Forgivness explained

In recent years there's been a growing trend among certain Social Justice inclined Leftists on YouTube and elsewhere to say that society's overvaluing of Forgiveness is bad actually, especially the Christian value of it being a moral failing not to Forgive.

The first problem is that the word "forgive" itself is another one of those words used in English Bibles that was still an accurate translation in 1611 but in how it's usage has evolved has become misunderstood.

The expression "forgive and forget" is often said with the implication that the former can't be done without also doing the latter, but that is not what Biblical Forgiveness is.  In The Bible only God is said to Forgive and Forget in Jeremiah 31:34 "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." and Hebrew 8:12 "For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." and also 10:17, but that is ultimately Eschatological, it's about how things will be when the very existence of Sin has been eliminated.

The word "forgive" is an economic term in origin, to forgive a debt is to relinquish any expectation or even desire to be repaid.  And The Bible especially The New Testament's discussions of the concept are explicitly linked to that economic understanding, the "Parable of the unforgiving servant" in Matthew 18:21-35 is textually entirely about debt forgiveness, it's relevance to moral forgiveness is the metaphor.  That's why "earned" forgiveness is any oxymoron, if they somehow actually made up for what they did (which is usually not possible) then in this analogy they repaid the debt, no forgiveness is necessary.

Forgiving someone doesn't mean trusting a person who's proven themselves untrustworthy, or acting like nothing happened.  And Forgiving an abuser doesn't mean staying in or returning to a relationship with them.

The New Testament's emphasis on Forgiveness is entirely about rejecting Retributive/Punitive Justice.  And so this post is not me saying this common SJW position on forgiveness is actually perfectly compatible with Scripture, because these people mostly are in favor of Retributive Justice, even if they say they are not, you can say you prefer "Restorative Justice" all you want but if you have the attitude that it's a horrible injustice for a person not to be "punished" even though punishing them will not actually undo any of the harm they did, that's retributive justice.

But I'm not done yet talking about areas where I'm on their side of this issue.  One of the few morals common in Anime I don't like is how some seem to say children always owe something to their parents no matter how abusive and/or neglectful they were, this is part of joyce-stick's problem with the Mahou Shoujo Site Manga (the Anime hasn't gotten that far), and it bugged me in Clannad After Story.  On the blog that is primarily me talking about Anime I did a psot on After Story before I'd finished it appreciating it's found family element with an MC who's biological father was a drunken neglectful failure finding a surrogate father in Nagisa's father.  The problem is the show later devotes an arc to him reconciling with his father and even goes so far as tell him he did nothing wrong.

And I know a lot of Christians think this sense of unconditional loyalty to a sperm donor is Biblical because of the Fifth Commandment.  But in my opinion one has to do more then give birth to you and let you live in their house till a certain age to be worthy of the title of Father or Mother.  The New Testament is all about how true Family has nothing to do with biological relation.  So you can forgive a bad parent in the proper understanding of forgiveness I laid out above, but to "Honor" them as your Mother or Father when they weren't one would actually violate the Fifth Commandment by diminishing that Honor.

The Biblical understanding of Forgiveness and Atonement and Redemption is also easier to understand when you properly understand what Sin means and the materialist understanding that no one is entirely responsible for their own actions.

There is also the Psychological fact that for many people forgiving someone was good for their own mental health, finally being able to do it felt like a burden being removed.  The Bible even applies this to God Forgiving us in Isaiah 43:25 "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins".

I guess it's time to get into how this ties into the discourse surrounding Redemption narratives in fiction.  One fairly well known Video Essay on the topic I can't remember the name of right now talks about a distinction between passive redemption and active atonement, being redeemed vs redeeming themselves, the former is as they acknowledge what The Christian Gospel is about but the latter is what she prefers.  The thing is this preference for "earned" redemption is a form of Meritocracy, a key pillar of the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

That video was cited in a Sailor Moon Video that's not watchable anymore because of Toei's incomprehensible copyright standards, I'm pretty sure it was a Unicorn of War video but I could be remembering that wrong.  It was about The Blaok Moon Saga of Sailor Moon and comparing different versions of it.  Now for this saga I am mostly in agreement that the 90s Anime version was a failure.  But this issue came up in the context of how they don't like the redemption of the Spectre Sister because it's passive redemption, and their redemption arc is one of the few aspects of the 90s Anime version I like.  Now in fairness the 3 episodes that cover their redemptions are not all equal, the forcing Calaveras and Petz to share the same spotlight episode again was ill advised, and Bertheir's felt uninspired.  But the Koan episode is one of my favorite episodes of the series and like most good episodes during this saga was written by Katsuyuki Sumisaya.

Ya know how there was this variation of Universal Salvation that framed it as those in Gehenna being let out when the Saints themselves ask Jesus to show Mercy?  Augustine alludes to it in City of God as the second most popular soteriology he doesn't like, and it's the form presented in the Apocalypse of Peter.  Well the Koan redemption episode of Sailor Moon really works as an analogy to that version of Universal Salvation.

Now there are many variation on this anti-Forgiveness attitude out there.  Lily Orchard is not representative of most, but I feel I have to bring her up because she's the most extreme, she is very vocally Revenge is Good actually and it's kind of insane to see a supposed Leftist being this in love with Retributive Justice, she kind of just debunks her own worldview by actually saying it out loud.