I see on here a split of opinion with Christians on Austin Metcalf's dad, here and elsewhere.
I think both are incorrect in their own way.
One side says you don't forgive the unrepentant. Wrong, extremely wrong. Were the ones stoning Stephen to death repentant when he cried out for God to forgive them? No. The Bible puts no qualifications on who to forgive, only that you do.
The other side says he's being a Christian by forgiving the killer, and didn't do anything wrong and what I'd say is it's not wrong to forgive the killer, but I'd say that going on national TV and trying to make sure everyone complies with the cultures values on race has little or nothing to do with forgiveness, and so this side misses the mark.
You see, here's the biggest problem with what Austin Metcalf's dad did.
The black ghetto community needs to repent. They are like, in a way, a seperate nation like Ninevah who is told by all parties, including the church that they're not destined to hell.
Calling to repentance is an act of mercy in the Bible. Jonah didn't want to tell the Ninevites to repent because he didn't want them to experience God's mercy. When John the baptist comes on the scene preaching a message of repentance, it's repeated over and over that God's mercy has come. You want to love black people? Call the violence glorifying culture to repentance and warn them that huge swaths of their culture is akin to something like the Ninevites.
Essentially the dad is saying without realizing it "make sure you don't have any conversations that could be difficult for the inner city to hear, lest they realize their sins and turn and be saved".
Many black people will be going to hell unfortunately because even the church tickles their ear and never calls out their behavior even though the church is more than happy to call out their mostly white congregants behavior (which the church should).
Anyone who objectively looks at the black community can see that they fit the definition of a fool found in proverbs and yet no one wants to touch that subject, including Christians.
So, the dad should forgive the killer, even if it takes time to do, and it's odd that he would be so lacking in paternal instinct that he'd unemotionally virtue signal, which seems less like Biblical forgiveness and more like this modern day utter capitulation and celebration of black culture, and the next thing the father could do, which would be the loving thing and also an extremely dangerous and scary thing, which would be to absolutely address the racial issue. Look, it's not about race. Jesus said go preach to all the nations. By all accounts, the black culture is a foreign nation. They share no values, and their values that are taught from birth are completely leading people to hell. They qualify as a nation that needs repentance.
And as we see in the Bible, in order for people to accept Jesus, they first need to be told what they're violating, where they're astray, and what the consequences of sin are.
I don't see the church doing this with the black community. The exact opposite.
So the "don't forgive the unrepentant" Christians are wrong, as are the Christians who are failing to realize that the black, inner city, thug culture needs to face some extremely harsh facts for their eternal good.
Not the argument being made, and this is a mistake I see frequently.
The point is that the unrepentant CANNOT be forgiven, and by definition that is completely correct. God alone can forgive those who are not sorry for their actions. Man cannot. Saying "you are forgiven" is not something that Jeff Metcalf has the power to do. Because the animal who killed his son did not merely trespass against him, but against the dead innocent and the laws of God as well. Jeff Metcalf has no authority over two of those things, and the pretense towards that is blasphemy.
Man can offer forgiveness for a trespass against us specifically, but if it is thrown back in our faces(and hoo boy it sure has been), well that is the end of it.
forgiveness is what you do on your end. It's internally forgiving them instead of holding on to bitterness, hatred, unforgiveness.
You can forgive someone and want them to face legal justice. They're not mutually exclusive.
You can and should forgive people who have been dead for 20 years. You can forgive people who are in hell right now and you should. The forgiveness we do is a separate thing from the forgiveness that Jesus offers because we don't have the spiritual merit to wipe away anyone's sins including our own unlike Jesus. Christians' forgiving is about us having a heart that recognizes our own spiritual depravity and the mercy we've received, and so we let go of the unforgiveness we have towards others.
Your forgiveness is not the same as God's forgiveness. You're forgiving their trespasses, as Jesus forgave you, but it doesn't mean their sins are forgiven to God unless they put their trust and faith in Jesus.
If Jeff Metcalf said "you are forgiven" in that prescriptive way, that would be blasphemous, but he didn't say that. He said, I forgive the killer. It's a different meaning.
As an example, I had to forgive people who were cruel to me in high school, as I was holding on to that bitterness.
I haven't seen them in nearly 20 years. I don't know if they're repentant. I know nothing about them. Most of them I can barely recall anything specific, but I had to come to a point where I forgave them and let it go.
