I attended the Conference on Jesuit Higher Education and its Commitment to Justice. One of the keynote speakers was Margaret Farley, a retired Christian ethicist from Yale and a woman religious. Farley asked the question about what attitudes of mind and heart are conducive to just encounters with the other. She then provided a compelling justification for forgiveness as crucial for just relationships with the other. To forgive requires that we decenter ourselves, to let go of something within us to offset our worse forms of indifference, greed, and self righteousness; these are the preconditions of recovering respect for one another. It also means at times the need to let go of something in ourselves, such as our anger and resentment, and something of ourselves, such as our self-protectiveness. Overall, I agreed with her assessment that forgiveness can restore just relationships in meaningful ways but in my gut I felt uneasy with this. The overwhelming positive response to Farley's presentation kept me from voicing my concerns publicly.
My discomfort became crystallized when a question was posed to her: If it is true that there is a need to decenter the self to forgive and accept forgiveness, what do you do with those people whose sense of self is diminished, even destroyed, at the hands of persistent institutional oppression, such as racism, sexism, or heterosexism? They might not have enough of a sense of self to come to the point of forgiveness. Farley acknowledged that the need for forgiveness is harder to understand and offer when the abuse is structural or institutional. Moreover, she insisted that forgiveness should not be a therapy for the victims. Instead, the victims of oppression need to find some way to heal the self and recognize their human dignity before they can come to forgive those who have been the perpetrators of their oppression. She suggested that the church community can play a significant role in that healing process.
But how does this healing take place? I agree that community whether the church or other is important to begin that healing process. But what attitude of mind or heart must the oppressed develop that will enable them to find such healing, to get to the point where they can offer forgiveness?
Years ago, another Christian ethicist, Beverly Harrision, wrote an essay that spoke about the power of anger in the work of love. Her point was that anger is not an outlaw emotion in the face of injustice. Rather, it is the appropriate response to conditions of oppression and injustice. While some believe that anger can be destructive, Harrison suggested that such righteous anger enabled the victim of injustice to assert her dignity in the face of oppresssion and provided the motivation to work for justice. In the words of Farley, the anger is the oppressed's way to utter a radical no to injustice.
So what is the relationship betwen anger and forgiveness in the context of injustice? I agree that forgiveness may require us at some point to give up our anger in order to enable a just relationship in our encounter with the other. But sometimes getting to the point where one can develop the attitude of mind and heart to forgive, may require the oppressed to claim their righteous anger as a way of affirming their dignity, to center themselves enough to be able to begin the task of decentering themselves, ultimately leading them to engage fully in just relationships with the other, even those who have perpetrated their oppression.
