Forgiveness: Essential for Love at Home

My favorite interpretation of Christian forgiveness comes from a movie about a famous Hindu activist, Mahatma Gandhi, in the 1982 film bearing his name. In explaining his peaceful philosophy, he quotes Jesus:

“Doesn’t the New Testament say, ‘If your enemy strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the left’?… I suspect he meant you must show courage. Be willing to take a blow, several blows to show you will not strike back, nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that, it calls on something in human nature—something that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase. I think Christ grasped that, and I have seen it work.”

The film showcases the form of peaceful protest that Gandhi preached, inspired partly by our Christian Bible. In the climax of the film, rows of Indian protesters march boldly but peacefully as British soldiers strike them down. The first row is stopped violently, but the next rows cause some anxiety. After a few rows, the British soldiers realize they are the aggressors—the bad guys in this scenario, rather than the peace-keeping heroes they thought they were. It becomes harder for them to continue their aggression not because of the weakness of the Indian protestors but because of their strength. Just as Paul asked believers to practice “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” these peaceful qualities exposed the brutality of the British occupying forces.

Paul’s call for compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience—considered by many in our society to be signs of weakness—is twofold. The first intent is to allow people to admit their wrongs and reconcile. If someone hurts you, it’s not necessarily tyranny; they may realize what they’ve done is wrong. The rift will persist forever without space for them to admit that and seek forgiveness. If someone who hurt you wants to repent and return to you, make sure they know there’s space for them.

The second purpose of those virtues is a show of strength. Few people will knowingly do the wrong thing. Most people do something wrong by justifying it as the right thing to do under the circumstances. If the other party doesn’t know they’ve done something wrong, it’s often because they’re convinced they’ve done something right. In that case, practicing forgiveness and other virtues is not an act of compliance; it’s an act of civil disobedience. Striking someone, literally or figuratively, can be explained in many ways, but striking them again when they’re not fighting back is harder to justify. Forgiveness and peaceful resistance expose brutality. Even if the harming party does not admit this, it becomes clear to others.

There’s a natural progression to how our kindness and compassion should be practiced. The first step, a call for reconciliation, is a quiet conversation, inviting the other party to make things right and return to the relationship. If reconciliation fails, peaceful resistance may succeed, and that’s a time for the conversation to become much more public. Please note that there is no reason to stay in an abusive relationship or situation—compassion and forgiveness can and should be practiced at a safe distance. However, Christian virtues like compassion and kindness can be practiced as an invitation or an act of defiance, and both should be grounded in love.