Response to Faithfully Magazine on Forgiveness

Hi, my name is Adam Robles, and today I wanted to respond to an article that I saw from Faithfully Magazine. Faithfully Magazine is, you know, honestly, the best way I can describe it is it's an SJW millennial Christian magazine.

And I know I'm using those words as pejoratives, and I do intend to use it as a pejorative. I don't think this is a very good magazine. I think it, I'm not saying they're not Christians, but the perspective it brings is absolutely an SJW millennial type perspective.

I don't think a lot of the foundations are very Christian. However, I do accept their profession, and I think they do try to spin things in a Christian way very many times. But here's what I mean. Let me show you how I found this magazine.

I saw this article, Whiteness is Crippling the Church, right? And unfortunately, this article, it's behind a paywall. You have to pay to read it, or at least you did at the time. I haven't checked recently.

But I couldn't bring myself to give them $5 to read this magazine. I was interested enough to want to read it, but I wasn't going to pay for it. And so I don't exactly know what was written in that article, but any article that's titled Whiteness is Crippling the Church, I have to be extremely skeptical of, because nothing can cripple the church, even the boogeyman of whiteness.

And so anyway, this is an SJW magazine. There's just no question about that. But I want to review an article that actually doesn't touch on some of these topics. It's actually a very kind of more universal topic, and it's about forgiveness.

And so let me switch to the screen, and I'll show you sort of how this article is presented. We're not going to read the whole thing. But here's the article, and it's from an opinion piece section of the magazine, and it's titled You Don't Have to Accept the Sorry.

And here's the kind of the summary. Something that has always bothered me as a highly spiritual person is the way that we Christians can bang the forgiveness drum. And the point of this article, I'll link to it, of course, and I'm not going to read the whole thing.

I might read a few sections. But the point of this article is that, you know, forgiving someone is more than just saying, I forgive you, right? You have to actually feel forgiveness. And so this idea that Christians ought to instantly forgive any, you know, any infraction, any horrible thing that's happened to them is unrealistic.

You know, it's, you know, if somebody were to, you know, hurt you or your family, you know, in a violent way or even emotionally, the idea that you ought to forgive them instantly, the author's point is that that's unrealistic.

And it's not even required. And so, you know, I think she makes some good points. One of the examples that she uses, I'll even, you know, take it to the article here. One of the examples that she uses is with her kids, right?

And she says here, when my son hurts my daughter, he'll apologize immediately. And when my daughter is upset, I tell her she doesn't have to forgive him until she's ready. For minutes, my son is forced to live with the consequences of his actions.

He has time to recognize that when you hit someone, they may not want to be your friend anymore. My daughter takes time to realize that she is justified in being upset. What my son did to her was wrong, and she doesn't have to forgive him just because he feels bad.

Eventually, when she is ready, she approaches him with the olive branch. That's when I do the normal parent move of hug each other and move on. I don't want my daughter to think that forgiveness is a burden someone else can put on her.

I want her to grow up feeling worthy of time and space. We don't get to choose how or when people hurt us, but we do get to choose how and when we are ready to forgive them. Forgiveness is not for them.

Forgiveness is for us. Now, there's a lot of good in that paragraph because I think that this idea of, let's say the son, you know, smack the daughter or hit her or something like that. So he takes his sister, he punches her in the face, and he says he's sorry right away.

Well, first of all, a lot of times that's not necessarily true. Just because they're saying they're sorry doesn't mean that they are. So there's not necessarily real repentance there. But if there was real repentance there, right?

If the son really was sorry, is it true that the daughter, the girl has the right to sort of choose and pick and choose how and when she forgives? You know, in a sense, I can kind of see that, yeah, you have to, if you're going to forgive someone, you have to really forgive them, right?

You can't just say I forgive you and then kind of hold on to that bitterness. Um, but in a sense, you don't. In a sense, you don't. And what I mean by that is Jesus says that we ought to forgive 70 times, seven times, basically as many times as we need to.

This is what he means. And he also says that we ought to pray to God that he forgive us the way we forgive others. And so, um, how, how, how do we want God to forgive us? Do we want God to forgive us, um, when we repent?

Do we want God to forgive us right then and there? I would say most people would say yes. Most people would say yes. That's the kind of forgiveness that we want from God. And that's the kind of forgiveness God offers us, right?

And it's not just like this forgiveness where it's just cheap, where it's like, oh, yeah, you know, I just wanted a murder spree. Yeah, I'm sorry, God. Not like that. That's not real repentance. We're talking, it's not unconditional.

And I think that's another good point that this author makes. Forgiveness is not unconditional in the Bible. That's very true. But once real repentance comes, does the person who's been slighted as the person who's been, um, sinned against have the right to withhold forgiveness until some time in the future when they're ready to do it?

Um, I don't think so. And, and I don't say not, they don't have the right from the sinner's perspective, right? Because from the sinner's perspective, they've, they're the ones who have done wrong, right?

And so they can't demand forgiveness on their terms, right? Because that's, that's not how it works. And I think, you know, that's kind of how this article is presenting it. It's like this, like forgiveness is like this burden that someone else can put on you.

And so if I were to sin against you and you don't forgive me, I'm like, well, you owe me the forgiveness. That's not how it works. It's not like that. And so, and so I think in that way, this article is true.

