.
Liechty described another aspect of the process of forgiveness as
offering love before it is deserved, noting the biblical story of the Prodigal
Son as an illustration. This is expressed in the actions and attitudes of the
injured ones in response to injury: they make clear that love, not
vengeance, is the motivation that shapes them. These, too, are choices
that can be made even when feelings of love are not present.
________________
25. Brakenhielm, Forgiveness, 91. I have added the words in the brackets.
26. William Neblett has noted that "to grant forgiveness when resentment still persists
is not uncommon at all. In fact, many human relationships could not withstand the strain if
it were otherwise, if the various purposes which forgiveness serves could not be fulfilled
unless every last ounce of resentment were finally wiped away."-"Forgiveness and
Ideals," Mind 83 (1974), 270.
27. Liechty, "Forgiveness," 46. Most of the Old and New Testament materials seem to
assume that conversion and repentance precede God's forgiveness, whether of a nation or
of individuals. See Dorothy Jean Weaver, "On Imitating God and Outwitting Satan: Biblical
Perspectives on Forgiveness and the Community of Faith,” MQR 68 (April 1994), esp. 156-
161. However Brakenhielm concluded that Jesus’ View on the question is not clear. In the
story of the prodigal son, for example, the son confesses after he is already in his father’s
arms.-Brakenhielm, Forgiveness, 60.
144 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
Part of this action, as Lewis Smedes describes it, involves revising our
caricature of the person who injured us. Often we taste resentment, our
minds draw a caricature of the abuser as a monster and ”define his
whole person” in terms of how he injured or shamed us. In the process
of forgiveness we change our picture of the offender back to the "weak
and faulty human being he is (or was).”(28)
These actions can pave the way for the emotional dimension of
healing. In time, sorrow can blend with anger, and compassion and
sympathy can break through resentment. Transformed feeling on the
part of injured ones can create openness on their part to possible
reconciliation with those who have abused them. The practices of letting
go of retaliation and offering love before it is deserved are spiritual
dispositions and disciplines that undergird openness to both receiving
and offering holy grace in the midst of the tragedies of our lives.
Because forgiveness is a process it is not neat and orderly, nor is it
fully within our control. It may be more accurate and helpful to speak of
forgiving as an ongoing process and attitude rather than a list of steps
that happen and are then completed once for all. God’s disposition to
forgive us requires God to bear the burden of our offenses-past and
present-in an ongoing way even in the midst of our transformation. So
does our disposition to forgive others. Our intention to see an offender as
other than a "monster" or to revise our feelings may be sincere but not
strong enough to sustain the pain of injury at all times. The process of
forgiveness may cycle back upon itself, requiring a disposition to be
forgiving on an ongoing basis. Sometimes even the best intentions, moral
choices, and ”letting go” of pain do not seem to open the way to revised
feelings toward those who abuse. Developmental psychologist Evelyn
Whitehead and her husband, ]ames, a pastoral theologian, remind us
that "forgiveness is more than a personal achievement. It is a gift and a
grace that, spent by our anger, we must await in hope." (29)
CHEAP GRACE AND HONEST REPENTANCE
Those Who have been deeply injured are wary of offering cheap grace
and rightly so. The wariness comes from seeing all too clearly the
______________
28. Smedes, Sin and Grace, 136-137. Miroslav Volf expands on the theme of "rightly
remembering" wrongdoings; that is, in a way that heals wounded persons and their
relationships with others, including their relation to the perpetrators. His own experience
of being repeatedly interrogated and threatened by military personnel in communist
Yugoslavia in 1983, followed by his attempts to re-frame the memories of his interrogator ,
serve as the basis for his reflections.~”God’s Forgiveness and Ours: Memory of
Interrogations, Interrogation of Memory,” Anglican Theological Review 89, no. 2 (Spring
2007), 213-225.
Evelyn and lames Whitehead, A Sense of Sexuality (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 81.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 145
possible misuses of forgiveness as a tool for power. For example, the
demand for forgiveness or the exhortation to forgive can be used to gain
or maintain control in a situation. Feigned repentance or false generosity
of spirit while forgiving another can also become ways to gain personal
advantage over the other. By forgiving too quickly, the offended one
may reinforce a continuing, hurtful power relationship or a pattern of
abuse that might also endanger others. An offender might even adopt an
understanding of God's forgiveness that allows the abuser to go on
sinning with a clear conscience.”
