To A Conscience Pricked More Than Christ's On the Cross

Quickly and unrelated to the intentions of the post, I want to point out the Biden Administration is signaling that people are now going to have to search for work and take a job if offered. This is another in a pattern of admissions against interest where the Biden Administration says there is no problem while also recognizing there is one and moves to fix the problem. This behavior will just breed cynicism.

Also, using taxpayer funds to make unemployment competitive with employment so employers are forced to raise wages to attract back employees is not a free market supply and demand issue. In fact, it distorts the free market and forces the private sector to compete against the government’s use of taxpayer dollars, something the private sector cannot compete against.

Now, on to more pressing topics.

I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness. It is one of the subjects on which I have preached and it is in my mind of late because of this excellent piece by Tim Keller.

The Western ideas of human rights, universal benevolence of the poor, and social justice have deep roots in biblical religion. That is why they arose in the West, and why Christians can so often be allies with secular people who are working for racial and economic justice. But when Christians rooted their moral norms in the divine justice of God, that also meant grounding them in the divine mercy of God. So patience, mercy, and forgiveness of wrongdoers has always been part of the Christian ethic. But today’s honour culture does not root its moral absolutes in the divine. Some, such as Samuel Moyn, admit that secular progressive values have historically Christian roots but argue that we now see them as self-evident and in need of no connection to religious doctrine. In other words, we no longer ground our values in the sacred. We simply treat the values themselves as sacred.

But this leads to at least three bad outcomes. The first is the arbitrariness of the values. “It is evil and wrong to speak to person X in this way.” The response is, “Who says it is wrong?” The only possible answer is a power move. “It’s wrong because we say so.” The second is the inconsistency and incoherence of the approach. Its proponents hold their values as being beyond debatable while at the same time insisting that all others’ norms are socially constructed. The third is the lack of provision for mercy and forgiveness. When the moral norms are detached from faith in a just God, it detaches them also from faith in a merciful and forgiving God. In such a “secular religion,” deviation from norms is simply unforgiveable.

The whole essay is worth reading, but I want to add something relevant to Christians in politics. The “wokes” are not the only ones capable of lacking forgiveness or refusing to show grace. The more we worship at the altar of politics, the more we do it too.

Tribalism in politics is a real problem even for the Christian. In the post-modern era, we display our tribal loyalty like the birds we see in the Planet Earth series. We dance, preen, flash our feathers, and perform. We rally to our side in shows of loyalty, regardless of the merits. We denounce people with whom we have long had cordial relationships if they dare seem heterodox to the views of the tribe. We embrace those with real heterodox opinions because their views now align with our tribe’s, at least temporarily. Later, we will shun them, shame them, and denounce them as we have our friends and colleagues who have dared not to be part of the tribe.

There’s a sense of bullying and the need to call out others, hoping to shame them and bring them back into the fold not through grace, but through ridicule. It is a performance for tribal virtue.

I see this play out daily on Twitter where conservative friend X now has a disagreement with conservative friend Y and now conservative friend Y is not a conservative and probably never was a conservative and please pay no attention to all the years we’ve interacted in concert with each other on the same side. Now every hill is a hill to die on and if you aren’t prepared to die on all the hills, you’re a heretic and outcast who must be denounced by tweet and a thousand word essay at some recently established website because all the previously established websites are squishy sell outs.

Even better is the person who hangs on to that one thing someone said a decade ago as proof that person is awful and every act now and every statement now must be interpreted through whatever made you angry with that person a decade ago.

Personally, I am amazed how thirty year old Erick Erickson still lives rent free in other people’s heads fifteen years later. I’m equally amazed at how my refusal to honor tribal commitments and engage in tribal ritual means I’m somehow not a conservative because the convictions I have held for a decade or more have not changed.

It’s like the commentary on Cheney and Stefanik. Liz Cheney will be departing from leadership for a variety of reasons and replaced with someone whose record is not just less conservative than Cheney’s, but also less aligned with Trump than Cheney’s. But Stefanik engages in performance for the tribe while Cheney chooses not. Therefore, self-described conservatives would prefer the moderate to liberal record of someone who voted against Trump’s tax cuts and his border wall and his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord to someone who supported Trump on those issues because that person dares to say truthful things.¹ More tragically, pretty much all of the GOP in the House, including Kevin McCarthy, agrees with Cheney, but just won’t say it and resents Cheney being so public about the views they almost all privately hold. Equally tragic are those, and I’d put Cheney in this camp, demand of others their own performance, creed, statement, and public act of repudiation. Neither lets the other go. One can’t move forward and the other can’t reflect honestly on the past. Each binds the other with their grievance.

That gets me to a very simple point.

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. Luke 23:32-34 (ESV)

A lot of people in the church struggle with forgiveness. Sometimes they tell themselves (and others) that they have, in fact, forgiven, but that is different from really forgiving. Of course, they let their memory poison their actions moving forward. They cannot begin again anew in a relationship or keep a relationship because they’ve let their mind fester, rightly or wrongly. They cannot move on, nor can they let the other person move on.

They are actually tacitly saying their conscience has been pricked more than Christ’s on the cross. Beaten, bleeding, in pain, and dying on the cross, Christ could still forgive those who savaged and killed him. But those who linger and choose to show no forgiveness or grace are claiming they were treated worse than Christ.

You either forgive or you do not. If you forgive, you move on. Clinging to the hurt, the anger, the rage, or the tribal perception of infidelity may make one feel powerful, in control, or protected, but it is actually signaling a desire to not be Christ like. It is a desire for more than Christ allows for those who chose to become Christ like.

Forgiveness is essential in politics, religion, and life. Forgiveness does not mean many things. But it does mean forgiveness and that, in turn, means one must choose to move on and not linger. Christ Jesus, after moving on from forgiving, no longer lingered on the cross, but died and conquered death.

For too many, lingering and refusing to forgive makes us feel alive and powerful. But we have to die to sleights and rage to fully live as we are meant by Christ to live.

1. To be fair, however, Cheney is also being booted because many of her colleagues have harbored grudges against her for picking sides in primaries, criticizing members at risk in the election, and a perception she wants them all to publicly reject Trump when many of them believe they are in no position to do so.