The Amish are Not Ours (continued)

Forgiveness. Of all the questions I received from the media last week, the most insistent ones revolved around the issue of forgiveness. Will the Amish families who lost their little girls forgive this man? Will they hold a grudge against others who knew the killer but were unable to prevent his rampage?

I’m not surprised that these questions took center stage. In the United States, at least, forgiveness is radically countercultural. Some theologians tell us it runs absolutely counter to human nature. The much more common response to being wronged (as if I need to tell you this) is returning hurt for hurt.

The radical nature of forgiveness led the recently deceased French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, to call forgiveness a paradox. According to Derrida, it is only possible to forgive that which is unforgivable. Indeed, wrote Derrida, much of which goes by the name “forgiveness” in Western culture is actually a form of social exchange: I will forgive you, but only if you make proper restitution. This latter type of forgiveness, which Derrida would say is not true forgiveness, finds plenty of nourishment in a society in which capitalism—making others pay for what they get—reins supreme.

I am not aware of any Amish person who has read Derrida. They have, however, read the words of Jesus, the person that George W. Bush once named as his favorite political philosopher. “Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” That’s not the sort of rationality that fits comfortably with human nature, let alone with the spirit of twenty-first-century capitalism.

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