Forgive and Forget? A Hurtful Christian Cliche

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2 Timothy 4.9-11

“Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica…. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you because he’s helpful to me in my ministry.” 2 Timothy 4.9-11

 

Forgive and forget! That’s the Christian mantra to describe the process of forgiveness that isn’t quite as biblical as people claim. I’ve already talked about the the importance of repentance and confession in different blogs. In this one, I wish to focus on the idea of forgetting or forgetfulness. My purpose is to show how forgetting or forgetfulness isn’t always the best policy.

 

On August 13, Pastor Rick Warren writes on his Facebook that God thinks all lives matter as an alternative to Black Lives Matter movement. Thereafter, a firestorm erupted on this thread with an almost unifying voice of condemnation from our black brothers and sisters and almost a unifying voice of support from our white brothers and sisters. A simple appeal to God’s name shouldn’t divide the church, but it does and it has. Why? We no longer hold slaves. We no longer call black folks the N-word. Well, at least most of us who sincerely try to follow Christ don’t. Slavery and mistreatment of blacks are something that belong to a distant memory … at least for some folks, namely the white brothers and sisters who defend Pastor Rick. The same is not the case for the black brothers and sisters who still feel like second-class citizens. That explains the chasm, but it doesn’t explain the spirituality that causes the chasm.

 

The spirituality that causes the chasm is precisely what is wrong with the innocent Facebook post. Such a post is usually posted by a well-meaning person who doesn’t understand that the struggle is real for some folks today. The logic of such a person usually reads something like this. Since I’m not racist and I have minority friends, the world must be a better place already. And since the world is already a better place, why not forget the past, forgive the trespass (since I’m not racist) and move forward to bigger and better things. This logic is pretty much repeated in many posts that defend this attitude of “I’m OK; you must be OK.” It doesn’t work.

 

I remember growing up in the new South (Florida) as an immigrant and many of my classmates told me many racist Ching Chong jokes. Believe it or not, some of them are still my friends today (well, some aren’t). You know why? It’s because I’ve forgiven them. Whether they apologized personally to me or not doesn’t matter because they themselves have moved on to bigger and better things and they themselves have grown into better people. Many of the same folks have grown to be open-minded and mature Christians. So, we remain friends. Forgiveness doesn’t mean I forget those incidents. Forgiveness only means that I don’t hold grudges. When I see parallel incidents happening today, my radar is still up. Why? It’s because I forgave but I didn’t forget. Forgetfulness is spiritually harmful not just to the individual but to the Body of Christ.

 

Just because some people have grown up to be better and become “OK”, it doesn’t follow that everyone and the system that promotes that has been fixed. We don’t forget history. The church’s spirituality to forgive and forget has abused and will continue to injure many a member before someone calls her out. Easy forgetfulness isn’t progress. Easy forgetfulness is folly. It’s the naivety that causes historical terror to repeat itself.

 

As I type this blog, our nation still has a long way to go. Fraternities and sororities in the universities across the nation are some of the most racially segregated organizations. So are churches. It doesn’t matter that Pastor Rick’s churches have members that speak 67 different languages. So what? Some of those churches are foreign churches. Of course, these people would speak the local languages. The problem of Black Lives Matter is an entirely different issue. It isn’t merely about diversity. It’s about the present injustice that can sometimes happen to black folks as we non-black Christians forcefully ask them to forgive past trespasses so that we can forget any historical lesson that can prevent the PRESNT system from abusing more black folks.

 

If we read the writing of 2 Timothy, we must understand that forgetting past wrongs isn’t a biblical requirement. The author pointed out that he didn’t forget those who had abandoned him. He didn’t hold grudges but he also wasn’t naively believing that everything was “A OK.” Nothing is “A OK”. The author didn’t forget, even though he seems to have forgiven Mark’s possible trespasses when he abandoned the Pauline mission. Just because one guy came back to the Pauline mission, it doesn’t mean that other guys didn’t replace him in being derelict in their duties.

 

The spirituality of the Bible is realistic. It isn’t some impossible ideal. Forgiveness doesn’t require forgetting or forgetfulness. Instead, it requires gracious memory that teaches a historical lesson. To forget the historical lesson or fail to identify the present problem is to damage the Body of Christ because when one part is hurting, the other part should advocate for it or risk further injury. The biggest offense that comes from posts like Warren’s isn’t the truth it proclaims, but its failure to acknowledge the pain in the Body of Christ. Such half-truths are schismatic and ultimately will split the Body of Christ unnecessarily via the racial divide.