"Powerful and wily people use apologies to escape judgment for great
evils,” Smedes wrote:
They betray a trust and, found out, they say they are sorry for
mistakes in judgment. They commit a crime, and they call their
crimes errors which they regret. They sneak around their offense on
the oiled wheels of apology when their crime calls for nothing less
than oceanic tears of remorse. They can get by with their apology
because people are not able to tell the difference between the
remorse of penitence and regret for bungling a job.(31)
Injured ones who understand the misuse of forgiveness know that
”grace cannot be dishonest without being cheap."(32) To respond to this
problem Liechty suggests that while the loving will to forgive may be
unqualified and limitless, the acts of love may be calculated, strategic.(33)
For example, the church needs to provide clear behavioral boundaries
and supervisory relationships for abusers and safe spaces for children
and vulnerable members of the Christian community. The church should
also expect and invite repentance.
Those who injure must wait in hope for forgiveness. In genuine
repentance an offender makes a serious plea: “I have done Wrong. I have
violated God’s intention for me. I do not want to be separated from God
and from you. I want you to trust me. And I promise from now on to be
worthy of your trust." Repentance, or metanoia, means change or turning;
it is more than saying one is sorry. Smedes has described repentance as
giant’s work: ”Only a person who dares to look hard and deep into his
potential for doing evil as well as good will have the courage to repent.
_______________
30. Brakenhielm, Forgiveness, 5-7. Voltaire is reported to have said to the priest who
assured him on his deathbed that God forgives all sin, “Of course he will forgive me-
that’s his job!”- Brakenhielm, Forgiveness, 11.
31. Lewis B. Smedes, "Forgiving People Who Do Not Care,” Reformed journal 33 (April
1983), 14,
32. Ibid., 17.
33. Liechty cited Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, for referring to this as strategic or
calculating love, "Forgiveness," 51.
146 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
And only a person who is willing to risk everything for the high stakes of
honest reconciliation has the moral power."(34)
Honest repentance involves:(35)
1. seeing that the injured one's feelings about what we did are true
and accepting her judgment as right;
2. feeling the pain we inflicted on the offended and grieving for it;
3. acknowledging and confessing responsibility for the injury and
asking for forgiveness;
4 desiring and promising not to hurt the injured one again and
taking steps to address the problems that led to injury the first
time;
5. making restitution and demonstrating over time that repentance
is sincere and deep.
Based on the importance of repentance and forgiveness in Scripture,
the post-biblical church developed doctrine and practices related to
them. By 1439 the Roman church held to a doctrine and sacrament of
penance that consisted of contrition, confession, restitution, and
absolution. Scholastic theology assumed that the first three were
necessary to the fourth; popular belief held that they were also sufficient
conditions for forgiveness.
Luther turned against this latter idea, arguing that works do not make
us deserving of God’s forgiveness-that forgiveness as well as
repentance and faith are gracious gifts of God. Luther’s point was that
we can never demand forgiveness. We can only ask a favor.”
Anabaptist Mennonites saw the dangers of a broken link between
God’s gracious forgiveness and our moral lives-that is, of thinking that
no matter what we do, God will forgive us. Although they affirmed with
Luther the priority of grace, they emphasized the importance of
following Christ in life. But in time this came to feel to some like one
more condition for receiving God’s acceptance and forgiving love.
A solution some have proposed is that While repentance is not a
necessary condition for God to forgive an offender, repentance is
necessary for a sinner to experience grace or forgiveness. In Brakenhielm's
words, "One does not have to interpret prayer, repentance, and
_________________
34. Smedes, “Forgiving People Who Do Not Care," 14.
35. The following understanding of repentance is drawn from Heggen, Sexual Abuse,
123-126, and Smedes, "Forgiving People," 15-16. Smedes notes that confession is not the
same as talking to an understanding psychiatrist: ”We confess when we cannot stand the
hurt we caused another .... We confess when naked in the eyes of the person we unfairly
wounded we plead nothing but the hope of grace."
36. One can meet Luther’s objection and adopt a weaker version that penance is a
necessary but not a sufficient condition for God’s grace.
