whatever happened to forgiveness?

[Frostbite]

Ok I've been chatting with some christian friends of mine and they're heavy into the capital punishment, hate campaigns, anti-gay stuff etc. I might be chatting with the wrong crowd, so I won't generalize and say that all christians think alike, but I was wondering, whatever happened to forgiveness and acceptance? Whatever happened with locking up repeated sex offenders and serial killers for life, and accepting homosexuals as they are and that there's no getting rid of them? Isn't forgiveness one of the basic principles of that religion?

[edit: missing words...]

[ImpyTimpy]

Yes, forgiveness and acceptance is supposed to be a part of christian faith as I recall, however for every passage about forgiveness a christian will produce a passage about being vigilant against sinners in their bible. The bible to many hard core christians is the ultimate guide book on how to live and treat others - the only problem is they select which parts of the bible should be used. Since it's in the bible it makes it right to do it.

Originally posted by Frostbite
Ok I've been chatting with some christian friends of mine and they're heavy into the capital punishment, hate campaigns, anti-gay stuff etc. I might be chatting with the wrong crowd, so I won't generalize and say that all christians think alike, but I was wondering, whatever happened to forgiveness and acceptance? Whatever happened with locking up repeated sex offenders and serial killers for life, and accepting homosexuals as they are and there's no getting of them? Isn't forgiveness one of the basic principles of that religion?

[Dancing David]

what wa sit one of my friends told me "there used to be three towns in our county named faith, hope and charity. Faith closed during the civil war, charity went out during the depression. All that is left is hope." I guess the town of forgiveness dies in WWI.

Peace

(This is a question I often ask myself, why does everyone blame the victims and forgive the perpetrators)

[Jet Grind]

Originally posted by Frostbite
Ok I've been chatting with some christian friends of mine and they're heavy into the capital punishment, hate campaigns, anti-gay stuff etc. I might be chatting with the wrong crowd, so I won't generalize and say that all christians think alike, but I was wondering, whatever happened to forgiveness and acceptance? Whatever happened with locking up repeated sex offenders and serial killers for life, and accepting homosexuals as they are and there's no getting of them? Isn't forgiveness one of the basic principles of that religion?

Yes, forgiveness is supposed to be a big part of Christianity. Not all adhere to it however. Something that really surprises me is that so many Christians over here in the US are conservative. Jesus, if he actually existed, would deplore capital punishment, homophobia, free market economics, etc. He was the origional anarcho-socialist. If they really wanted to follow the example of Jesus', then I'd imagine that they would too.

[justsaygnosis]

One of my religion teachers in high school stated that forgiveness was the natural expression of a mind that realizes and appreciates grace.
He broke the word into the two part 'fore-give' and stated that grace was given before any transgression ever took place and that penitence rather than guilt driven shame was the method of re-attaining natural grace.
As much as I can disagree with much of what was put forward to me in 12 years of catholic school that I remember.