Over at US Catholic

We have an excellent example of chipping away at the Gospel to conform to the Left's narrative of Oppressed v. Oppressor as the only way to understand reality.  Professor Kaye Oaks jumps into the growing post-2020 narrative that we Christians can have forgiveness, like almost everything else, all wrong.  

She employs a tactic very common in modern post-Western thought.  We're told that something generally considered a virtue has actually been a tool for the dreaded oppressor who alone has the power.  People use this virtue badly or wrongly and cause more harm than good.  

By now people trying to be of good will are getting nervous.  This is actually a powerful way to undercut traditional virtue and holiness.  People who want to do the right thing will begin questioning themselves. I thought forgiving someone was a good thing, but could I be causing harm?  Might I be doing it wrong?  Could I be guilty of aiding the oppression of the oppressed?  I ran into that a lot in counseling ministry.  People would tell me that so much was put on not doing or saying the wrong thing, they preferred to avoid the situations altogether.   

I think part of the destruction of basic human interaction we see in our era of loneliness today has been by injecting the fear of a million subtle wrongs done in the name of doing the right thing.  The road to hell and all, an oft quoted phrase in this context.    

Professor Oaks turns to Judaism, which has become an increasingly popular place to run for those who remind us why Christians have been missing the mark all these years (in defending legalized abortion, M. Shea has argued extensively that Jewish Americans aren't  hung up on all abortion being bad, so America shouldn't be either).  Like most non-Christian religions and philosophies, Judaism espouses the idea of forgiveness, but nowhere as broad or absolute as traditional Christianity.  The same goes for Islam.  The same goes for most philosophies and moral systems in the world that speak of the virtues of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is typically seen as a good thing, under particular conditions and within certain parameters.  

But it was Christianity that threw down the gauntlet and elevated it to almost unachievable levels.  For it was Jesus who said 'Father forgive them' as they nailed Him to the cross.  A lofty standard to be sure. And because of that elevation, we've had a civilization that, no matter how often it failed to live up to those loftiest of expectations, still ended up shooting mighty high in the annals of human redemption and reconciliation in the attempts to reach such a high standard.   

Since 2020, however, no small number of those on the Left openly excused and defended violence and harm and death for the worthy cause.  Likewise, they have stood by as the heroes, heritage and history of our civilization have been scorched under the presentism of unforgiving judgmentalism and condemnation.  Thus we're seeing people in the folds of Christianity scramble to tell us that when those in power say it's time to put the brakes on unfettered forgiveness, then clearly Jesus would agree.  And this article is simply one of a growing number of Christian outlets reminding us that forgiveness, like anything else the Church has taught for 2000 years, has been misunderstood and should only be applied when in conjunction with modern leftwing sympathies and agendas.     

Of course I'm not saying that forgiveness, like anything in the world, can't be abused or misused.  Just like care for the poor or the widow and orphan.  People can say they're doing the right thing or that they really care and it's obvious this isn't true.  After all, for four years liberals, including liberal Christians, stood idly by and ignored or outright denied the pain, suffering and misery under Biden because, well, he was their guy with the power, that's why.  Yet they still insist all was well and simply fulfilling the call to reach out to the least of these. 

So it happens.  And of course it can happen on any side of the debate.  But don't be burdened by our busy-body intellectual class.  The ones who endlessly tell parents everything they do will ruin their kids, who tell us everything we eat will kill us, the ones who tell us saying the wrong thing is so bad it's best to stand by and say nothing.  The ones who do it out of intellectual hubris or subtle agendas. Just ignore them.  

If you've been wronged, forgive.  Jesus said so. He said seventy times seven when the disciples tried to pin him down on the limits of the teaching.  He said God has forgiven us our tens of billions worth of sin, so it's the least we can do to forgive our neighbors their thousand dollar sins.  Because that's really what the teaching has always been about.  Our sins against God are grievous beyond our ability to understand, compared to what we do to each other in our worst of days, at least when seen from a spiritual, not a secular or atheistic, perspective.  

So trust Him.  Think as God thinks, not as men think.  He has forgiven us, therefore there is nothing anyone else could do to us that that should excuse us not forgiving them.  Forgive them in the same way God forgives us.  Which is a forgiveness far and away removed from articles like this, where if that is what God has in store for us in terms of forgiveness - assuming Ms. Oakes understands that to someone else she may well be the oppressor in power - then my confidence of bliss in the hereafter can't help but be shaken.