The families of the victims of Wednesday night's terror attack on a Charleston Black Church were surprisingly forgiving of the evil shooter, Dylann Roof. These people have acted with the utmost magnanimous kindness to an undeserving monster, so much so that Tucker Carlson took note.
"This strikes me as so unusual, it's got to be an example of the Supernatural at work. Families of the slain forgiving the gunman."
As usual, Dallas megachurch pastor, Robert Jeffress seconded his opinion. Jeffress, ever being the good Christian, firmly believes that the only way to deal with refugee children at our Southern Border is to make it more secure, to keep them OUT.
Jeffress said,
"This is the most remarkable display of Christianity at work that I've ever witnessed myself...(The families) They're simply saying let God and Government settle the score for us."
This is a phenomenon that people in the secular world simply can't grasp. Both Carlson and Jeffress insinuated that without God, you only have bitterness. Forgiveness is only a Christian thing, not secular. Jeffress added,
"C.S. Lewis said, one time, to be a Christian is to forgive the inexcusable in others because God has forgiven the inexcusable in us... The essence of Christianity is forgiveness.
Don't worry, these guys aren't alone. In fact, the entire right wing talking points bulletin has decreed that everyone on the right should claim that the only reason these families are behaving in such a noble manner is because of JESUS. The only path to forgiveness is Christianity.
Mike Huckabee said that Christianity is a powerful force of healing and reconciliation. Rudy Giuliani said so right before he went into a racist tirade about school vouchers. David Brooks on Meet The Press said it's a divine forgiveness that we are witnessing. On This Week, on ABC, Rick Santorum also parroted the meme:
"What I -- what I saw here in Charleston over the last few days, to me, has given me more hope than any -- anything that I've seen in a long time.
The way the people in this community, the victims' families, that bond hearing, I -- if I were a pastor in a church today, I'd play that bond hearing, those -- of those family members getting up and -- and showing true forgiveness, showing that -- that -- how the pain of what this young man did to their families and then being able to forgive.
I mean the -- the real sense that we have -- we have people here who -- who understand that the way to overcome all of this horrible violence is through a -- through reconciliation.
It's settled. The Right is convinced that through Christianity you can forgive, as these victims of violence forgive BECAUSE of Jesus Christ. One might say that the Religious Right is exploiting a tragedy to further their goals of creating a Christian Theocracy? It's not too far-fetched, especially when these same people want to place a Ten Commandments Monument on the Arkansas State Capitol Grounds.
