Reading reflections

I am reading the book “No Future Without Forgiveness” by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, which was formed after the abolishment of apartheid. It was a court-body created so any victim of apartheid violence could be heard and perpetrators of violence could give their testimony in return for request for amnesty. It was obviously a very sensitive endeavor. I have been struck with the power of reading it while being here- I can’t begin to understand the true forgiveness and strength encapsulated in this place. Here, in a very moving piece, Desmond Tutu is discussing judging the perpetrators….

“There is a salutary counter to our tendency to push blame onto others in a book by the Harvard theologian, Harvey Cox, with the lovely title, On Not Leaving It to the Snake. This helped me to be a great deal less judgmental and to avoid gloating at the misfortune of others. It was particularly important in the commission’s encounter with the perpetrators of some of the most horrendous atrocities. So frequently we in the commission were quite appalled at the depth of depravity to which human beings could sink and we would, most of us, say that those who committed such dastardly deeds were monsters because the deeds were monstrous. But theology prevents us from doing this. Theology reminded me that, however diabolical the act, it did not turn the perpetrator into a demon. We had to distinguish between the deed and the perpetrator, between the sinner and the sin, to hate and condemn the sin while being filled with compassion for the sinner. The point is this, if perpetrators were to be despaired of as monsters and demons, then we were thereby letting accountability go out the window because we were then declaring that they were not moral agents to be held responsible for the deeds they had committed. Much more importantly, it meant that we abandoned all hope of their being able to change for the better. Theology said they still, despite the awfulness of their deeds, remained children of God with the capacity to repent, to be able to change. Otherwise we should, as a commission, have had to shut up shop, since we were operating on the premise that people could change, could recognize and acknowledge the error of their ways and so experience contrition or, at the very least, remorse and would at some point be constrained to confess their dastardly conduct and ask for forgiveness. If, however, they were dismissed as being monsters they could not by definition engage in a process that so deeply personal as that of forgiveness and reconciliation. …..

None of us could predict that if we had been subjected to the same influences, the same conditioning, we would not have turned out like these perpetrators. This is not to condone or excuse what they did. It is to be filled more and more with the compassion of God, looking on and weeping that one of His beloved had come to such a sad pass. We have to say to ourselves with deep feeling, not a cheap pietism, “There but for the grace of God go I.”