Christian Forgiveness: Breaking the Cycle (Part 2/2)

Author: Stef Miles

Why Revenge Feels So Good

There is another side to this that I find fascinating. Last year I read James Kimmel Jr.'s book The Science of Revenge, which explores what happens neurologically when human beings become caught in cycles of retaliation. One of the striking insights emerging from research into revenge is that imagining retaliation can activate reward pathways in the brain. In other words, revenge can actually feel good. And, if I'm honest, most of us probably didn't need neuroscience to tell us that.

There is a reason anger can feel energising and why mentally rehearsing the perfect comeback can be strangely satisfying. There is a reason outrage spreads so quickly and conflicts escalate so easily. Retaliation can give us a momentary sense of power over the person who hurt us. The problem is that the satisfaction doesn't last. It doesn't heal the wound underneath. Instead, it can keep us psychologically connected to the person and the injury, continually rehearsing what happened and imagining what they deserve in return. Kimmel argues that this can become something like an addiction to revenge, and that forgiveness offers a way of breaking the cycle. I find the overlap with the gospel fascinating.

Neuroscience is giving us another language for something Jesus exposes two thousand years earlier: retaliation promises freedom while often binding us more deeply to the wound. And perhaps this is why forgiveness can feel so difficult. It asks us to give up something that, at least momentarily, can feel rewarding. We relinquish our right to make the other person suffer in the way they made us suffer.

That isn't weakness.

It takes enormous courage.

What Forgiveness Is, and What It Isn't

This is also where I think we need to be careful, because Christian language about forgiveness has sometimes been used terribly. People have been encouraged to remain in abusive relationships because they should “forgive.” Victims have been pressured to reconcile before there has been truth-telling or repentance. Sometimes forgiveness has even become another burden placed upon the person who has already been harmed. That isn't what I'm talking about.

Christopher D. Marshall's work in Beyond Retribution is particularly helpful here because he keeps forgiveness connected to justice without collapsing justice into punishment. Forgiveness does not mean saying that what happened was acceptable. It doesn't mean forgetting, denying the wound or pretending that trust can immediately be restored. And it certainly doesn't mean that someone experiencing abuse should remain in danger. Forgiveness takes the wrongdoing seriously precisely because there is something real to forgive. It is also something freely given by the victim. It cannot be demanded by the perpetrator or extracted by a religious community. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it has to be chosen repeatedly because the emotions don't simply disappear when we decide to forgive.

At its heart, forgiveness is a refusal to repay in kind. It is the decision, sometimes made through tears and over a very long period of time, that the violence done to me will not determine the violence I give back. Reconciliation goes further. Forgiveness can open the possibility of restored relationship, but reconciliation requires more than one person. It requires truth, safety and, where appropriate, repentance and change. There are situations where forgiveness may be possible while reconciliation, at least for now, is not.

I think that distinction matters enormously. Christian forgiveness should never become a way of silencing victims or protecting perpetrators from accountability. If anything, genuine forgiveness allows us to name evil truthfully without becoming consumed by the desire to return it.

Breaking the Cycle

The more I reflect on forgiveness, the less I see it as a nice Christian virtue and the more radical it becomes. Forgiveness refuses to let violence determine what happens next. Someone has to stop passing the wound on. And at the centre of the Christian story, that is exactly what we see Jesus doing. The cross reveals a God who enters into human violence without returning it, and the resurrection tells us that this isn't defeat. The forgiving victim is raised, returns to those who abandoned him and speaks peace. John's Gospel then gives us one final detail that I think is incredibly important. Jesus breathes on his disciples and says:

“Receive the Holy Spirit… If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.”

John 20:22–23

The gift of the Spirit and the commissioning into forgiveness belong together. This is new creation language. Just as God breathes life into humanity in Genesis, the risen Jesus breathes new life into his disciples. But the humanity being created here is being sent into the world with a particular vocation: to participate in God's forgiveness. That gives Christian forgiveness a much bigger horizon than simply “letting go” so that I can feel better.

Of course forgiveness can bring psychological freedom. It can loosen resentment's grip and stop old wounds from dominating our lives. Thank God for that. But Christian forgiveness goes further. It is participation in the life of the forgiving God revealed in Jesus. It interrupts retaliation, refuses to pass violence onwards and creates the possibility that something genuinely new might emerge from what has been broken.

Perhaps that is why forgiveness sits so close to the heart of the gospel. Because every time the cycle is interrupted, even in some small and costly way, resurrection begins to look possible.