In January 2023, a group of Jewish and Christian scholars met to form a circle of study and conversation. We shared an important conviction. As divergent as our faith traditions may be, together we face what amounts to a totalizing supersessionism: the conceit that modern science and progressive politics possess the full and final truth about human destiny, and thus the biblical religions of the West must be left behind. We met again later in 2023 and then in 2024. In our discussions, participants spoke out of their own convictions and sense of responsibility for their communities of faith, not as official representatives. Our ambition was to learn from one another in order to deepen our theological understanding of our differences—and our similarities. The statement that follows is one fruit of our conversations. It does not express all that we believe. But it does represent our best effort to speak together, as Christians and Jews, to a world anxious for reconciliation but paralyzed by the wounds of injustice, aggression, and sin.
—R. R. Reno
Our age is full of anger. It rages against whites for their sins against blacks, colonizers for their crimes against the colonized, men for preying upon women, capitalism for its oppressions, and genocides real and imagined. When not using the harsh tools of protest, denunciation, condemnation, and critique, our age employs the pallid techniques of “dialogue” and “conflict resolution.” But neither outrage nor therapeutic management is an answer for blood that cries out from the ground.
God provides an answer: forgiveness. Those who offer forgiveness do not overlook sins; to seek reconciliation does not entail rejecting the purposes and fittingness of punishment. Forgiveness is not moral disarmament in the face of evil. Rather, forgiveness is a rigorous spiritual practice that repairs what transgression has damaged.
The greatest dangers posed by evil deeds are not the harms done in the moment, grievous as they may be. Evil deeds poison our relationships and embitter our souls. Forgiveness counters these threats. It overcomes the evil.
Why Should We Forgive?
The obligation to forgive is fundamental. We are called to imitate God. As he is holy, we must seek to be holy. “You, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you” (Ps. 86:5). As he is merciful, so should we be merciful, quick to forgive and seek reconciliation.
God commands us to seek the good of others. Even one who has wronged us deserves our love, especially after he repents and apologizes. We should want to see everyone living the fullness of life and in harmony with God. Our forgiveness helps those who have wronged us achieve atonement with God, and it helps bring peace to their consciences.
Forgiveness breaks the power of transgression to define the future. Imagine living in a world in which everyone is held fully accountable for every misdeed. Who would be left standing? We would have no friends, no family, no community. Just as the Lord will not allow the sins of his people to overcome his determination to make good on the promises of his covenant, so we must not allow our hearts to harden in bitterness over wrongs done to us.
Forgiveness is an act of faith. We must not imagine that it is our duty to ensure the ultimate victory of good over evil. To forgive is to trust in God. He will ensure the triumph of justice and the righting of wrongs.
What Is Forgiveness?
In one sense, forgiveness is the benevolent act of the person who has been wronged. When a person has wronged us, we may decide to ignore the transgression, foregoing apology or restitution. By this act we renounce the right to moral justice for the wrong that has been done to us. We may regard this renunciation as “forgiveness,” or perhaps we see it as an act of patience or forbearance toward the wrongdoer. Our religious traditions urge the practice of forbearance. We are called to forego what is owed to us spiritually when we are wronged, because that is how we ask God to treat us—and how God actually does treat us.
In a fuller sense, forgiveness aims at something higher than mere forbearance: It strives for reconciliation. Forgiveness concerns not only attitudes but relationships. Just as God forgives us in order to repair our relationships with him, we forgive others, hoping for the restoration of harmony and comity.
Forgiveness attains reconciliation only when both wrongdoer and wronged are fully involved. The offender must repent and attempt to repair the harm. Apology emerges from repentance, and it salves wounds. Repentance may be seen as a four-step process, whether formal or informal: regret, cessation of the sin, confession, and commitment to refrain from the sin in the future.
When a person forgives, even without having received an apology, he seeks peace and concord with those who wronged him. In this way, forgiveness expresses an intention that heals us inwardly, for the desire for lovingkindness reigns. When a wrongdoer repents and apologizes for offending someone, he accomplishes the same in his own life. Repentance, restitution, and apology mark important steps toward reconciliation with those whom we have wronged, a restoration of peace.
Many are haunted by the question of justice: When I forgive, do I let the person who has wronged me off the hook? No, for two reasons. My forbearance rightly expects the repentance of the wrongdoer, without which any relationship between us cannot be restored. And the wrongdoer remains responsible to God for his actions. God will see that justice is done.
The Limits of Forgiveness
God does not command “unconditional forgiveness.” We are not asked to pretend that transgressions have not occurred or do not matter. It is entirely consistent for us to offer forgiveness and expect restitution, insofar as restitution is in the power of those who have wronged us.
Forgiveness does not come easily. It is costly—for both the wronged and the wrongdoer. Forgiveness may begin with a single act, an inward determination to will the good of those who have wronged us. But sometimes, especially in the case of grievous wrongs, offering forgiveness will be an ongoing task, perhaps the task of a lifetime. For the wrongdoer, forgiveness demands a response. Truly receiving the forgiveness offered by another requires repentance, amendment of life, and reparation, made both to the one who has been wronged and to God, whose justice is transgressed by every wrong. In our pride, we often feel that acknowledging our transgressions brings humiliation. For this reason, accepting forgiveness may likewise be an ongoing task.
Those whom we forgive are not exempt from punishment. Civil authorities properly require just punishment, even when we have forgiven those who offended us. Forgiveness is a personal act. The victim of a crime may forgive the penitent offender and at the same time accept and affirm that civil authorities should impose punishment.
In its full form, forgiveness requires the relationship-healing gestures of apology and efforts toward restitution. Nevertheless, we may presume the best of others and offer forgiveness on the assumption that the transgressor is aware of his guilt and inclined toward apology and restitution. In this instance, those who forgive take the first step, hoping to evoke reconciliation. But there can be no reconciliation with those who persist in wrongdoing and continue to harm us. Forgiveness aims at reconciliation, and reconciliation is impossible when we are under attack.
