“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
This verse in Matthew 6 has long been used, alongside others, to promote a misguided theology of forgiveness. This misreading requires those who have been hurt to face the one who has hurt them, offering them the same forgiveness that God has so readily given to them.
Not only does this gravely decontextualize Matthew 6:14-15, but it also places victims of abuse in harm’s way. It is an ideology that perpetuates harm rather than mitigating it.
When I left my abusive ex-husband, it was a decision to protect my emotional, mental, spiritual and physical well-being. When I met him in court to finalize a divorce, our communication was filtered through a lawyer.
In the aftermath of our marriage and in the three healthier years since, never once have I considered the option of forgiving him face to face.
And yet, time and time again, victims of domestic violence are urged by church leaders to forgive. To reconcile. To extend a spirit of compassion toward those who have hurt them, lest God turn a blind eye toward them as a result.
Jesus’s words from the Gospel of Matthew, unsurprisingly, take place within a specific context. He has just taught his disciples how to pray. Verses 14-15 come directly after Jesus’s modeling of the Lord’s Prayer.
Some would argue that the phrase “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” in verse 12 further supports the need to forgive those who have wronged us.
My response, however, isn’t to rescind the spiritual mandate to forgive. It’s to redefine what it means to forgive.
What in Matthew 6 implies, let alone states explicitly, that forgiveness is something that can only work face-to-face? In fact, isn’t it more likely that this forgiveness of our debtors takes place within the context of prayer, given that prayer is the subject at hand?
Church leaders have co-opted forgiveness to simply mean reciting the words, “I forgive you.” Moreover, they have weaponized God’s forgiveness to relegate our responsibility to forgive others to a guilt-induced necessity.
This sentiment goes, “Surely, we must forgive those who have wronged us since we ourselves have so gravely wronged God.” This approach to forgiveness leads to many potential harms.
For those who have survived abuse, particularly an intimate partner, this theology of forgiveness places them in physical danger. To expect an abuse survivor to look their abuser in the eyes is not an act of grace; it is an abuse of spiritual authority.
To further justify this by weaponizing God’s grace is to compound the emotional manipulation that the survivor has already experienced. My call to the church is this: Stop.
We can no longer discuss forgiveness without caveats. We can no longer expect those who have been hurt so egregiously to ignore that hurt. We can no longer define forgiveness as an interpersonal exchange.
If forgiveness means literally to “let go,” as the Greek translation suggests, then we need to better define it as the act of letting go.
I hold no ill will toward my ex-husband. I would be lying if I didn’t still harbor some level of anger at the injustice of my experience. But I am also healed, in no small part, thanks to the providence of God to open door after door amidst the after-pains of abuse.
When we forgive, we let go of the power that someone held over us. For victims of abuse, it is often impossible to meet an abuser face to face and retain power. This means that a face-to-face interaction would actually undermine the power of forgiveness, not empower it.
My ex no longer takes up my emotional bandwidth or mental capacity. And that is forgiveness.
I can now talk about my experience with openness and honesty. That, too, is forgiveness. I have let God take up all the spaces that my ex-husband forced himself into and that is forgiveness.
When we talk about forgiveness, we have to provide victims of abuse with the knowledge that simply letting go is enough. More than enough, even. More than their abusers deserve, in fact.
Forgiveness and anger can coexist. Forgiveness and sadness can coexist.
Forgiveness and boundaries can coexist. In fact, they should.
We have too long ignored the abuses perpetuated by our faulty theologies of forgiveness. It is time to change the rhetoric, recreate the narrative, and make a meaningful effort to redefine what forgiveness means. Lives are at stake.