I look at folks around who are Christian; I observe their behaviors and they do not jive with
what I garnered should be the behaviors of Christians. Given this perceived
contradiction, I ask myself: who is a Christian and are there, in fact, true Christians?
Is a Christian a person
who simply states that he is a Christian even if he does not behave as the New
Testament part of the Bible said that Christians should behave? There is
no doubt whatsoever that Jesus taught love and forgiveness. In the Sermon on
the Mount (Mathew, 5: 43-48) he asked his followers to love all people and to
forgive their enemies (Mathew 5: 38-42).
He said that if a person
slaps one of your cheeks you should turn the other cheek for him to slap, too
(Mathew, 5:39-40). He said that if a thief asks for your coat you should also
give him the entire clothes that you are wearing (Mathew, 5: 40-42). In the
only prayer that he taught his followers, the Lord’s Prayer, he told his
followers to forgive those who trespassed against them if they want God to
forgive them their own trespasses (Mathew: 6: 5-14).
In the adulterer’s
scene, the Jews brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus and asked him what
they should do to her (John, 8: 4-11). Their Old Testament asked them to punish
her, stone her to death. Jesus told them to forgive her; he said, let him who
has not sinned be the first to stone her.
In the story of a man
going to worship God and remembered that a neighbor wronged him, Jesus said
that he must first go home and forgive his neighbor before he worships God
(Mark, 11:25). He implied that you must first forgive people before you pray to
God and ask him for anything; if you have not forgiven folks God will hear your
prayer all right and respond to them but you will not receive what he has given
to you until you forgive those who wronged you.
How many times should we
forgive those who wronged us, Peter asked Jesus? He said seventy times; that
is, infinitely (Mathew 18: 21-22). Jesus walked his talk. Before he died he
forgave those who crucified him; he said, father, forgive them because they do
not know what they are doing (Luke, 23:34).
There is no doubt
whatsoever that Jesus taught his followers to forgive folks and love one
another. He said: do unto other people as you want them to do to you. We want
other people to love us, so we should love them (Mathew, 7: 12). He said that
all the laws and prophecies can be summarized thus: love your God with your whole
heart and love all your neighbors as you love yourself (Luke, 10: 26-27).
If it is the case that
the essence of Christianity is love and forgiveness, how come Christians do not
love and forgive those who wronged them, why do they want to punish those who
wronged them? Christians, I have observed, are like other people:
they bear grievances and grudges against those who injured them and seek
vengeance for those who harmed them in the past; why do so if the Lord and
savior told us to love and forgive people?
We could say that the
same Jesus asked his disciples to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to
God what belongs to God (Mark, 12: 17). Caesar, that is, secular authority
requires society to have laws that punished evil people, so Christians merely
go along with the laws of their society and punish evil people.
Indeed, a book that
fascinated me, A COURSE IN MIRACLES emphasizes
forgiveness; it teaches that when we forgive one another we are able to
deemphasize the validity of this world. To forgive is to overlook the reality
of the evil forgiven. Since the world is an evil place to forgive is to overlook
the world. It says that when we completely forgive those who harmed us we have
overlooked the reality of this evil world and have done what Jesus did,
overcome the world.
The book’s teachings
interest me even though I realize that it is not doable in this world, for in
this world we have to defend our bodies and egos to live here and if we do not
defend our egos and bodies with food, medications, clothes shelter and socials we
would die.
IS FORGIVENESS IMPRACTICAL?
In thinking about this
conundrum, I reached the sad conclusion that forgiveness is not always easily
practiced. Forgiveness is an abstract concept that religions talk about but
real people do not practice.
Our experience in the
real world is that if we forgive evil doers, forgiveness does not seem to deter
them from further evil behaviors. There is not a shred of empirical evidence
that forgiveness stops anti-social behaviors.
Throughout history, no
human society practiced forgiveness as its social policy. Thus, it can be understood
why a lot of Christians do not do what the Lord asked us to do, love and
forgive one another.
From pure reason it is
clear that given human beings inherent freedom and proclivity to evil that some
people will always choose to harm other people. You can stand on
your head and call yourself a Christian but in as much as you do not do what
Jesus told you to do you, love and forgive at all times, in my view you are not
a true Christians.
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