It's not a burden that someone else can put on you. A sinner can put on you. However, it is absolutely a standard that God can require from us. And that's where this article, I think, fails. Because it's presenting this all from the horizontal level, from sinner to sinner, from person to person.

Yes, I, as if I sinned against you, I can't insist that you forgive me because God says you have to forgive me, right? I can't make that. That's, that's something that I'd be, that'd be a further sin of mine for me to, for me to do that.

But still God can pull you to the standard. So on the, on the vertical from God to man, God sets the standard of forgiveness. And so you better forgive. You better forgive because here's the thing. Christ's example of forgiveness.

Christ doesn't hold things over us. Christ doesn't wait until he's ready to forgive us. He's not like, oh yeah, well I haven't, you know, I, I'm just not there yet. You know what I mean? Christ, Christ doesn't say to us, yeah, you know, you haven't learned your lesson good enough.

So I'm going to hold off forgiveness. No, no, Christ forgave us once for all time. And so when we come to the, when we come to the cross, when we, when we, um, when we've sinned again, we didn't want you, but we did it anyway.

And we go, God, forgive me for what I've done. God forgives you, man. He forgives you right then and there. In fact, he forgave you at the cross. And so this idea of, of, you know, someone can't hold over forgiveness over you.

Well, that's true, but God can set the standard. And so if you have a problem forgiving, if you want to hold onto this, this, uh, this, this anger, cause you feel it's justified. Like even the article says your anger is justified.

Well, that might be true. But if you're holding onto forgiveness, as you, if you're not forgiving, as soon as you see the repentance, if your brother truly repents, and it's not just, you know, to get off, uh, to get away from any penalties or consequences, it's actual real repentance and you're holding out on forgiveness.

That's sin. You need to examine yourself. You need to hold, you need to take a good look in the mirror. Why am I not ready to forgive this person? Who's repented now, if the person hasn't repented, if they're just sort of like, yeah, I'm sorry, forgive me.

Well, that's one thing that's different. But if a person's really repented and you're holding onto bitterness, that's, that's something you really need to consider. You know, I, I've been to a church where there's, um, there's a perceived sin, uh, issue.

And, um, the person just refuses to let go, refuses to let go. There's been, there's been repentance. There's been, um, you know, forgiveness all around him. But this one particular person refuses to let go of this perceived slight and it's just killing this person.

It's eating them up from the inside. And so that's not, that's not how, um, how it works. Look, if you don't forgive someone who's really repented, um, that's a failure. That's a failure on your part.

And you need to really examine yourself. And you know what? Even if someone hasn't repented, right, you can't hold onto the bitterness. You just can't hold onto the bitterness. And so, you know, I, this article makes some good points, but, um, you know, at the end of the day, here, here's the part that really kind of bothers me about this article.

This last line, he says, she says, so no, you don't have to accept they're sorry. And it doesn't make you a bad person. Forgiveness is not for them. Forgiveness is for you. Um, if Jesus is the standard, if God is the standard, that's just not true.

That's just not true. God didn't need anything. And that's why he forgave. God didn't have this burden. And so that's why he forgave. God forgave because he just showed us grace. And so we ought to show grace.

And so even if someone doesn't repent, you know, don't hold onto your anger, man. Don't hold onto it. You don't have to let them back into the, your friendship. You don't have to let them back into the community.

You know, if they're not repenting, then that's, that's fine. But, um, don't hold onto the bitterness. Forgiveness is for you and for them. But ultimately forgiveness is for God because we need to, we need to demonstrate, uh, Christ's attitude towards people in how we interact with people.

And so if, if forgiveness is for God, ultimately, then that's the example. That's the standard. The last thing I want to say is I really worry about this because it's in an SJW millennial article or a magazine rather, because this SJW, you know, social justice warrior stuff, this, this, this highly racialized view of the world, this sort of critical race theory, sort of power, um, dynamics kind of thing.

This is a recipe for never ending strife. This is a recipe for always being offended, always being slighted. And I worry about an article like this appearing in a magazine like this because it, you know, this, this anger that this SJW sort of critical race theory type anger, it's not always justified, number one.

And number two, it will kill you. You can't hold onto this bitterness forever. You just can't. And so, you know, I do really worry about, about an article like this appearing in, um, you know, in a magazine.

Forgiveness as a Standard God Requires

Yes, forgiveness is required. God requires it. It's not required from your peers because your peers aren't owed anything. Fellow sinners aren't owed anything, but God is owed something. God is owed honor and God is owed obedience.

And so when God says, you know, here's the standard of forgiveness, you know, that's, that's, I mean, it's just required. It's, it's more than a goal. You see, here's the thing. A lot of people will say, yeah, well, forgiveness is the goal, but it, you know, it's unrealistic to forgive immediately.

Well, okay. That might be true. Forgiveness is the goal and sometimes it's hard to forgive, but it's more than the goal. It's the standard. It is the standard. And so I just would pray for all of us to, to learn how to forgive better, to learn how to forgive quicker.

And, um, for these relationships to not be looked at as, oh, someone's holding power over me. No, it's not like that. It's God is requiring something of you. And so anyway, that, that's just my comments on this article.

Again, it's not all bad. It's a, it's a good article, but I do worry about it. And so, uh, Hey, any questions, comment below message me, feel free. Um, but I hope this was valuable. God bless.