Newt Gingrich's marital history has brought back into the spotlight the question of forgiveness and change. People are very reticent to treat him as a person who actually has reformed. Whether he has changed or not it not the point of this post. Rather, I wish to discuss whether or not we are willing to accept the atoning power of Christ in our own lives or in the lives of other people we encounter.
It is true that past behavior can be a predictor of future behavior. Once you have a flat tire, it's easier to recognize when that happens again. If you hold a knife by the blade, you know you might get cut. After you get stuck in deep snow, you either learn to use snow chains or drive a larger vehicle. You begin to know the nature of a thing. However, in finance, they are quick to warn us that just because a mutual fund has generated 13% return for the past ten years does not guarantee similar returns from here on out, if they are positive at all! If past behavior always was a good predictor, then good cars or good houses would always be good, exhausted gold mines in Nevada would still be good places to get rich, and those leftovers you had two weeks ago would not only still be fresh but also safe. The fact is that things do change.
Now, I have never seen some things change. As far as I know, cheaters always cheat, Boardwalk has always been adjacent to 'Go', and Abraham Lincoln has always been dead. When I look back into journals from my teenage years, I see the same political and philosophical points of view (because they are based on principles) as I hold now. More importantly, through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, assuming of course they choose to. Fortunately for our hopes and efforts to change, His love and His offer are constant in our lives.
Most people I know do not choose to change because they do not believe they can. As we move through life, people are quick to apply labels: that nerdy guy, that air-headed teenager, that disruptive student, or that lazy coworker. If every girl who dumps you does so because you once did drugs, once got a DUI, once got a tatoo, etc., then you start to believe that those things define you. However, I have maintained for a long time that we are not what happens to us- we are what we make happen. The fact that other people divorce you, accuse you, fire you, etc., does not make you a bad person. Everyone makes mistakes. The trick is to not let your mistakes make you. Other people manufacture labels to describe us quickly without having to get to know us. Each man is far too complicated in his facets to be so accurately distilled.
When it serves their purpose, people like to look with a long memory at your sins while they turn a blind eye to their own. They forget that we're all human, and that by definition we will all make mistakes. Mine may require a shorter path of reformation and fewer pains to make proper restitution, but everything I do that is contrary to the will of God estranges me from Him and separates me from His presence. Every man needs the Atonement, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God".
When I was divorced, I saw this treatment firsthand. Perhaps that's why I am less hasty to assume without proof in the form of sworn testimony or multiple dispassionate witnesses that Hermann Cain had an affair, that Newt Gingrich's ex-wife is completely truthful, or that the Duke LaCrosse players actually raped the stripper at the party. People assume that the accused is guilty until they prove otherwise, which is backwards. Perhaps this is because so many people secretly hope other people are also miserable so that they'll feel less bad about their own circumstances. However, the fact of the matter for me has been that some girls will have nothing to do with me because I 'am divorced'. I was divorced. They are two different things. We are human beings. We are not products, events, or actions, and we are certainly not entries in a dictionary. We are not defined by what happens to us; we are defined by how we respond to those things. Many evil men want us to integrate them continually based on what is now regardless of what has ever been, but if you ever do anything, they hang that millstone about your neck and sew a scarlet letter to your vest and bang their drums in the streets, branding you forever in both directions of time for a single moment.
I am somewhat disturbed by the responses I see of late. Some people are hasty to jump on this person or that person for some fault, perceived, imagined or otherwise. If they have resolved it and become better, they have become a new person. Our fascination and fixation on mistakes made by mortals in the past and unwillingness to forgive and forget those with whom we disagree or who have hurt us shows just how little we actually believe in the Atonement. If you cannot be allowed to leave a resolved issue in the past, how can you ever actually be a better person? That is inconsistent with everything we have been taught about Forgiveness which we extend to every man who confesses and forsakes his sins. If "I the Lord remember them no more" works for God, it should be enough for us.
Interestingly enough, the people who cry the loudest about these imagined offenses are usually the biggest hypocrites. They have usually made public apology at best but done nothing to rectify the situation or provide appropriate restitution. If I forgive them, that does not change things; forgiveness is about MY heart, MY ability to move forward, MY state of Grace with my Creator. However, these miscreants take our forgiveness as license to repeat the offense and take our Christian attitude as permission to make that the new norm. We do not forgive them because it's ok; we forgive them because that's part of how we become ok with ourselves and with our Maker.
God has told us that He remembers no more the sins of the truly repentant. Truly repentant people experience a change of heart, a change of mind, and a change of being. They become new people. By this you may know if a man has repented of his sins- behold he will confess them and forsake them. If they really have, what right do we have to drudge up old offenses and cause a new rent with fragments of an old argument? If we really believe in the Atonement, we will accept the apologies of people we do not like when they are genuine. Every time we remember the resolved issues of other men, we invite not only other men but also God Himself to review our own shortcomings. Be careful while trying to point out the mote in someone else's eye that you don't gouge something out with the beam that is in your own.
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