Christians Getting Tattoos, Piercings and Other Silly Controversies IV: Stumblers beware?

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christians getting piercings, christians getting tattoos, stumbling other believers

This is part of a series of blog posts about silly controversies and the logical objections against certain practices. The ongoing debates about many such issues just demonstrate the utter biblical and theological illiteracy of many evangelical Christians.

 

Let me review the usual answers thus far, and I had already dealt with three of them in previous posts.  First, someone would say, “I don’t like it. Therefore it’s wrong.”  Second, “Maybe he’s doing it for the gospel. The problem is why someone is getting ink.”  Third, “the body is the temple of God. By inking it, the owner shows disrespect towards God’s creation.”  Today, we deal with the fourth objection, “someone may stumble.” Oh, gasp!

 

One conservative evangelical pastor was preaching one day, and afterwards, a listener told him that his tie had distracted him from his listening experience simply because of the fancy patterns. The preacher never wore that tie again in fear of stumbling someone who’s trying to listen to his sermon. This logic is alive and well.

 

“Someone may stumble” is the magical key that stops everyone from doing anything you don’t want him/her to do in a church setting. It’s a phrase the denote unspiritual disposition of the accused, albeit without trial of scripture or common logic. It’s a phrase that is bound to cause the ignorant to be completely paralyzed in fear, unless you aren’t ignorant. It’s the weapon of choice for the church police. Well, I hope my readers aren’t ignorant when it comes to this idea of stumbling.

 

In the NT, the Greek word for “stumble” is where we get our word “scandal” from, but it doesn’t have the same meaning. Although some usages seem to point towards a “positive” aspect to this word, let’s look at some cases of negative usage of that word before looking at the positive aspects. My list is brief and space doesn’t permit me to deal with each passage in exegetical details. Anyone interested in exegetical details can either read my books or other scholars’ commentaries.

 

The most negative usage of this word “stumbling” in the Greek language has to do with deliberately setting a trap, but there’re other less negative usages. In Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 13.41, 16.23, and 18.7, the word denotes something that causes sin or causing the messianic mission to fail (i.e., the failure to go to the cross). In Paul, the word could denote a kind of blindness to truth (Romans 9.33) possibly even caused by God (Romans 11.9). Hmmm, God caused stumbling? Wow, that’s a novel thought, no? In Paul’s ethical teachings in Romans 14.13, the word could mean that certain action would cause a fellow believer to sin in a religious and ritual manner (e.g., food laws) or falling on bad doctrines (Romans 16.17-18). In order for such a stumbling to happen, REAL (and NOT imaginary) sins and weaknesses had to exist first.

 

Contrary to popular Christian preaching (gosh, how I despise so much of what passes for popular preaching), stumbling can be less negative where the responsibility doesn’t fall on the one who causes stumbling but on the one who stumbles. Paul had stated in 1 Corinthians 1.23 that the gospel could be a stumbling block. The cross indeed was a stumbling block (Galatians 5.11).  In Peter’s letter, Jesus himself became the stumbling block in his mission because of the offense he caused (1 Peter 2.8). I’m by no means comparing all the people with tattoos and earrings to Jesus, but it is not enough to just appeal to stumbling as a principle to stop people from doing so. The problem isn’t whether stumbling happened, but what kind of stumbling happened and whose responsibility the stumbling is.

 

I recall meeting with leaders of this one conference who were extremely distressed by my earring. In desperation to get me to take it off, one pastor (poor guy) uttered the above magical phrase, “Someone may stumble.” Certainly, IF my wearing an earring or someone sporting a tattoo would cause someone to sin by falling into false doctrines or sexual immorality (really? Do I even need to go there? Do women ACTUALLY lust MORE towards guys with earrings and tattoos? Some are even concerned about my bald head.), the problem shouldn’t be ink or earring.  The problem ought to be solved by either psychologists or at least a heavy dose of pastoral counseling. That, in fact, was what I told the distressed pastor.

 

Well, in light of the above brief study, perhaps a bit of positive stumbling is what we need because I’m fairly sure no one was being prevented from going to the cross.  Perhaps an indignant person (or perhaps that pastor himself) ought to do a bit of positive stumbling and then examine why such a trivial matter becomes an essential of the gospel. The church doesn’t have enough positive stumbling these days.  Maybe someone’s tattoo or my earring had inadvertently become a kind of avant-garde performing art as part of our gospel preaching!  If my earring or someone else’s ink causes some positive stumbling, thank God! Maybe after the hypocrites pick themselves off the floor, they can do a little thinking with their Christian minds.

