How Does Forgiveness for Ex-MAGA Really Work?
You can't dodge accountability
You know those viral videos online of some church gathering where the pastor calls someone up on stage and they confess some horrible sin? Or even the pastor himself — he confesses to abusing or ‘stumbling’ over a young woman, even a minor child, and begs forgiveness for the horrible thing he did.
And the congregation stands and claps, and they approach him and lay their hands on him and they pray for him to be forgiven. And then they all expect everything to just… move forward.
If the young woman is horrified and tells her community that she wants justice, they shun her. He asked for forgiveness. Why won’t she forgive? Why won’t she turn the other cheek? Why won’t she extend mercy to this poor sinner, and do what Christ would do?
What she suffered doesn’t matter to the congregation. There ought be no consequences. He asked forgiveness. He said the words. So it’s done.
This is not a hypothetical, by the way — this is a real case. It’s several real cases, in fact. This happens all the time.
In these fundamentalist spaces, forgiveness is something you get by asking for it. It is something you are entitled to, no matter what you do. You don’t need to earn it.
This is for those ex-MAGA folks out there expecting to be forgiven immediately and not face consequences.
The real world is not your church. What you do comes back to haunt you. You don’t get to act shocked when you aren’t forgiven just for ‘seeing the light.’
Get that out of your vocabulary, because that shit doesn’t fly here.
You voted to destroy human beings. To make them suffer. To kill children, and women, and trans people and gay people and people of colour. You voted for horror, you heard Trump preach Nazi-rhetoric and speak of war while claiming to be a man of peace, and you cheered for his lies.
Your vote is why people are dying in the streets at the hands of his thugs.
Now you turn around when you get hurt and expect that prayer circle of forgiveness and for the rest of your fellows to just accept you without any consequences at all?
This isn’t your church. This is our church.
In our church, you are held accountable. You face consequences. Forgiveness is earned through action, by proving every single day that you are not the same person you were before.
If you can consistently show that you truly understand and have changed, that now you will fight to undo the harm you caused and help people, you will be welcomed.
But you’ll have to take your lumps and walk through fire first.
You have to suck up that pain and hold it in yourself, understand it fully, before you’ll be taken for a changed person.
If you can’t do that, well. You’re not helping the fight anyway.
If that’s too hard, feel free to go back to your safe space, snowflake.
Solidarity wins.