by Marcus Walker, Telegraph
Our transactional, cancel-happy society has lost of one of the most important Christian virtues
The quality of mercy is not strained
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Portia gets to the nub of mercy in The Merchant of Venice. It is a question which has returned to public debate after the Olympic swimmer Adam Ramsay-Peaty spoke candidly about the distance which has grown up between him and his family, and the Christian quality of forgiveness.
“For me, as a Christian, there has to be forgiveness,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you have to forget, but forgiveness takes time… it has to come from a place where I feel like they’ve improved as people.”
It’s rarely edifying to discuss another family’s feud, and knowing nothing more about the Peaty family’s circumstances I will not dive into their particulars. However, as a clergyman of the Established Church, I can reflect on that overriding command of Christ: that we forgive as we are forgiven.
Forgiveness is the absolute core of Christian ethics. It sits in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, where we ask – hopefully daily – that God will forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. A stark quid pro quo is set up: our forgiveness is explicitly tied to our willingness to forgive.
This is essential because another of Christianity’s core premises is that we are in desperate need of forgiveness ourselves. Every single one of us. As St John puts it: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
Rather than treating our fellow human beings as made in the image and likeness of God, we excel at treating them as disposable, using and discarding them for our own advantage and pleasure, which is a decent shorthand for “sin”.