Put differently, sin cannot be forgiven except by its victim. To heal, the transgressor must accept forgiveness through the visible acts of repentance, apology, and reparation. But we must also recognize that many grave crimes are committed by those who believe that their transgressions are entirely warranted. Far from repentant, they are proud of the harm they have done. Just as God does not redeem those who do not repent of and confess of their sins, we cannot be reconciled to those who persevere in their wrongdoing against us. The choice of radical evil is a real possibility. Such is the nature of human freedom. Nevertheless, even when a transgressor rejects our offers of forgiveness, the offer is an act meritorious before God.
Communities possess corporate personalities. At times, it is fitting for leaders to offer apologies on behalf of the larger community, as it is fitting for leaders to forgive offenses. But we should resist the temptation to turn apology and forgiveness into a ritualized process of “healing” that overlooks the nature of sin and lacks key elements of repentance. This danger looms when public attention falls on historically remote crimes and offenses. Repenting of the sins of others, especially of those who lived long before us, too easily supplants what should be our overriding concern: our own sins and the damage we have done to others in the present age.
The Promise of Forgiveness
Behold,” says the Lord, “I am doing a new thing” (Isa. 43:19). The redemption the Almighty graciously offers presupposes that the burden of transgressions can be laid aside. His covenant triumphs over sin and death. Forgiveness is the engine of this triumph. Transgression brings enmity, ill will, bitterness, and rancor; forgiveness heals. It is a river in the desert, the sweet nectar for his chosen people. God is slow to anger and delights in steadfast love. He abounds in kindness and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Rather than allow our sins to define the future, he hurls them into the depths of the sea (Mic. 7:18–20). When we forgive, therefore, we enter into the realm of God’s own character and purposes.
The act of forgiveness for the sake of God places transgressors in the hands of God, who has his own purposes of providential goodness and government. When we forgive, we liberate ourselves as well, opening ourselves up to the history of God’s mercy with and for all human beings.
The power of forgiveness should not be underestimated. Evil deeds undermine and disfigure God’s good creation. They rend the fabric of society, damage relationships, inflict suffering, and dishonor the image of God within us. These destructive burdens are recognized and suffered by all persons, regardless of their convictions. The Jewish and Christian imperative to forgive is thus profoundly relevant to our common life. Acts of forgiveness allow us to become agents and instruments of God’s purpose of repairing what has been damaged. Forgiveness is a work of love, which always seeks the restoration of justice. In this way, forgiveness ensures the triumph of life and the satisfaction of our universal thirst for life. (Deut. 30:19—Choose life!)
We are called to share the gift of life with others. Just as forgiveness allows us to imitate God, and thereby to purify and sanctify our souls, the life-giving offer of forgiveness overflows into the lives of others. Christians pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This petition asks God to recognize our desire to be worthy of his invitation to participate in the gift of his redemption of the world. It is a desire made real when we forgive others, as he does and commands us to do. Thereby do we nourish, as with water for the thirsty, the lives of both those whom we forgive and those who offer us forgiveness, something all of us require.
Jews and Christians are bound in a particular way to the story of God’s mercy. Though Jews and Christians have been separated by doctrinal disagreements, we are drawn together in our complex mutual history. It is a history in which Christians have often treated Jews in contemptible ways, and yet the story is not only one of enmity. Jews and Christians have influenced one another in innumerable ways, and have often cooperated, to the benefit of the human race. Recent acts of difficult repentance by Christians and Jews alike, and perhaps the even more challenging acts of forgiveness, have embraced the purposes of God’s mercy, with all their demanding human responsibilities—demonstrating that the habitual currents of estrangement need not determine the future.
As free and responsible creatures, we are capable of resolving some conflicts, including serious ones. We can forge treaties, secure restitution, and impose punishments, and we should do these things in accord with moral principle and divine law. But our efforts are always imperfect. They forestall graver evils, ameliorate harms, and repair damage. But only atonement makes peace in its full sense, and reconciliation comes to pass in the reciprocity of repentance and forgiveness. When Jews and Christians practice forgiveness in its full sense, they bear witness to the reality of God’s covenant promises, which are being fulfilled even now.
As most of our forebears understood, the world—encompassing nature and society both—is riven and damaged, and God is its redeemer. Such redemption, as Micah implies (7:18) and Isaiah makes explicit (43:19), requires a “new creation,” the new world in which human beings were always providentially ordered to live, and which we are graciously permitted to enter even now, embodying God’s promises through our own actions, especially acts of forgiveness that foreshadow the triumph of God’s mercy and lovingkindness.
To forgive, bearing witness to God’s inexhaustible mercy, does not entail abandoning our political responsibilities. We have a duty to restrain evil, punish wrongdoers, and order society in accord with principles of justice. But even our best efforts are inadequate. We are thus commanded to forgive, come what may, trusting in God’s power to bring the fullness of peace in accord with his purposes and plans.
Signatories
Gary A. Anderson
University of Notre Dame
Angela Franks
St. John’s Seminary
Mark Gottlieb
Tikvah Fund
Jennifer Grillo
University of Notre Dame
J. J. Kimche
Harvard University
Liel Leibovitz
Tablet Magazine
Francis X. Maier
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Bruce Marshall
Southern Methodist University
Peter Mommsen
Plough Quarterly
Anna Moreland
Villanova University
David Novak
Union for Traditional Judaism
Ephraim Radner
Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto
R. R. Reno
First Things
Daniel Rynhold
Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies
Carl R. Trueman
Grove City College
Thomas Joseph White
Pontifical University of St. Thomas
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