We know what happens when America says, "We will not forgive."
 | By Eleanor Barkhorn Editor at Large, Opinion |
After dozens of people died in an attack at the Kabul airport last month, President Biden vowed that America would strike back. |
"We will not forgive," he said. "We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay." |
Biden went on to quote from the Bible's book of Isaiah, to praise members of the American military who answer the call to serve. He's just the latest U.S. president to invoke Scripture while talking about foreign policy. |
But the Bible is not an instruction manual on American greatness. It is a set of sacred texts that, among other things, tells a story about who God is. Yes, in some places in the Bible God calls for revenge upon his enemies. But in Isaiah, God casts a vision for a world without war, where mighty lions and meek lambs lie down next to each other. And in the Christian gospel of Luke, we see God, in the form of Jesus, asking that his enemies be forgiven. |
In a guest essay, contributing Opinion writer Esau McCaulley asks what it might look like if American presidents were guided by what the Bible says about forgiveness. |
"What if, in response to tragedy, we declared war on the human despair that is a breeding ground of terrorism and steered far more aid money and efforts to helping the poor and refugees?" he writes. |
McCaulley makes no claims to be a politician or an expert in foreign policy. He is a professor of the New Testament at a Christian college. He is also married to a Navy reservist, and therefore very familiar with the sacrifices of military service. He knows that this essay may come off as "naïvely pietistic." But he also points out that we know well the results of the politics of revenge. We've seen what happens when America declares, "We will not forgive": decades of war, thousands of lives lost, an atmosphere of distrust and anger toward those who are different. |
"The politics of forgiveness and restraint," on the other hand, "remain largely untested." |
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