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 147
restitution as demands to be fulfilled in order to obtain forgiveness; one
can simply consider them as presuppositions for experiencing God’s
forgiveness in a meaningful way.” Understood in this way, the necessity
of repentance ”can very well be held together with the thought that
God’s forgiveness is unconditional and absolute."(37)
In the context of human relationships this understanding can help
mediate the problem of cheap grace. When an injured one offers
forgiveness to an unrepentant offender, the offender cannot truly
experience it. He cannot receive the grace offered him without honest
repentance.
In fact, an unrepentant offender does not want forgiveness. Speaking
in the aftermath of World War II, Christian poet, novelist, and historian
Charles Williams recognized that "the deeper the injury, the less inclined
the evildoer is to ask, even to desire, that the sin may be forgiven-
perhaps the less able." We cannot make another repent. If an offender
refuses to repent, he will experience a community's acts of restorative
justice-which includes requiring him to bear responsibility for
wrongdoing-as punishment rather than as one face of grace. If the
offender refuses forgiveness, ”it is difficult to see what else can be done
except to leave him a1one.”(38)
Honest repentance is clearly required for reconciliation, for in order
for a relationship to be restored in some right form, both parties or
groups must be willing to "experience the fellowship of sufferings."(39)
That includes remembering and confessing pain, forgiving and
repenting-all difficult actions. Liechty names absolution as the final step
in forgiveness: ”the wronged party indicates an intention not to bear
grudges."(40) The parallel final step in repentance might be appropriate
acts of restitution or sharing resources that indicates the injured one's
intrinsic value and the penitent's intention to empower the injured one
for a better future. With honest completion of these final dimensions, a
renewed relationship between injurer and injured becomes possible. It
may be stronger than before the offense or it may be more distant, but
the relationship will testify to the possibility that compassionate justice
can prevail over violence and violation in abusive relationships.(41)
___________________
37. Brakenhielm, Forgiveness, 79.
38. Charles Williams, The Forgiveness of Sins (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, [1942]
1984), 165, 199.
39, Marshall, Beyond Retribution, 277.
40. Liechty, "Forgiveness," 52.
41. Marshall uses the term "compassionate justice” in the title of his second book on
restorative justice.
148 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
WALKING IN THE LIGHT OF THE RESURRECTION:
ACCOMPANYING ABUSERS AND THE ABUSED
Christian congregations and friends of Christ are called to live in hope
in light of God’s coming new creation as announced and embodied in
the messiah Jesus and made present through the Holy Spirit. We can
have a significant role in healing from injury, promoting justice in
relationships, and providing settings for the actual experience of
repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. But it is hard work that
requires spiritual labor, humility, and courage.
An immediate problem is that often the theology and practice of
forgiveness among contemporary Protestants, including in many
believers churches, are framed in individualistic terms. An individual
sits or stands alone before God in public worship, receiving communion,
privately confessing sin and seeking forgiveness, privately confessing
pain and seeking healing. Depending on the nature of the offense and its
conspicuousness, a pastor may “need to get involved." In North America
where we imbibe cultural values that emphasize the desires and rights of
the self and privacy when it involves sex or money, confessing specific
sins or describing our wounds is not only uncomfortable, but also seems
in bad taste. Room for the Christian community to address injury shrinks
comparatively.
However, when we marginalize the role of the Christian community
and its representatives in the mission of restorative justice, we not only
let injured ones remain isolated in their pain and allow those who abuse
others to avoid facing the impact of their actions or to rationalize them,
but we also hinder both from having the eventual experience of
forgiveness. In a Christian perspective, healing from injury and healing
from sin are spiritual realities. Spiritual healing takes place in the context
of Christian worship, community life, and mission. For this to occur the
church must provide adequate spiritual space and practical structures
that invite and support healing from abuse, admonishment of sin,
confession and repentance, forgiving, and the celebration of movement
toward reconciliation.
Accompanying the injured. As a companion of those who have been
injured, the church can play a significant role in affirming that an abused
person’s sense of shame is false and agreeing that those who injure
should be brought to account. Catholic religious social ethicist Christine
Gudorf has pointed out that both victims and those who see themselves
as potential victims often have trouble with trust and need to develop a
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 149
sense of safety in relation to others. The church can have a strong role "in
restoring the capacity of victims to trust” by being trustworthy itself."
