Forgiveness and religious correctness
BOBBY FRANK CHERRY is set to spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the bombing deaths of four black girls in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. ''Justice has finally come to us,'' said Junie Collins Peavy, whose sister was among those killed at the 16th Street Baptist Church.
Yet justice alone can fall short in putting the past to rest. There is no bypassing the wrenching question of forgiveness -- of deciding whether the killers can, or even should, be forgiven. ''The law can't forgive,'' said Doug Jones, the lead prosecutor. ''People can forgive and move on.''
Forgiveness is more than a simple rite of religious correctness, though there are numerous religious teachings, from the Lord's Prayer in Christianity to the Buddhist concept of purifying evil. Forgiveness in Birmingham would require a deep intellectual and emotional commitment, just as it has when invoked during other moments of great pain. The underlying torment could be as specific and consuming as a child's murder, as vast and abstract as the mourning of war dead on Memorial Day, as confounding as a sexually abusive priest, as unfathomable as the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks, as uncharted as rebuilding broken societies.
The commitment to forgive might start small and cautiously, as some scholars believe it must be practiced and learned; or it might not start at all, rejected in its entirety as goodness gone blind or as mercy misplaced or as simply too much to ask of anyone.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate who wrote a book about reconciliation in South Africa, ''No Future Without Forgiveness,'' is an advocate of forgiveness, though he admits how troublesome it can be. He puts it in the context of the African concept of ''ubuntu'' -- that a person is only a person through other people.
Mr. Tutu was chairman of his country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which struggled to offer up forgiveness as an alternative to worsening racial hatreds. The commission held hundreds of hearings in which blacks and whites aired grievances about the past and, in instances, asked forgiveness from their enemies.
Though the commission had its failings, Mr. Tutu asserts that it spared South Africa the kind of civil unrest many had expected after the end of white-minority rule. He says forgiveness is an act of self-interest, because forgivers are released from the bonds that hold them captive to the forgiven. ''It is more relevant than ever before,'' said Mr. Tutu.
Roger W. Wilkins, a civil rights activist and history professor at George Mason University who has written a book, ''Jefferson's Pillow,'' about black patriotism despite the trials of slavery, describes himself as a believer in the healing power of forgiveness. He said white people often ask why blacks seem to be forgiving. There is a religious component to his answer, but a strong element of self-preservation too.
''After a while you figure it out for yourself: you can't be consumed by this stuff because then your oppressors have won,'' he said. ''If you are consumed by rage, even at a terrible wrong, you have been reduced.''
But events like the bombing in Birmingham help Mr. Wilkins recognize the limitations of forgiveness. In some cases, people can free their hearts of hatred without forgiving. Birmingham, he said, might be one of those cases. ''I really don't think it is necessary to forgive every act,'' he said. ''Where forgiveness applies to the Birmingham situation is what has happened in that city, and this is that blacks, by and large, have entered in the life of the city and they don't hold Bull Connor against white people who live in the city.''
A more personal forgiveness is made difficult in Birmingham because the killers have not sought it; Mr. Cherry denied his guilt even after the verdict. ''There has to be some show of respect or remorse,'' said Mr. Jones, the prosecutor. ''For there to be true forgiveness, it has to come from both sides.''
Yet that did not happen, at least at first, in the case of Amy Biehl, a Fulbright scholar from Southern California who was stoned and stabbed to death in South Africa in 1993. Her killing stunned that country, but more shocking for many people was the forgiving response of her parents, Peter J. and Linda Biehl.
The Biehls quit their jobs to work full time on racial reconciliation. They testified in favor of political amnesty for the killers. They even offered two of them jobs. ''To us it is liberating to forgive,'' Mr. Biehl, who died on March 31, once said.
A T the time, the Biehls' crusade seemed preposterous, almost beyond human. But that view changed in the past decade as forgiveness evolved into a more mainstream tool of holistic healing, conflict resolution and self-help.
