FATHER FRANK’S RANTS - CRAZY CHRISTIANS - Rant Number 637 23 June 2015

IS FORGIVENESS FOR FOOLS AND IDIOTS? THE WORLD MAY THINK SO BUT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE OTHERWIS


‘Damned, dumb, foolish Christians! You can’t forgive somebody who has just killed your loved ones! It is unnatural…’

Yes, quite abnormal: ‘We have already forgiven him…there is nothing but love from our family’ said Chris, the teenage son of an innocent woman slain by Charleston church killer. Other tearful relatives expressed similar sentiments. It puzzled the godless media. Surely loathing, cursing the blond, Aryan mass murderer would be the black victims’ justified response? Didn’t even the Pope say: ‘If someone insulted my mamma, I would punch him’? Now – shock and horror - this African-American boy actually forgives the racist who has murdered his mum! Unbearably awesome.

Not every Christian would behave like Chris. A relative of a victim of the London 7/7 terrorist massacre happened to be a Vicar. She resigned her parish job, confessing: ‘I cannot forgive the suicide bombers for what they have done. I can’t’. She was honest. She knew forgiveness was mandated by her faith. But she could not live up to it. Well, the priest will not cast the first stone. In her shoes, he would probably seethe with resentment. Pope Francis spoke for me, too: ‘If someone offended my mum…’

‘It is all pretence, cunning make-believe!’ I imagine Fred Nietzsche’s ghost sneering. ‘Christians are a feeble lot. They are afraid of being injured even further. Dread more attacks, more murders. So they assure racists of their love. Because Christians are weak. If they had more courage, more guts, more energy, they would then dare to tell murderous haters their true feelings.’ Alas, the haughty philosopher of the Superman could not grasp a) that Christians are under obligation to follow the teachings and example of Christ and b) that very strong people may exist who can rise above the lower aspects of human nature and choose love instead of retaliation. On both counts, Nietzsche was wrong.

Not too wrong, however. What he got right is that forgiveness is less than natural to human beings. It goes against the grain. Wot? You hurt/kill my mum, my dad, my wife, my siblings and you expect me to forgive that? Like hell I will! I am gonna make sure you pay. Not just blood money but with your own blood!’ Only a hypocrite or a saint or an Englishman would disagree, no?

Heinrich Heine, the great German poet, spoke for the ordinary man when he said: ‘My idea of happiness is really something simple. A modest dwelling, a nice little cottage with a little pretty garden with pretty flowers… But my ideal would not be complete without a few bodies hanging from those trees: the bodies of my bitterest enemies. With them swinging there my happiness would be perfected.’ Chilling but also understandable, I think. Forgiveness was not something Heine could envisage. Hanging he deemed fit for those who had offended him personally. Had someone hurt his parents…what? Slowly dissolved into sulphuric acid? Something like that, I suppose.

Vis-à-vis that brutal, unregenerate thirst for revenge, a forgiving outlook like Christian charity is quite mad. The Apostle Paul fully acknowledged it. Indeed, he revelled in it: ‘We have become a spectacle to the world…We are fools for Christ’s sake…When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become…as the refuse of the world, the off-scouring of all things’.

Dumb Christians! Men like Nietzsche and Hitler were at one in regarding St Paul as a major foe: ‘He raised up the scum of the ancient world against everything that was racially superior, noble and hard…His ethic was pure bolshevism’, Hitler opined. That kind of nonsense. Still, they were right in recognising the Apostle to the Gentiles as standing for entirely different values from pagan ones. Mad, crazy values, perhaps, but still values pointing to a better, higher conception of humanity.

A pious school of thought has it that the power of Christian forgiveness should touch even the most callous of criminals. It would bring about  the culprit’s change of heart, a realisation of his infamy and a condign need for repentance. In fact, Dyllan Roof, the despicable assassin, appeared cold and unfeeling, unmoved and occasionally smirking while listening to the indictment. That should be no great surprise. God’s grace does not work like magic, manipulating a person mechanically. And the Devil is powerful, too. In due course, God willing, the wretch will realise he has chained himself to an evil and deceitful master.

The Charleston massacre has received wide coverage. Racism and firearms have dominated the discussions. The words of forgiveness by Chris and others got scant attention. The US President, the politicians and the media alike must pity, perhaps even despise a little, the foolish victims’ relatives, the black folks who do not bay for Roof’s blood but forgive instead. Doesn’t seem right, does it? Again, it is not natural…Damned, dumb crazy Christians!

‘Father, forgive them, because they know not what they do’, Jesus prayed, as he was about to be crucified. It is just possible the Charleston slayer did not know or understand what he was doing –  sin is ignorance, Socrates held. One thing is certain, though: the world may call the Christians crazy, dumb, foolish people as much as it pleases but, when they forgive, they know full well that they are following the Master.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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