The church can play a further role in empowering those who are
injured, especially in situations where an offender has access to social,
economic, or institutional power and the injured one has much less. ln
addition, the silence that frequently surrounds sexual violations
enhances the power of the one who abuses. Therefore, breaking the
silence or breaking out of the isolation of the offender-injured
relationship is often a significant step toward correcting imbalances in
power that disadvantage and bind the injured ones. This is a step toward
greater justice in the relationship but also a step toward healing and
transformation for both injured and injurer.
When there has been abuse but pastors, parents, or other members of
the Christian community do not believe abuse has occurred, or make
light of it, or do not legitimate someone’s blame, the injured one is even
more disempowered than had she remained silent. In cases where the
injured one does not know how to say no to an offender (Ann as a child)
or is unable to articulate hurt, especially in those cases in which the
perpetrator does not stop the offense or does not feel morally
responsible, it is doubly important for the Christian community to stand
with and advocate for the injured one.
Christians who walk alongside the injured should respect their
psychological and spiritual healing process, exercising patience. While
the disciples may have needed forty days to mourn and adjust to the loss
of the earthly Jesus before his ascension, some who suffer injury may
need forty years to mourn and adjust to all they lost at the hands of those
who did violence to them.” To assist in the process of mourning, the
church can and must provide spiritual and emotional space for lament
within the larger worshiping life of congregations. At the same time, We
should recognize that psychological considerations can at times be used
as an excuse by injured ones to avoid the necessary pain of the healing
process or to rationalize "not forgiving." As companions of the injured,
the Christian community also has a role in nurturing their disposition
toward forgiveness.
Accompanying those who have injured others. The Christian community
also has a responsibility to accompany sinners. On the one hand, this
means confronting those who injure others, making clear the wrongness
of their acts in relation to God’s intentions for human life. This means
__________________
42. Gudorf, Victimization, 93.
43. Rolheiser implies this in his description, The Holy Longing, 150-153. In this chapter he
counsels patience in dealing with anger and loss, but also says that there is time for those
who have experienced loss to move beyond the “4O days.”
150 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
specifically naming such acts, not simply speaking in abstractions, which
is tempting to do when sexual sins are involved. Theological ethicist
Stanley Hauerwas has emphasized the importance of acknowledging sin
before others: “We are seldom in a position to know the truth about our
sin until we make our lives available to others in such a way that we may
be taught the truth about ourselves."(44)
On the other hand, this means making space for repentant offenders
to experience transformation through the renewing power of human and
divine forgiveness and acceptance. If the ones they have injured cannot
forgive them, are not ready to hear their genuine confession and observe
their repentance, or are no longer living, other members of the church
can receive their confession, thereby allowing the injurer to experience
God’s forgiveness through the congregations or its representatives’ own
accepting love. In Christian perspective it is not the case that only an
injured one can forgive an offender.(45) The grace of God and God's
church are not held hostage by the inability of injured ones to forgive
repentant offenders.
In the act of acknowledging sin, offenders must also deal with shame.
But theirs is an appropriate shame. The church is responsible to help
monitor the behaviors of abusers as well as to help reestablish
relationships of trust with the Christian community that have been
shamefully betrayed. Linking Christian discipline and forgiveness is
assumed in the reconciling process outlined in Matthew 18. While
church discipline has far too often been practiced in judgmental rather
than forgiving ways, causing many who have experienced it this way to
abandon church discipline altogether, there are also hope-filled accounts
of Christian transformation through responsible admonishment,
repentance, and forgiveness.(46)
___________________
44. Stanley Hauerwas, "Why Truthfulness Requires Forgiveness: A Commencement
Address for Graduates of a College of the Church of the Second Chance," (unpublished
manuscript of address given at Goshen College, Goshen, Ind., April 1992; copy in the
Mennonite Historical Library there), 11.
45. Here I differ from those who assert that ”only victims have the right to confer
forgiveness on their abusers.”-Christopher Marshall, Beyond Retribution, 264. I base this
understanding partly on the image of the church as the body of Christ on earth. The church
has been given the responsibility to bind and loose, as representatives of God offering
forgiveness-but not lightly-to the repentant, especially in cases where it is impossible for
victims or survivors of abuse to offer it to the offender directly, as when the victim has not
been able to take steps toward forgiveness or is now dead.