There are now university research programs dedicated to it. There are books about its wellness power. There are even Web sites where people can request it.
Dr. Frederic M. Luskin, a psychologist who is director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project, said a series of unconnected events helped bring about a forgiveness surge. There were scientific studies about its health benefits. There was also a growing public acceptance of the connection between spirituality and wellness. Even Bill Clinton helped, by bringing forgiveness into the public lexicon after his impeachment acquittal.
Some scholars draw an important distinction between seeking forgiveness and offering an apology. Forgiveness requires an act of contrition. ''You are opening up a dialogue if you ask for forgiveness, but when you say you are sorry, you are shrugging it off,'' said Garry Wills, a professor of history at Northwestern University. With Mr. Clinton's impeachment, Mr. Wills said, there was no real forgiveness because the former president fell short on contrition.
Similarly, Mr. Wills said he believes Roman Catholic bishops and priests involved in the sexual abuse scandals couldn't be forgiven unless they admit wrongdoing and try to undo it. In the early church, he said, sinners were expelled and allowed back only after expressing sorrow and undergoing a period of public humiliation. If they tripped up a second time, there was no coming back.
The Rev. Michael Lapsley, who was an anti-apartheid activist, talked about Sept. 11 forgiveness on a recent visit to New York. He is familiar with the notion of the facelessness of some evildoers -- when he was a chaplin for the African National Congress he lost an eye and both hands after he opened an anonymous letter bomb in 1990.
Forgiveness, Father Lapsley says, is a matter of choice, and since the American government ultimately responded militarily to the terror attacks, many Americans never examined any alternatives. Yet because so many worldwide shared in America's horror and grief over Sept. 11, he explained, ''Your pain has been acknowledged. That gives you freedom to take a position away from war and hatred and revenge.''
But what about hunting down the perpetrators? What about justice?
In June, the Rev. Myrna Bethke, a member of the September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, will travel to Kabul with an interfaith delegation. Ms. Bethke, a Methodist minister in Freehold, N.J., had a brother who was killed at the World Trade Center.
She says she has forgiven his killers, but makes a distinction between retaliation, which she is against, and consequences, which she is for. She is going to Kabul in part to help remind herself that the people there have names and faces -- making it harder to want to retaliate against them.
Forgiving her brother's killers, she says, released her from a tremendous burden. ''You are free to live again,'' Ms. Bethke said.
It is that burden that Dr. Luskin of Stanford is interested in better understanding. The author of ''Forgive for Good,'' he has championed the physical as well as the emotional benefits of forgiveness.
But with complex events like Sept. 11, the road to forgiveness is long. He uses the metaphor of a train. People get on the train but must make various stops before forgiveness becomes a way off. The trick is not to miss your stop.
Dr. Luskin suggested Americans are not good at forgiveness and should practice with little things. For example, don't get angry when the sales clerk dawdles.
FORGIVENESS has been a theme for the playwright Tony Kushner. He won a Pulitzer for his drama, ''Angels in America,'' which featured a stunning scene in which the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg says a prayer of mourning over Roy M. Cohn, who was instrumental in obtaining her death sentence.
Mr. Kushner says his work has been inspired, at least in part, by the fall of the Soviet Union and the need for nations to make peace with their unhappy pasts. To forgive, he says, you must believe a greater good than your personal revenge lies ahead. Because of that, he says forgiveness, like grieving, is intensely private and cannot be judged by others.
''They are incredibly deep inner processes, not observable really,'' he said. ''They are some of the most isolated and most private experiences in life.''
Sissela Bok, the author and philosopher, said in considering forgiveness, it is important to consider the consequences of not forgiving. ''Just because someone has done something to you that you find unforgivable, that in no way justifies you doing the same,'' she said.
New York Times
Tues. Feb.17 2009
Ideas & Trends: Letting Go; Beyond Justice: The Eternal Struggle to Forgive
By DEAN E. MURPHY
Published: May 26, 2002
