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Forgiveness: A Dissent
“What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions?”
Virtually every religious tradition, as well as every new religious movement, affirms the necessity of forgiveness. Turning the other cheek and forgiving the transgressor are at the heart of Christianity. This principle is less pronounced but still deep seated in Judaism. Forgiveness resonates, albeit with different rationales, in Vedic traditions. To forgive is at the center of modern spiritual philosophies like the Twelve Steps and A Course in Miracles.
Friends whom I consider brilliant have argued to me, with persuasiveness, that without forgiveness history could not march forward: Jews could never forgive Germans, Armenians could never forgive Turks, Japanese could never forgive Americans. My friend Richard Smoley writes with sterling precision in his book The Deal that forgiveness is the one escape hatch we are given from our own karma — and that we will soon enough require the same forgiveness we offer another.
I have worked intently with forgiveness for seven years. I have prayed, pondered, assayed, and studied. I reject the moral imperative of forgiveness.
My reason, in the end, is simple: I believe that the moral suasion to forgive often places the individual in an unnatural position and produces inner division that gets diverted…