 

As I always say, scripture is not the problem but the interpreter often is. Many interpretations are possible but not all interpretations are beneficial!  As for that evangelical preacher with that fancy tie at the beginning of the sermon, I suggest that he goes tie-less next time. That would eliminate all the problems. Oh, wait! Maybe that won’t because surely someone will fault him for NOT wearing a tie and “stumbling” someone else in the process of listening. With knit-picking hypocrites in church, you simply can’t win. Church life can be a dog-eat-dog world!

 

 

Reblogged Matthew 18 blog now in Chinese with an English sermon as supplement

My Matthew 18 analysis in Chinese this time.  This has been translated and published in the link below.

Thesis: before you talk about reconciliation, mind your sphere and the little one. Read more here.

http://behold.oc.org/?p=22243

The English sermon which applies what i wrote here can be found here.

http://rhccc.ca/en/images/sermons/english/2013/audio/20140323e.mp3 

 

Matthew 18.15-17, Godly Confrontation, and Forgiveness

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matthew 18.15-17

This is the right occasion to blog about Matthew 18.15-17 even though I’ve blogged on it before.  The reason why I feel compelled to blog on this is because of the Rick Warren Red Guard joke that appeared on last Monday.  It has since been taken down, after numerous Asians and people from other races have pointed out the offense it gives to all decent Chinese folks, especially those who have gone through the Cultural Revolution.  I’ve already said that I’m going to forgive him in a followup blog, and he eventually apologized for the misstep.  So, here we are.  Why do I belabor that point instead of “getting over it and moving on”?

As a specialist in the NT, I feel that this is a great teaching moment about interpretation.  This problem persists as Tienanmen student leader, now citizen of the US, Chai Ling openly calls for forgiveness of the Chinese government’s act of massacre.  Her theological acrobatic almost every year on the anniversary of Tienanmen massacre, 1989, has drawn a lot of heat from pro-democracy advocates.  At the bottom of her one-sided forgiveness is a lack of understanding of what true biblical forgiveness actually means. I know a lot of Christians blame her for what she said, but many of us share the blame due to misunderstanding of texts such as Matthew 18.15-17.  Her misunderstanding is not the only misunderstanding.

In my book Right Texts, Wrong Meanings, I’ve already given my interpretation of what Matthew 18.15-17 actually means.  Since a lot very nice (and a few very hateful) people encouraged me to look at Matthew 18.15-17 in dealing with this controversy with Rick Warren, that’s what we’ll do together. I believe the same can apply to Chai Ling’s case of one-sided forgiveness.  Most often, people interpret the passage as either about church discipline or about confrontation of the offender in church.  The passage is ultimately not about either.  Even less so is it about forgiveness of powerful people who unrepentantly and repeatedly step on toes.  Now, I wish to talk about the implications and limitations of such a good biblical passage.  First, let me observe the occasion for this passage because with each occasion of every narrative, there’s usually a main problem followed by subsidiary problems that probably relate to the main problem.

In principle, when we read a historical narrative, my first-year/first-semester students often make the passage a command about THEM. Let me sound the warning that no biblical passage is explicitly about YOU without taking into consideration of what kind of passage it is and what the main emphasis of the passage is.  In narrative, we need to take into consideration of the narrative situation by asking why the narrative was written to begin with.  Here’s the exegetical lesson for those who want to use Matthew 18 for everything having to do with conflicts.

The occasion is when the disciples asked “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18.1).  Everything which follows seems to address this problem in one form or another.  With every occasion, there’s a response. In this occasion, Jesus responded by using a little child to illustrate the lowly who would be great in the kingdom.  The little one then is compared with the one lost sheep among the ninety nine.  The little one, though powerless, is precious in the eyes of Jesus.

Yet, the discourse continues as it answers the main question, “Who is the greatest?” Our paragraph division of the Bible is not original.  So, the discourse moves to the brother who sins against you.  Who is the brother who sins against you?  Well, he must be related to the original context; he’s the little one.  If we imagine the parable of the lost sheep to be a sermon illustration, then the sinful brother discourse in Matt 18.15-20 would be the sermon body.  I do not want to rehash my previous blog about “two or three witnesses”. Rather, I want us to pay attention to the context.  Matthew, in a rare usage in the Gospels, used the word “church” even though the CHURCH has not been formed yet.  Thus, what does “church” mean in the Greek without having its religions meaning of the Christian church?  It actually means “assembly”.  In other words, the context of offense is to be addressed ultimately in the assembly (i.e. synagogue) where there’re ultimate authorities who would judge each case.  Although the sphere of such an assembly has its publicness, it is not the same kind of publicness of modern situations.  The closest comparable situation would be a modern church with a set authority counsel at the top to judge cases.

