WILCO DE VRIES|
We must be wary of wrongly using the biblical command in order to silence victims of abuse.
Forgiveness is the heartbeat of salvation history and the virtue that should mark the followers of Jesus. But those who seek to control and manipulate others can twist even the very heart of the gospel for their perverted ends.
A friend of mine experienced this. She endured a hellish childhood and abuse by several family members, including her father. No one in her life intervened or spoke up. As an adult, she finally gathered the courage to confront her abusers, who misused Scripture and twisted theology to excuse their actions and demand her silence.
Citing Ephesians 4:32 and Colossians 3:13, my friend’s abusers pressed her to forgive “as God forgives.” God forgives us by taking on our punishment, they argued, so she should likewise “forgive and forget” and forgo reporting their crimes to the police. After initially “forgiving” her offenders, my friend distanced herself from her family. When she did so, they interpreted her actions as unforgiveness and bitterness, adding to her moral conflict.
She is not alone. Again and again, across denominations, we hear stories about how “forgiveness” has been used to vindicate abusers and silence the abused. Once this coerced forgiveness is offered, it seems impossible to retract, which is often why abusers use forgiveness as a silencing technique.
How, then, can we de-weaponize forgiveness? I see at least four ways for the church to help dismantle faux forgiveness that’s wielded as a weapon by offenders while preserving the central place authentic forgiveness has in the Christian faith.
First, churches can help survivors strengthen their sense of agency and self-worth. Since the 1980s, researchers like Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk have shown how child sexual abuse severely damages survivors’ self-esteem and sense of independence. Without substantial recovery of one’s sense of agency and self-worth—which often requires years, if not decades, of loving support, counseling, and inner work—the act of forgiveness will often be involuntary and a continuation of the abuse.
Only when significant healing has taken place and a sense of self-worth and independence from the offender has been regained can forgiveness become what God intended. As philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff points out, the expression of forgiveness communicates to the offender that you have wronged me and unjustly violated my rights. Proper anger against wrongdoers and their crimes, which presupposes a sense of self-worth, is therefore not incompatible with forgiveness but part of it.