Undeserved forgiveness

[Snowden]

Undeserved forgiveness
By Jeff Jacoby

"THERE WAS not one desk, not one chair, in the whole schoolroom that was not splattered with either blood or glass. There were bullet holes everywhere — everywhere."

That description is from Janice Ballenger, a deputy coroner in Lancaster County, Pa. She was among the first to enter the West Nickel Mines Amish School after Charles Roberts murdered five girls and severely wounded five others there last week. One of the bodies she examined was that of Naomi Rose Ebersol , a 7-year-old who had been shot 20 times.

How do civilized human beings react to such an atrocity? With horror? Anger? Hatred?

Not the Amish.

Asked by a reporter if the community was angry about the killings, one Amish grandmother, Lizzie Fisher, was adamant. "Oh, no, no, definitely not," she said. "People don't feel that around here. We just don't."

Roberts planned his attack meticulously, making a list of supplies he would need, then gradually buying them over a six-day period. It makes the skin crawl just to read the inventory: nails, bolts, wrenches, bullets, guns, earplugs, wooden planks, rope. Roberts brought plastic ties to bind his victims' feet, chains and clamps for restraint, and tubes of K-Y Jelly, a sexual lubricant. Apparently he "planned to dig in for the long siege," a Pennsylvania State Police colonel surmised, and "intended to victimize these children in many ways prior to executing them."

Confronted with such premeditated malevolence, what decent person wouldn't seethe with fury and revulsion? What parent or grandparent wouldn't regard such a massacre as not only unspeakable, but well nigh unforgivable?

The Amish wouldn't.

"I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive," one Lancaster County resident was quoted as saying. "We don't need to think about judgment; we need to think about forgiveness and going on." Many townspeople announced their forgiveness of Roberts directly to his wife and children .

On CNN, a local pastor recounted how the grandfather of Marian Fisher, one of the murdered girls, told younger relatives not to hate Roberts for killing her.

"As we were standing next to the body of this 13-year-old girl, the grandfather was tutoring the young boys, he was . . . saying to the family, `We must not think evil of this man,' " said the Rev. Robert Schenck. "It was one of the most touching things I have seen in 25 years of Christian ministry."

I can't deny that it is deeply affecting to see how seriously the Amish strive to heed Jesus' admonition to return good for evil and turn the other cheek. For many Christians, the Amish determination to forgive their daughters' murder is awe-inspiring. In his Beliefnet blog, the eloquent Rod Dreher marvels at CNN's story of the Amish grandfather. "Could you do that?" he writes. "Could you stand over the body of a dead child and tell the young not to hate her killer? I could not. Please, G-d, make me into the sort of man who could."

But hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved. I admire the Amish villagers' resolve to live up to their Christian ideals even amid heartbreak, but how many of us would really want to live in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered? In which even the most horrific acts of cruelty were always and instantly forgiven? There is a time to love and a time to hate, Ecclesiastes teaches. If anything deserves to be hated, surely it is the pitiless murder of innocents.

To voluntarily forgive those who have hurt you is beautiful and praiseworthy. That is what Jesus did on the cross, what Christians do when they say the Lord's Prayer, what observant Jews do when they recite the bedtime Krias Sh'ma. But to forgive those who have hurt — who have murdered — someone else? I cannot see how the world is made a better place by assuring someone who would do terrible things to others that he will be readily forgiven afterward, even if he shows no remorse.

There are indications that the killer in this case may have been in the grip of depression or delusion . Perhaps it was madness more than evil that drove him to commit this horror, in which case forgiveness might be more understandable.
But the Amish make it clear that their reaction would be the same either way. I wish them well, but I would not want to be like them, reacting to terrible crimes with dispassion and absolution. "Let those who love the Lord hate evil," the Psalmist writes. The murder of the Amish girls was a deeply hateful evil. There is nothing godly about pretending it wasn't.

Jeff Jacoby

[conlor]

There's enough anger among the rest of the world to cover the guy. Forgiven is suppose to be a spiritual thing, but it's hard to forgive some people.

[milmor_1]

I find people like the Amish amazing in the way they can forgive those who hurt them.

They remind me of a man from Northern Ireland, a gentle soul by the name of Gordon Wilson. Bothe he and his dauughter were present in Enniskillen Co Fermanagh, when the IRA detonated a Bomb during a Rememberance Day Parade in the 1980s.

Both he and his daughter were buried under the rubble (as were many others), Gordon Wilson lay close to his daughter. His daughter died holding his hand.

Despite this Gordon Wilson went on to publicly state that he forgave the people who had brought this devastation to his town and his family.

His reasoning was hatred would NOT bring his daughter or the other people back so what was the point in it. Perhaps forgiveness might make them see the grief they were causing. The Amish remind me so much of this gentle man.

I have to be honest and say I could NOT see myself react in Mr Wilson's or the Amish way to such an atrocity. Yet I still admire their beliefs and their courage.

[Woodmonkey]

Well, only the families that lost children to this monster have the right to forgive him. It's amazing to me that they can.

[Snowden]

I'm not sure I could forgive it either, were one of my family killed. I hope I could do so, as these people demonstrate the height of Christian belief. Each time we say "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us, we are asking only that and no more. Somehow, we must forgive - but who can forgive one who kills his/her child?

Well, we see it demonstrated here. That it amazes us is an indication of how truly difficult it can be to be a Christian. And how wonderful it is to be able to leave the burden up to God to handle.

[BrianK]

What a differance reading about radical religious people that are radical in a good way.

I think radical would be the best way to describe a group with a belief system that is differant from the norm. Most look at the idea of forgiveness as impossible in this recounting of violence. I'm in awe of the Amish ability to follow their beliefs to this extent.

Meanwhile it's a sure bet that Al-Jeezera isn't airing the story of forgiveness by the Amish. That would take away from the "normal" blood & guts coverage of the sectarian violence in Iraq by the peaceful muslim religion.

[Snowden]

I think it boils down to the spelling. The Amish spell it "p-e-a-c-e," while the radical Muslims go for, "p-i-e-c-e." Or "p-i-e-c-e-s."