Then, Jesus answered Peter’s final inquiry about how many times forgiveness had to happen in Matt 18.21ff.  Allow me to observe that the forgiveness was given upon the erring brother (i.e. the little one) who would listen.  It was not a cheap forgiveness many modern abusers of scriptures put on their victims.  All forgiveness requires sincere acknowledgement that the offender is wrong and owes a debt to the offended (cf. Matthew 6.12).  The main concern of Matthew 18 is still for the little one, but more specifically, the repentant little one.  Jesus closed the discourse so strongly that whoever would not forgive the little one (i.e. the erring brother) who had repented, God would look upon the lack of forgiveness with gravity.  The discussion could well be the expansion from earlier and abbreviated teaching in Matthew 6.14-15.  Here, we’re still talking about the little one (aka the erring brother).

All right, the stage is set for comparison with the Rick Warren or Chai Ling case.  Let’s rehash our findings from our exegesis of Matthew 18.15-17

– The main issue: the little one (the one who has no power)

– The location for resolution: religious and semi-public space

– The offender: a weak erring “little one”

– The offense: a singular person against another singular person

– Solution: repentance followed by forgiveness

This layout will already give you the big difference between Jesus’ context and the context of Rick Warren’s Facebook or the Chinese government.  On his Facebook, what are our findings.
– The main issue: who is the little one?

– The location for resolution: public secular cyberspace called Facebook followed by blog sphere or news outlet for open letters such as Chai Ling’s.

– Solution: repentance followed by forgiveness

Let’s now see the differences.

– The main issue: who is the little one?  As a minority in American Christendom with a lesser voice, I would say the Asian Christians primarily are little ones (i.e. brothers and sisters).  Rick Warren is in the position of power.  So is the Chinese government who continues to abuse human rights not just of Christians but of all dissenting voices.  We already see the shifting of the main issue when we compare the situation of the Bible to this event.

– The location for resolution: public secular sphere

Here’s where a little understanding of geography will help us.  I know geographers like Chinglican here can say far more than I can imagine.  A location is just a place with no name unless we can see the function of the location.  In other words, the symbolism of each location, given by its name, has a purpose and function.  The function dictates what goes on in that place.  Already, we can see that Rick Warren’s Facebook is not the church community.  It is not the synagogue.  It is an open access space controlled by him and his staff.  Neither is any public outlet for news where open letters and interviews can be recorded.  There’s no assumed privacy of the church community. Rather, there’s a control exerted by those in power of the site.  Comments such as “why don’t you people stop boiling and eating cats and dogs” eventually would be deleted by the administrator (yes, this actually was posted against the Asians who were unhappy about the joke) without any need for remorse, handshake or reconciliation.  Unlike a synagogue or the church, there’s no “face-to-face” (pardon the pun) on Facebook.  The owner of the Facebook, in this case, Saddleback, can control the kind of image it projects and shape it like clay dough to present a positive public image.  A public apology, for instance, would make Pastor Rick look weak.  An apology and reparation from China would make it even look weaker, and that government must keep its facade of world power.  Instead, the deletion of the offensive posts and its many hateful comments would make the whole situation go away.  The same can go for censorship in China.  PR done!  This however is not how the church works.  You simply can’t put Matthew 18 on this kind of public sphere where the control falls into the hand of the powerful (web admin) instead of a council of elders of the synagogue or the church.  In fact, due to the power structure of the location, the offender can erase any offense with no trace of historical record.  Both cases amounts to revisionism and in the case of China, censorship.

Now imagine in my life of writing.  Writing something into words is already an activity of the public sphere. For example, if one of my books get reviewed and the reviewer got really offended at something I wrote, s/he has no obligation to do the Matthew 18.15-17 with me.  He can just write it up in a review.  Of course, a journal can contact me and ask me if I want to respond because a debate always increases readership.  I don’t have the obligation to respond either but I may, depending on what the reviewer sees as offensive.  He can say that my book is totally rubbish without me ever having to respond, and he would not violate Matthew 18.15-17.  Public spheres obligates the speaker and writer but not the readers and listeners in their responses.

