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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2010
The aim of this article is to provide a provisional review and evaluation of recent Christian endorsements of the notion of political forgiveness. Attention is given to the doctrine of forgiveness in the New Testament and to its distinctive theological grammar. The chief theological features of Christian accounts of political forgiveness are outlined, before a number of weaknesses in the literature are identified and discussed. The implication of our discussion is that Christian love is expressed in two different ways, that of forgiveness upon repentance within the church and that of justice tempered by mercy in the socio-political realm.
1 Reported in the Guardian, 7 March 2006.
2 See Tutu, Desmond, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999)Google Scholar.
3 Martin, David, ‘The Christian, the Political and the Academic’, Sociology of Religion 55 (2004), pp. 341–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Forgiveness in International Politics (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2004).
5 Shriver, Donald W. Jr., An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 33–62Google Scholar.
6 de Gruchy, John, Reconciliation: Restoring Justice (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002)Google Scholar.
7 Torrance, Alan, ‘Forgiveness: The Essential Socio-Political Structure of Personal Being’, Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 56 (1986), pp. 47–59Google Scholar; and ‘On Whether Forgiveness has Boundaries’, in Storrar, W. F. and Morton, A. R. (eds), Public Theology for the 21st Century: Essays in Honour of Duncan B. Forrester (London: T & T Clark, 2004), pp. 303–13Google Scholar.
8 Volf, Miroslov, ‘Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Justice: A Theological Contribution to a More Peaceable Social Environment’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29 (2000), pp. 861–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Wolterstorff, Nicholas, ‘The Place of Forgiveness in the Actions of the State’, in Philpott, D. (ed.), The Politics of Past Evil: Religion, Reconciliation and the Dilemmas of Transitional Justice (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2006), pp. 87–111Google Scholar.
10 The contributors to such symposia as Helmick, R. G. and Petersen, R. L. (eds), Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Religion, Public Policy and Conflict Transformation (Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2001)Google Scholar.
11 The argument is usually of the form that God loves unconditionally, the quality of unconditional forgiveness is an aspect of God's love, therefore we should forgive unconditionally; see Hughes, John, ‘The Politics of Forgiveness: A Theological Exploration of King Lear’, Modern Theology 17 (2001), pp. 261–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who states that ‘forgiveness is Christian charity’, p. 271 (his emphasis).
12 Volf, Miroslov, Exclusion and Embrace (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), pp. 99–165Google Scholar.
13 In the LXX aphiemis and aphiemi are used to translate a range of Hebrew words; see Bultmann, R., ‘Aphiemi’, in Kittel, Gerhard (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964), p. 510Google Scholar.
14 Vorländer, H., ‘Forgiveness’, in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975), p. 701Google Scholar.
15 E.g. Rudolf Bultmann, Theological Dictionary of the NT, vol. 1, p. 512; Westerholm, Stephen, Perspectives Old and New on Paul (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 56Google Scholar.
16 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), p. 428Google Scholar.
17 Manson, T. W., On Paul and John (London: SCM Press, 1963), p. 52Google Scholar.
18 Forgiveness is the gaol and consequence of repentance; see Albrecht Oepke, ‘Eis’, in Gerhard Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the NT, vol. 2, pp. 420–34, particularly p. 429, and M. J. Harris, ‘Eis’, in Colin Brown (ed.), New International Dictionary of NT Theology, vol. 3, pp. 1184–99, and pp. 1208–9.
19 Moule, C. F. D., ‘The Christian Understanding of Forgiveness’, Theology 71 (1968), pp. 435–43, 442CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 De Gruchy, Reconciliation, p. 46.
21 Shogren, Gary S., ‘Forgiveness (NT)’, in Freedman, N. (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), p. 835Google Scholar.
22 E.g. Lennon, Brian, ‘Review Article: An Ethic for Enemies’, Studies 85 (1996), pp. 381–7Google Scholar.
23 The qualification about guilt allows forgiveness for those who, for different reasons, can be expected to commit the same offence again and so strictly speaking cannot be treated as if they had never done wrong. The qualification also allows for taking account of the consequences of wrongdoing or the exercise of discipline.
24 Dancy, Jonathan, Moral Reasons (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), p. 127Google Scholar.
25 A reading of David Konstan's study of the concept of pity in ancient Greece and Rome reveals the extent to which it and the related concept of forgiveness assumed prominence in the West only with the coming of Christianity; see Konstan, David, Pity Transformed (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2001), pp. 105–24Google Scholar.
26 Jenson, Peter, ‘Forgiveness and Atonement’, Scottish Journal of Theology 46 (1993), pp. 141–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 See note 7, to which may be added his more recent contribution to this theme, Torrance, Alan, The Theological Grounds for Advocating Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the Sociopolitical Realm (Belfast: Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland, 2006)Google Scholar.
28 Ibid., pp. 27–9.
29 Shriver, Donald W. Jr., An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics, and his more recent Honest Patriots: Loving a Country Enough to Remember its Misdeeds (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; de Gruchy, Reconciliation.
30 As in Hughes, ‘The Politics of Forgiveness’, who identifies forgiveness with non-violent opposition to violence, p. 270; also Miroslov Volf in ‘Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Justice’, pp. 863–6, and in Exclusion and Embrace, pp. 275–306.
31 De Gruchy, Reconciliation, p. 172; and the references listed in notes 6–10.
32 For most secular writers the end of hostilities is the sine qua non of forgiveness and reconciliation, as e.g. Govier, Trudy, Taking Wrongs Seriously (New York: Humanity Books, 2006), p. 17Google Scholar.
33 See Wright's, N. T. discussion of repentance in the Synoptic Gospels in Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), pp. 246–58Google Scholar; also see Schottroff, Luise, ‘Das Gleichnis vom verloren Sohn’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 68 (1971), pp. 27–52Google Scholar.