Misapplying “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” 



Many people quote ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’  when they’re talking to victims of abuse.

In this post I’ll briefly explain why it’s unhelpful to quote that saying at victims. If you want to learn more, read my updated post Three Kinds of Forgiveness.

When Jesus was saying “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”, he must have, in his human nature, been expressing the kind of forgiveness that is renunciation of personal vengeance. Implicitly, he also must have been asking his Father to bring those Roman soldiers and the scoffing bystanders to repentance and faith in him.

When Stephen was being stoned, his last words were “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” (Acts 7:60). Stephen was asking God to bring those angry mean people to repentance and faith in Christ, so that they would not suffer eternal punishment for having unjustly stoned him.

Jesus would be able to joyfully greet any of those soldiers and mocking bystanders in heaven. He would not hold their sin against them because, in order to be in heaven, those soldiers and scoffers would have come to repentance and saving faith.

Stephen would be able to joyfully greet any of his stoners in heaven. He wouldn’t hold their sin against them, because he would know those stoners must have come to repentance and saving faith.

Notice something about these two cases? Both Jesus and Stephen were about to die. They were unable to escape the persecution, so there was no chance they would be needing to decide whether to reconcile in this temporal world with their abusers! The question of relational reconciliation (relational forgiveness) was not even on the table.

But people routinely quote ‘Father forgive them for the know not what they do,’ at victims who are NOT about to die. It’s a terrible misapplication of the text because it focus on the victim’s responsibility to pray for the abuser’s forgiveness, while skimming over the abuser’s culpability.

When a victim raises the topic of abuse, many people repeat Christian cliches

The cliché could be a warped doctrine they’ve heard from people in pulpits. Or it could be a direct quote from scripture which pops of the mouth without any thought as to whether it will hurt or help the victim.

The left hemisphere of the human brain is a verbal-logical explainer. (I learned this from Dr Jim Wilder.) When the left-brain isn’t attending to what’s going on in the right brain, the left-brain quickly makes up a verbal explanatory ‘fix’ for every situation. The left-brain can extrude speech rather like AI extrudes text.

Hearing a victim talk about her abuse, a left-brain-dominated listener can easily think, She’s talking about what her abusers did, so I’ll remind her that Jesus said ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’.   

The cliché-giver neatly avoids joining in righteous indignation with the victim and standing with her as she seeks justice and cultural change.

If victims don’t know how to respond to the person who quotes at them, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do,’ they may go into silent, self-scrutinising, shame-spirals. Or hot anger. Or cold anger.

When victims stay silent, passive-bystanders are comfortable.

When victims go into hot anger, perpetrators weaponise it. “She’s crazy! Let’s ignore her!” 

When victims go into cold anger (fixed resentment), perpetrators weaponise it. “She’s bitter! Let’s lecture her on the sin of bitterness!” 

Judith Herman gives us insight into why victims become angry:

Retributive anger—what I would call blind rage or humiliated fury—is what people feel when they are alone and abandoned to their fates. The wish to retaliate is born of isolation and helplessness…When the community rallies to the victim’s support, vengeful feelings are transformed into shared righteous indignation, which can be a powerful source of energy for repair. It is only when victims are denied their fair measure of justice that their anger can fester as helpless rage.
— Judith Herman, Truth and Repair, p 47

Those who don’t default to Christian clichés often remain silent when the topic of abuse comes up. But silence only stabilises the status quo.

Very few men commit extreme abuse & therefore will not be in the Epstein Files. However far too many men benefit from or enable cultures where abuse can hide, because silence is socially rewarded & intervention is costly.

Silence isn’t neutrality, it stabilises the status quo. In that sense, the moral line isn’t between “good men” and “bad men,” but between those who treat discomfort as a stop sign and those who treat it as a signal.

Atrocities require architects, but they survive on the quiet cooperation of the many.  They unravel when enough ordinary people decide that staying silent costs more than speaking.

Let that sink in. Men’s Silence is a major part of the issue. Yes women are silent too however it’s clear who the perpetrators are and let’s not forget women have been the leaders on this issue for decades.
— Graham Goulden on Facebook

Let’s develop the moral courage to diverge from the group norm. An easy step is to stop letting Christian clichés pass. Remaining silent just lets everyone else think the cliché is appropriate. Start a new norm. Say, “That isn’t going to land well with the victims of abuse. It’s pat advice.”

Read my updated post Three Kinds of Forgiveness.