Brandt Jean: Did display of forgiveness answer Christianity’s fiercest critic?
The
late Christopher Hitchens was the leading public intellectual of the New
Atheist movement and considered their fiercest critic of the Abrahamic faiths. He wrote books with blasphemous titles such
as: The Missionary Position, Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice and God is
Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything.
Hitchens didn’t promote God is Not Great in bookstores across the
country. The God is Not Great book tour
consisted of Hitchens crisscrossing the bible belt debating theologians,
professors of religious studies, and pastors about whether or not morality came
from God.
During this book tour Hitchens issued his famous challenge to believers.
He’d instruct an audience to think of a heinous act that can be attributed to religious belief, or was committed in the name of God, then he’d inform them that he knew their minds conjured up a list of atrocities without hesitation because history was full of religious wars and religious bigotry.
The audience normally laughed in agreement.
Then Hitchens asked the audience to name a moral act that a religious person can do through faith that can’t be done by an atheist because of non-belief, then he’d bet the audience they couldn’t name one action. Hitchens was challenging the notion that the absence of religion equaled an absence of morality.
After the book tour Hitchens boasted no one came close to answering his challenge. (At least not to his satisfaction, an unspecified stipulation.) The most common answers to his challenge were “praying for someone” and forgiveness. Hitchens dismissed praying for someone. He didn’t consider begging a fictitious deity to intervene in human affairs for the selfish reasons of the believer a moral action, but Hitchens was offended by the notion that religion was a requirement for forgiveness. He insisted that a nonbeliever could forgive in the same fashion as a believer. But Hitchens was wrong.
But when Brandt Jean hugged his brother’s killer, he demonstrated a form of spiritual maturity nonbelievers can’t contemplate. He already trusted God for his own psychological healing, but he felt compelled by his faith to help initiate Guyger’s psychological healing process by encouraging her to give her life to Christ, and he turned a sentencing hearing into an alter call. Whether this is moral or not can be debated, but it's an act a nonbeliever doesn’t have the maturity to perform.
During this book tour Hitchens issued his famous challenge to believers.
He’d instruct an audience to think of a heinous act that can be attributed to religious belief, or was committed in the name of God, then he’d inform them that he knew their minds conjured up a list of atrocities without hesitation because history was full of religious wars and religious bigotry.
The audience normally laughed in agreement.
Then Hitchens asked the audience to name a moral act that a religious person can do through faith that can’t be done by an atheist because of non-belief, then he’d bet the audience they couldn’t name one action. Hitchens was challenging the notion that the absence of religion equaled an absence of morality.
After the book tour Hitchens boasted no one came close to answering his challenge. (At least not to his satisfaction, an unspecified stipulation.) The most common answers to his challenge were “praying for someone” and forgiveness. Hitchens dismissed praying for someone. He didn’t consider begging a fictitious deity to intervene in human affairs for the selfish reasons of the believer a moral action, but Hitchens was offended by the notion that religion was a requirement for forgiveness. He insisted that a nonbeliever could forgive in the same fashion as a believer. But Hitchens was wrong.
In 2018 Amber Guyger, a Dallas police officer, mistakenly
entered Botham Jean’s apartment thinking it was her own. When Guyger saw a man in the apartment she
assumed he was a burglar and shot him dead.
Recently, Guyger was convicted of murder, but after she was sentenced to
prison something unexpected happened in the courtroom. The victim’s younger brother Brandt Jean
forgave Guyger. He told her, “I
personally want the best for you … I don’t even want you to go to jail … Give
your life to Christ. I think giving your
life to Christ is the best thing Botham would want for you.” Then Brandt Jean asked the judge if he was
allowed to give Guyer a hug. The judge
allowed it and the two embraced.
Hitchens would have ridiculed this example, then provided
a list of non-believers who forgave criminals for committing acts of violence
against them. Hitchens was a man of
reason. His definition of forgiveness
came from the field of psychology.
Psychology Today says forgiveness is the release of resentment. It replaces negative feelings often harbored
toward offenders with neutral feelings.
The act of forgiveness is for ourselves.
It allows us to move on and not let anger and bitterness disturb our
emotional well-being. Here, forgiveness
is a demonstration of emotional maturity and the intent is self-healing, but
the perpetrator can go to hell.
But when Brandt Jean hugged his brother’s killer, he demonstrated a form of spiritual maturity nonbelievers can’t contemplate. He already trusted God for his own psychological healing, but he felt compelled by his faith to help initiate Guyger’s psychological healing process by encouraging her to give her life to Christ, and he turned a sentencing hearing into an alter call. Whether this is moral or not can be debated, but it's an act a nonbeliever doesn’t have the maturity to perform.
First published in the
New Pittsburgh Courier 10/9/19
Comments
Post a Comment