It has nothing to do with them. Christian forgiveness is about your heart towards them.
Whether anyone is actually forgiven of their sins in the eyes of God is 100% down to what they do with Jesus, and is separate from the forgiveness that Christians give.
Not a Christian, so take this as a philosophical question.
Shouldn't forgiveness be earned?
I understand that the utility of forgiving someone is a good way at, let's call it, spiritually cleansing yourself of hate and resentment. And that's really important. But if you do that too early, you might be doing a lot of forgiving of someone who doesn't care that they've hurt you, and are prepared to keep going.
In a just world, forgiveness ought to be given by the victim, and forgiveness ought to be sought by the abuser. (Here's where I'm not a Christian) We obviously don't live in anything like a Just World. To me, the world is fully amoral. Morality is formed by men who agree to live among one another in such a way that they believe all will prosper. I can't imagine that someone who would easily offer forgiveness would not be hunted to extinction by predators.
A predator would think of such a man as easy prey, and wildly gullible. Predators see weakness as an invitation to attack. A predator kills your son, steals his things, watches you forgive him, and then chooses you for further attacks, not merely because you allow it, but because "you're stupid and you deserve to be attacked". The predator thinks that you deserve further abuse because your forgiveness makes you inferior. You're weak. You're a chump. Exploitation is all you're good for. It's right to attack you, because it's what you deserve. You're supposed to be the stepping stone for someone else because you are too weak, stupid, and gullible to take what you want. "In the land of the pigs, the butcher is king." That is the mentality of a predator, and why you must kill them. You can't live with them, one day, they'll kill you. They don't respect you unless you predate upon them. They only respect other predators.
If someone isn't willing to earn forgiveness, they may be a predator. And if they are, forgiveness is simply wasted on them. They are unrepentant and anti-moral, and so forgiveness will never mean anything to them. If forgiveness helps you, then fine, but don't think it will help them. Predators are effectively alien to you, as foreign as a force of nature. They simply are not operating under the rules you live by, they never will, they don't want, and nothing can command them. Well, except immediate violence, which is their language anyway. Display yourself as a predator with territory, and they'll respect it if and only if you hurt them badly enough.
Forgiveness isn't meant to be blind or done naively.
Jesus commands Christians to "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" and Proverbs tells us to not even trust a neighbor or a friend.
You can forgive someone while recognizing that they're bad news and you need to get away from that person.
And when you see that the person seems to have changed, depending on the circumstance, you can reconcile with that person, but it should be done intelligently and accurately assessing things so you don't get chewed up and spit out.
People do try to take advantage of gracious natures so that's why Christians should be careful to sus that out.
But you can forgive someone while deciding unless something changes, you're never going to associate with that person.
One example could be, you used to be into drugs, and your drug dealer did a lot of screwed up stuff to you.
If a Christian forgives that drug dealer, should they then go reconcile with that drug dealer?
Probably not, because if drugs were an issue for them, the wisest thing to do is get rid of any contacts from your phone that have anything to do with drugs but still be praying for them.
Now if you've been 10 years sober and drugs aren't a temptation for you anymore, and you want to share the gospel with the person who used to be your drug dealer, now it's a different situation, but in both situations a Christian shouldn't be going in naively and assuming good about the other persons nature.
You can forgive and also recognize that people search for weakness and will chew you up and spit you out if they get the chance and you ought to be careful.
That's why Jesus said in Matthew 10:16 "Be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves".
In other words, be kind, be loving, but also be smart.
Okay, I suppose that makes sense, but I feel like it's a bit too vague. A Christian should forgive, but must do so with the wisdom to proceed appropriately given the situation that they are in. That, I gather. So I think I need a follow-up question:
Would you consider Austin's father's apology to have been wise? If so: why is it wise. If not, what would be wise?
If "it's too personal to know" (as in, we can't know what Austin's father emotionally/spiritually needs), then what would a hypothetical wise forgiveness look like for a father who's son was murdered.
I guess I'm trying to find the boundary conditions of where wisdom could be in this, and I think the drug dealer analogy is a bit too distant from the current scandal. I'm going to caveat this with the acknowledgement that I don't expect you to have all-knowing wisdom and have a 'perfect' or even 'correct' answer. I'm just trying to flesh out your reasoning because it's a bit different than mine.