Opinion: Untangling the concept of forgiveness in a world full of injured and injuring people
In the middle of a murder trial on Oct. 2, Brandt Jean embraced the woman who killed his brother.
According to an article from ABC News, in 2018 Amber Guyger entered what she thought was her apartment and found Botham Jean. Guyger thought he had invaded her home and fatally shot him.
Guyger, an off-duty police officer at the time, had entered the wrong apartment. Botham Jean was in his own apartment relaxing after work. Guyger’s mistake cost an innocent man his life.
On the day of the ex-police officer’s trial, Brandt Jean told her that he forgave her for killing his brother and asked the judge’s permission to give Guyger a hug.
“I love you just like anyone else, and I’m not going to hope you rot and die,” Jean said, according to ABC News.
Jean added that if Guyger asked God for forgiveness, he would forgive her. Jean said Botham would have also wanted Guyger to give her life to Christ. According to ABC News, Guyger burst into tears when Jean hugged her.
Although the moment touched the hearts of many, it angered others.
According to an article by Errin Haines Whack for the Associated Press, many black Americans saw Jean’s open forgiveness as sweeping racial violence under the rug and gratifying white Americans’ consciences.
The controversy surrounding Jean’s embrace and statement begs the question: What is forgiveness?
From the time we could express even the most basic emotions, our parents impressed the concept of forgiveness on us. If your sibling takes your toy, they should apologize. You, in turn, should forgive them. As a 3-year-old, all that means is resentfully muttering the words “I forgive you” as quickly as possible, then promptly forgetting what we were angry about in light of a new and better toy.
As we get older, forgiveness becomes more complicated. Do I buckle down and forgive the kid who’s bullying me or do I stand up and fight?
Most people end up looking at forgiveness in two ways: a weakness or an expectation. Those who see forgiveness as a weakness are typically those being hurt. Those who see it as an expectation are usually the ones hurting others.
“Never apologize,” the character Leroy Jethro Gibbs of NCIS famously tells his team. “It is a sign of weakness.”
If apologizing is weak, then accepting somebody’s apology certainly is. Doesn’t it give them permission to keep on
hurting people?
Alternatively, it can shock or even outrage us when somebody doesn’t immediately forgive us. Don’t they know that they should forgive others? Even 3-year-olds know that.
Back and forth this cycle of hurt and expectation goes, building walls of bitterness — the exact opposite of what forgiveness should do.
The problem is we seem to have forgotten what forgiveness means. “Forgive and forget” sounds like good advice, but there has never been a piece of advice more impossible to follow.
The mixed responses to Jean’s act of forgiveness fit perfectly with the cycle of hurt and expectation.
Some see forgiveness as weak because it gives the abuser permission to continue abuse, and the abuser expects forgiveness because they can’t or won’t see how bad their abuse is.
However, forgiveness is not “forgive and forget.”
In order to forgive someone, we first have to acknowledge that they did something wrong.
Forgiveness means knowing what someone did wrong and making a personal choice to not hold it against them.
That does not mean that someone shouldn’t be held accountable for what they did wrong. Brandt forgave Guyger, but that didn’t mean she was exempt from her prison sentence.
Wrongdoing has consequences — the bigger the wrongdoing, the bigger the consequences. Forgiveness is simply the choice of an individual to not let anger or resentment fester.
This means forgiveness is a form of grace — an undeserved gift. No one should expect forgiveness because no one deserves forgiveness.
In the case of Brandt Jean and Amber Guyger, Jean offered Guyger forgiveness because he had seen himself forgiven by Christ.