Compassion is not just for those who are ‘good’

AS the King has made clear in relation to his brother’s fall, our thoughts and sympathies must principally remain with the victims and survivors of all forms of abuse.

In addition, can we forgive Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? This immediately raises difficult questions as on the one hand forgiveness seems a good thing to do, while on the other we sense it is not deserved. But isn’t the whole point of forgiveness that it isn’t necessarily deserved?

In the Sceptics and Believers Discussion Group we have a range of views from Christians to humanist atheists. I am in the latter category so I need to consider what is the secular take on forgiveness.

As I understand it, forgiveness is a concept that Christianity introduced into our culture, it was not part of Greek and Roman ideas before the Roman Empire became Christian as they simply had concepts like clemency, leniency and compassion.

Jesus required that we forgive others even when they have sinned against us seven times a day, but at least they did have to ask for forgiveness each time. This seems a bit extreme to me but then the Lord’s Prayer goes further and guides us to say that we need to forgive everyone unconditionally. Hyperbole is a distinctive style for Jesus, so I’ll take this as general encouragement to be forgiving and I’m grateful he’s brought it into our culture.

Jesus said to forgive when we are the victim: “...as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Only God and those with His authority can forgive in a general way. It is in that context Jesus sees the need for remorse in the one needing forgiveness and, on some occasions, with restitution or other actions in keeping.

Modern culture has added the truth that forgiveness can psychologically benefit the forgiver as much or even more than the one forgiven. There’s clearly a lot to be said in favour of forgiveness.

So where does this leave no-longer-prince Andrew? Well, we’re not his victims so it’s not our place to forgive. He also shows no signs of remorse or attempts to make things right. Hence regarding forgiveness we have our answer. “Over-forgiveness” can be damaging — some US televangelists who were caught “with their pants in the till” too easily made a show of remorse, were forgiven by their followers and then carried on their exploitation. And Trump has said: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

What about having compassion for Andrew, that older virtue? If he was from an underprivileged background and was harmed as a child, I could have compassion without excusing adult behaviour. Why should immense privilege make a difference? He didn’t choose to be a royal. So yes, let’s have compassion.

This leads to my thought this week: we live in a town where privilege is widespread, especially when measured on a global scale. This gives us responsibility but privilege shouldn’t prevent us from showing compassion to people who do wrong when it is partly rooted in childhood harm.

A final personal note — I’m exploring the psychological damage caused by that famous privilege: the lived experience of boarding school education. If anyone is interested do contact me or find Boarding School Concern online.