I forgive you.

It is so easy to say; But what does it mean?

It seems that so many Christian communities proclaim in the same attitude as their other proclamations of belief—without the statement being truly reflective of something happening within *and without*. Just like many people proclaim a belief in Jesus as Lord without it having any material change in their life, so the same with forgiveness.

We say I forgive you, not to describe an event within our life, rather all too often it is used as a means of subversive control and power. All too often we are too quick to assert our forgiveness when we have no desire to change ourselves.

True forgiveness never leaves the forgiver unchanged. To truly forgive requires taking the burden from the forgivee, something much more difficult and long term than a simple ‘ernest’ statement. What all to often happens, in the statement of forgiveness, is a desire by someone to gain or retain control over another. This is a veiled attempt to turn the tables of power. The forgiver attempts to assert their power over the forgivee by ‘offering’ their forgiveness. This ‘offering’ allows the forgiver to be perceived as humble, all the while forcing a position of weakness upon the forgivee by creating a situation where they much receive their ‘gift’ of forgiveness. This allows the forgiver, whose place is one of ‘giving’, to keep control over the transaction.

I recently came across the quote Mahatma Gandhi, “forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”. This quote coupled with the context of Katharine Sarah Moody‘s recent posts on Nietzsche‘s understanding of master/slave morality, I can’t help but think that all too often forgiveness is manipulated into a slave morality will to power, a desire to control through manipulation of meek humbleness.

I also think this idea can go the other way. All to often we falsely humble ourselves by asking for forgiveness, apologizing for our mistakes—not because we really seek change, but rather because we desire to get out of the immediate problem. After the problem is resolved, we revert to our old ways. This is classically seen in the cases of domestic abuse.

It’s easy to say things which satisfy another’s ego while never intending to actually act upon those words. I wonder what a way forward would be towards reclaiming the truly revolutionary aspect of forgiveness—a conception so powerful, no wonder forgiveness would be circumvented.