{"id":719,"date":"2013-01-18T12:12:22","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T17:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=719"},"modified":"2013-01-18T12:12:22","modified_gmt":"2013-01-18T17:12:22","slug":"shamelessness-not-forgiveness-americans-and-fallen-celebrities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/shamelessness-not-forgiveness-americans-and-fallen-celebrities.html","title":{"rendered":"Shamelessness, Not Forgiveness: Americans and “Fallen” Celebrities"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the front page of the January 18th<\/sup>-20th<\/sup> weekend edition of USA Today,<\/em> one of the headlines reads: \u201cCan You Forgive?\u201d The article uses Lance Armstrong\u2019s recent \u201cconfession\u201d of \u201cdoping\u201d to Oprah Winfrey as the point from which to segue into a discussion of the broader topic of Americans\u2019 readiness to extend mercy to those celebrities who have veered from the straight and narrow path.<\/p>\n

Rick Hampson writes: \u201cFrom Bill Clinton (again toast of the Democratic Party) to Charlie Sheen (again a sitcom star) to Michael Vick (again an NFL quarterback), the bar for public redemption seems to have gotten lower and lower.\u201d<\/p>\n

This one article provides much food for thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it is all junk food.<\/p>\n

USA Today <\/em>expresses our culture\u2019s conventional wisdom on this matter of forgiving those public figures who have fallen from grace. And this is exactly what we should expect would pass for wisdom within a culture that elevates celebrity status above that of every other station.<\/p>\n

\u201cForgiveness\u201d and \u201credemption\u201d are concepts that originally emerged within a religious context\u2014specifically, the context(s) of Judaism and Christianity.\u00a0 Within this framework, they are preeminently meaningful.\u00a0 Once they have been dislodged from this setting, though, they open themselves up to the worst sort of abuse.\u00a0 Hampson\u2019s USA Today <\/em>piece is a classic case in point.<\/p>\n

I <\/em>cannot forgive <\/em>Armstrong.\u00a0 Neither can you. <\/em>\u00a0Nor can either of us forgive Clinton, Vick, Sheen, Don Imus, Richard Nixon, or any other celebrity who throws himself at the mercy of the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t that either of us is necessarily merciless.\u00a0 Rather, we can no more forgive any of these famous penitents for their offenses for the same reason that neither of us would ever think to offer forgiveness to the other\u2019s<\/em> spouse for undermining his or her marriage.<\/p>\n

In other words, neither you nor I can forgive the rich and famous for their transgressions because they didn\u2019t transgress against us. <\/em><\/p>\n

Real forgiveness is among the most painful things in the world for both the persons who ask and offer it.\u00a0 The person who seeks it is pained by the acute realization that he has wronged another.\u00a0 Yet he is also pained by the fear that his request will be rejected and he will be humiliated.\u00a0 The person who is asked to forgive is pained by the transgression. But he too is afraid, for in forgiving, he will render himself vulnerable to being harmed once more.\u00a0 Maybe he will even be thought weak, a sucker.<\/p>\n

In the Christian tradition, forgiveness or mercy is a virtue, <\/em>an excellence of character.\u00a0 Like any other virtue\u2014whether moral, intellectual, or physical\u2014it comes about only as the result of the blood, sweat, and tears of those who make the point of practicing it.<\/p>\n

To suggest that we can collectively \u201cforgive\u201d a person who hasn\u2019t lent us any personal offense and about whom we could care less isn\u2019t just to cheapen the concept of forgiveness; it is to cheapen it to the point of extinguishing it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In remarking that \u201cthe bar for public redemption seems to have gotten lower and lower,\u201d it isn\u2019t upon Americans\u2019 ever growing capacity for forgiveness that USA Today <\/em>comments.\u00a0 It is, rather, their ever growing capacity to tolerate shameful conduct to which it speaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A country that is indifferent to the most shameful, most dishonorable, sorts of conduct is itself shameless.\u00a0 <\/em>In conflating this most odious of vices with forgiveness, the noblest, the most divine of virtues, we convict ourselves of more than just an intellectual error.<\/p>\n

We hurl ourselves into the depths of moral confusion.<\/p>\n

The problem is that as long as we insist upon treating our vice as virtue, the less likely it is that we will recognize our shamelessness for what it is.<\/p>\n

And the less likely it is that we will be able to practice forgiveness in our personal relationships\u2014where it belongs.<\/p>\n

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On the front page of the January 18th-20th weekend edition of USA Today, one of the headlines reads: \u201cCan You Forgive?\u201d The article uses Lance Armstrong\u2019s recent \u201cconfession\u201d of \u201cdoping\u201d to Oprah Winfrey as the point from which to segue into a discussion of the broader topic of Americans\u2019 readiness to extend mercy to those…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nShamelessness, Not Forgiveness: Americans and "Fallen" Celebrities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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