In public sphere like Facebook where uneven balance of power exists, people can’t just hide behind a privacy text like Matthew 18.  Public abuse of any kind of power will get public backlash.  If one does not like it, then maybe Facebook is the wrong medium to communicate.  Scholars have argued that public expression and trespasses will carry public (not private, two or three witnesses) responsibility.  A friend also pointed out to me that the Niebuhrs did it, Barth did it, Tillich have all called out people on public responsibility.  Public speech is agonistic.  Public speech can be heated. If you don’t believe me, just look at all the posts that try to hint at application of Matthew 18 on any blog criticizing public boo boo’s of Christian celebrity.  Ironically, they posted the comments PUBLICLY in blogs, but not many Christians get the irony.  Unlike the church where there’s a degree of privacy and membership, public speech is confronted publicly. Public figurers have to bear that burden, unless they move away from the public square when they started.

So, let’s not mistake one location for another or one function of space for another, and focus on the similarity between the situation and the concern of the passage. If you look at the original post that was deleted, the lesser voice, the weaker voice, the little “brother” would be the Asian objectors.  Overwhelmingly, the strong voices were the “atta boy, Pastor Rick. It’s a funny joke.”  In the case of China, the little ones would be those who lost their lives, especially Christians who have lost theirs for no good reason other than believing in Jesus.  The strong voice over there in the government would be those who still claim that China (and its colony Hong Kong) has “relative freedom of speech.”  The emphasis, of course, is the word “relative”.

The manner of offense is also important, if we look at the location. The offense of which Matthew 18.15-17 speaks is from one person to another person or at most a very small group.  That is reasonable to assume because Jesus was dealing with 1st-century synagogue situation.  This is vastly different from the present case.  In this case, one singular person (whose influence eventually spreads to an entire group of his followers) offends an entire group. Sure, not every Asian is equally offended, but a very large percentage is.  Neither is every Chinese student leader equally offended at China (e.g. Chai Ling), but the publicness of the act and not personal/private feelings dictates the nature of offense.

Now, to our final point of real difference between the Rick Warren or Chai Ling/China case and the case of Matthew 18.15-17, who’s the offender and the offended?  As I said above, It’s a powerful person or government who offended an entire minority group (in the case of China, the minority would be those who spoke up for freedom and paid for it with their lives).  Though culture is a shifting sand, cultural offensive has an substantial dimension.  Matthew 18 clearly says that the biggest person is the little person.  In rape counseling, the private confrontation of rapist with victim does not work.  To force a victim to forgive face to face when the powerful rapist is committing the crime will only further victimize the victim.  Jesus was giving this command in the light of the situation when the offender was the weak little one, the erring brother, not the strong offender.  Jesus realized the power disparity needed to be handled carefully. Pastor Rick is a powerful person with a publicist and a huge church.  The Chinese government has the biggest cyber spying network to control information and to get the low-down on its good citizens.  The group he offended are the ignored minority in the whole butt of the joke he cracked.  In the case of China, the situation is even worse. How is any of this similar to Matthew 18?  I’m doing careful exegesis here.  We simply can’t do “fast and furious” with Jesus’ words, unless you don’t really believe his words mean all that much.  With powerful offenders, you deal with them a different way which Matthew 18.15-17 does not address.  If we want to be truly biblical, we can just read other parts of Matthew 18. For instance, Matthew 18.6 tells us that the powerful who stumble the little ones would be warned about a grave judgment the equivalence of having a millstone induced drowning.  In Matthew 18, there is not one way, but many ways depending on the power-relationship.  The main issue of the disciples’ questions is power.

The real issue of Matthew 18 is not to force the victim or the weaker party to forgive or to reach out.  The main issue of Matthew 18 is the power of the little one, not the powerful one.  Who then is the little person and how is his or her need being met? Not many are willing to address it.  Thus, if anyone wants to quote Matthew 18, let’s do serious exegesis and see what the real point is.  You’d be surprised by the result, and why not? The kingdom is surprising.  It is often not to our liking.  For Christians, the Bible doesn’t always have to say what we want it to say.  The Bible does not serve us.  Quotation of a few selected verses only does violence to the whole biblical message.

To summarize, the differences between Matthew 18.15-17 and the present situation com in four categories: main issue, power disparity, public/private spaces and the manner of offense.

My post shows that certain “magic bullet” passages we abuse only expose our inadequacy not only as interpreters, but also as theologians and even as geographers.  If you want to apply the text, at least get the sphere right.  The interpretation and application are dependent on three things: context, context, and context.

As I always say, the text is not the problem, the interpreter is.

 

PS. I do not want to dismiss some of the good work done by Chai Ling for women victims of the one-child policy in China, but her annual sharing about her forgiveness at the Tienanmen massacre anniversary betrays an incomplete understanding of biblical forgiveness.

 

PPS. My Matthew 18 sermon unrelated to the Rick Warren case can be found here.