When Forgiveness Is Not the Issue in Forgiveness: Religious Complicity in Abuse and Privatized Forgiveness

Abstract

SUMMARY This article examines public and private (individual) aspects of forgiveness relating to abuse and the complicity of religious institutions in abuse by some theological formulations and doctrines. It argues that the real issue is not whether to forgive but how much the process involves individual and religious institutional truth telling. Drawing from the work of Desmond Tutu and Carter Heyward, the author suggests that public and private dimensions of truth telling are critical components of forgiveness. Without the public participation of religious institutions in truth telling about their own complicity, privatized forgiveness is diminished but may stand as an act of resistance.