We all just need to forgive. Why are you so unforgiving?

It isn’t our place to give forgiveness of an offense against someone else. It’s the place of the offended person alone.

Telling everyone to ask and grant forgiveness can be an easy out to salve the conscience of the third party who might not understand what to do (but wants everything to be okay so we can get back to normal life), but it’s wrong. If someone stole and destroyed your car, you wouldn’t want someone else deciding that he was forgiven.

We agree that forgiveness is important. Jesus said so, and we agree with Him. We also acknowledge that forgiveness can often be a long, hard road, particularly for victims of violence. Many of the crimes that we know about are violent, even sadistic, crimes. True forgiveness doesn’t always come immediately for such things.

On the side of the one who was victimized, forgiveness is important, but on the side of the one who did the victimizing, it’s important not just to say “I’m sorry,” but, as is detailed in Tear Down This Wall of Silence, to bring forth fruits of repentance, to be willing to accept the consequences of his sin, and to labor to make restitution.

We would say this would also be true in the case of the University in any situations in which it is shown that they have protected perpetrators or shamed victims.