Thread by @Delafina777

I had more to say about this, but I went to bed instead, so:

Christians like to claim that Jesus's message is both radical and hard to accept and follow. Generally speaking, that's laughable, but let's take it at face value for a moment in the context of the prodigal son. (1/x)

https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1387314163521769472

Let's leave aside that the idea that it's hard to be Christian in a hegemonically Christian society, built to accommodate Christian norms and ensure Christian comfort, with a church every two blocks that will bend over backwards to get you to join, is somehow "difficult."

Christians claim Jesus's message is radical, difficult to hear, and harder to follow.

And then they make it the most banal, obvious, commonplace thing ever. Forgive people. Love your neighbors.

This, of course, has the effect of casting anyone who might disagree with the putative message of Christianity as either exceptionally dense or exceptionally evil, which of course is the point.

And yet, when that message meets a challenge that is substantive and reasonable from an *ethical* point of view, they tend to immediately retreat to exactly the positions they usually claim as foils.

See, for example, forgiveness.

When challenged about how a message about rejoicing more over the forgiven prodigal than those who haven't strayed is compatible with centering the voices and needs of abuse victims...

Christians tend to immediately retreat from what they claim is the message of the parable into exactly the position they claim Jesus was criticizing the Pharisees (and Jews in general) for holding: you don't need forgive people who aren't sorry.

https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1387316878192775174

And of COURSE they do, because that's the ONLY tenable, compassionate response to that criticism, while the way they've tended to read that parable and what it says about forgiveness is anything but radical.

The reading of "radical," infinite forgiveness, of a God who runs out to find the *un*repentant sinner and bring them home (after all, the prodigal decides to return because he's starving, not because he's sorry), and privileging over the one who strays over the one who hasn't...

...models the ugliest way Christianity can be used: as a reification of the status quo.

Don't worry about fixing injustice here on earth. Forgive those who harm you, whether or not they make reparation. It'll all shake out in heaven.

Which, of course, allows the powerful to lightly self-flagellate, claim kinship with the prodigal, and then go on as they were before.

Grace is cheap for them because their power gives the rest of us no choice but to let them purchase it at a price they set.

See, of course, Louis C.K. and every other abuser who's picked the time of their return to the public square, having decided that they've been punished enough and should be forgiven.

And of course, when faced with demands that they consider the safety and well-being of abuse victims, that they acknowledge that forgiveness on tap is incompatible with safety, they acknowledge that maybe we *can't* just forgive everyone without demanding evidence of change.

Now. I don't actually think this parable is about forgiveness at all. I think this parable isn't about the younger son any more than the other two stories in the trio are about the coins or the sheep.

But that's a different thread.

To take the traditional Christian reading at face value, the message IS radical.

Forgive everybody, let everyone return to the community if they want to, don't demand proof of change before extending forgiveness--that actually IS a radical message.

That actually IS hard to accept, and hard to follow.

And it's only tenable if you actually pay attention to what the father says to the elder son: "Child, all that I have is yours."

The younger son gets a party and a hug today, but all the father's *resources* are at the disposal of the older son.

To build a community that *works* and is radically forgiving without being abusive, without shunting those harmed by the noisily returning prodigals to the margins, would be extraordinarily difficult. It would be radical.

I don't think it can be done, frankly.

But in trying to imagine it, I'm reminded of what a lot of people were saying in the wake of the Chauvin verdict.

The guilty verdict wasn't justice. It was only accountability.

Justice would be a society in which a white cop CAN'T just murder a Black man.

To build a radically forgiving community that's *safe* for anyone but the most powerful would require building a *just* community.

A community in which systemic abuse *can't* happen, a community which pays attention to signs that abuse *might* occur and moves to prevent it.

A community in which, when the sort of individual, unpredictable acts of harm that you can't *prevent* happen, immediately addresses the needs of the victim, prioritizes them, centers them.

Which ensures that the act can't be repeated.

Trying to build that sort of community *would* be radical. And probably impossible. Definitely hard to do.

I'm human enough that I can't imagine a community that *never* permanently kicks anyone out and is still safe.

I think you can look at that message & both think it's beautiful and utopian and that it's good to want to try to make it happen AND not think that anyone who doesn't think it's possible, and would rather focus on building systems that work outside of utopia is evil or stupid.

You want a message about forgiveness that's radical, and hard to accept and follow, or even to hear?

I think that if you genuinely want to read that story as being about forgiveness (which, again, I don't think it is), okay, that is a radical idea.

So if you want to claim your message is one of radical forgiveness, of forgiveness for *anyone*, stop being such cowards about it.