46. Experience with sexual abuse of church leaders in the Mennonite Church led to a
critique of the reconciling process listed in Matthew 18. Because of the fact that women,
children, and the elderly who have been targets of abuse usually had much less social,
economic, and institutional power than those who abused them, it seemed uncaring and
unjust to expect them to face their abuser(s) alone as Matthew 18 recommends as a first
step in the reconciling process. One corrective was to move immediately to involve others
from the church in confronting abusers. Another was to protect the names of those abused
Seventy Times Seven: Abuse and Forgiveness 151
When a congregation or denomination is faced specifically with
sexual sin and shame, the group and its leaders may need to address
their own attitudes toward sexuality, bodies, gender relations, and
privacy as they seek to foster God’s saving work in the community.
McClintock points out that there are, in fact, humorless, controlling,
"shame-bound congregations" who are not well-prepared to be healing
communities and need to address their own underlying beliefs and
systemic practices before they can be good companions with either
abusers or the abused.”
Perhaps most important, the church has a proactive role in teaching
and forming its members in living responsibly so that healing and
forgiveness are less frequently necessary.” This means that church
leaders must be comfortable with their own sexuality and be educated in
both theological and cultural matters dealing with sex and sexuality.
In summary, for the Christian church to have a significant role in the
grace of healing and forgiveness for those perpetrating or suffering from
sexual sins or other injuries, it cannot silently condone the actions of
offenders or abandon those who are injured. To accompany them well
the church will need to press against strong cultural currents rooted in
the value of individual freedom. Church leaders should expect such
reactions as “Who are you to tell me what to think or do?" "Ethics are a
private matter.” "Don't meddle with my life." ”You're a sinner too.”
Mennonites have a strong heritage that values Christian community
and ethical living. That heritage includes an understanding and practice
of church that includes not only preaching, the administration of
sacraments, and missionary love, but also mutual admonition and loving
service to one another for the sake of Christ and the new world he
envisioned. However, these dimensions of church cannot and will not
remain alive in this cultural context without explicit leadership and care.
The Christian church is a holy church, not because the institution or
its members never sin-indeed, only an ideal, ahistorical, disembodied
church would never sin. We should not therefore expect to see a church
"without spot or wrinkle." The church is holy because God has given to
the church the ongoing gift of the Holy Spirit-God’s own presence-
who continues to draw us toward holiness. The fruits of the Spirit mark a
community that, even when it fails in some respects and situations-
from public awareness when indicated, especially in sexually shame-based cultures and
congregations where exposure could result in further shaming and hurt to the injured ones.
__________________
47. McClintock, Sexual Shame, 123-124.
48. Karen A. McClintoc:l<’s Preventing Sexual Abuse in Congregations: A Resource for
Leaders (Herndon, Va.: Alban Institute, 2004) is one example among others that takes this
approach.
152 The Mennonite Quarterly Review
including its practice of discipline-still retains the vision and power to
seek justice, heal the brokenhearted, and forgive sin, and it is doing so.(49)
The divine grace and human practice of offering restorative justice for
both the injured and the injurers is an antidote to the fear and mistrust
that pervade relationships and communities seared by moral injury,
including sexual sins. Empowered by God, Christians can tell friends
and neighbors the truth of their lives, a precursor to saving work. For, as
Stanley Hauerwas Warned, unless we humans are able to tell one another
the truth, ”we are condemned to live in a world of violence and
destruction." But Christians can live with hope and joy even in that kind
of World. We can do so because as a people we have been constituted by
the practices of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. "These
practices make truth possible, and with truth emerges the seed for peace
among women and men on earth."(50)
___________________
49. Mennonite Church responses from the 1970s to 2015 to John H. Yoder’s sexual
abuses are one example of serious, flawed, painful, and healing attempts at restorative
justice. For a provocative Mennonite discussion within an ecumenical context of the church
as “holy” and whether the church as an institution might be able to repent for its acts in
previous centuries, see jeremy Bergen, Ecclesial Repentance: The Churches Confront Their
Sinful Pasts (London: T&:T Clark International, 2011).
50. Hauerwas, "Why Truthfulness Requires Forgiveness,” 20.
