IN THIS challenging reflection on the story of Abraham and Isaac, Peter, a queer trans man and academic researcher, considers how forgiveness can be, and often is, a very loaded topic, especially within a faith and church context.

Content warning: abuse, domestic violence.

When I first became a Christian, I was a young 17-year-old queer kid. I was bullied a huge amount in school, and I was no stranger to being ostracised in a group. So, when faced with God, and the decision to become a Christian, it seemed to matter less that I might be ostracised even more by my school friends for being Christian.

Ten years ago last month, I made that decision to become a Christian. I walked to the front of a church service and prayed what’s known as ‘The Sinners Prayer’ or a conversion prayer. I prayed to give my life to Christ. But before that I was led in a prayer for forgiveness, for myself and my sin.

Before this point my only experience of forgiveness was the odd ‘sorry’ I hastily said to my sister after fighting with her. For me forgiveness meant saying sorry and moving on. I now realise that what I learnt and practised for many years was ‘cheap forgiveness’.

Cut to almost ten years later - I was sitting in a small coffee shop having lunch with our curate. I had asked to meet because I was struggling to understand the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Book of Genesis chapter 22 (again). It’s a passage I have read and avoided many times over the past decade. It makes me deeply uncomfortable, as I am sure it does with many other people. How can God allow a father to abuse his son like that? Where is the justice for Isaac?

This time round the story had once again struck a nerve with me, as I was deconstructing my own theology around forgiveness and anger. I had been wrestling with trauma from early in my childhood and throughout my time in various churches. Around five years ago, I was forced to flee from a church and leave a country I called home because of abuse I endured from church leadership and the homophobia of a host family I was staying with. In the years following, I spent a lot of energy on jumping to forgive them because I didn’t want to hold onto it. I had always been taught, firstly as a child and then as a Christian, always to be quick to forgive, which on the face of it seems like wise advice and Godly practice. However, I have come to realise that in jumping to forgive I have skipped justice and made forgiveness cheap.

As we sat at a little bashed wooden table in the cafe, with the bustle of other conversations around us, we opened the reading in front of us again. My curate asked me first: ‘What do you know about Jesus and who He is?’, to which, If I am honest, I rolled my eyes. I know Jesus is kind, good, patient but also angry sometimes. I know He flipped tables in the temple. I know He loved His disciples. I know He mourned in grief and tears at the loss of Lazarus. I know He said that the kingdom of God belonged to little children, and He got angry at those who tried to stop them coming.

Then my curate said, with a wide (and slightly annoying) smile on her face, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’. If I know and see Jesus as kind, loving and in no way abusive, then I can see the Father as that also. As you can imagine, this didn’t satisfy me very much. After all it’s still written in Genesis 22 that Abraham ties his son to a table and raises a knife over him.

We paused here. I needed to lower my heart rate and breathe.

I couldn’t help but put myself in the position of Isaac. Except I wasn’t tied to an altar, but pinned to the stairs, as my dad stood over me. Just as I couldn’t understand why God would allow or even ask Abraham to sacrifice his son, I couldn’t understand why God, who I knew to be loving, would allow my dad to treat me like that. At this point my curate said: ‘I think you might have bad theology around forgiveness’.

As we sat together, she drew out an example of forgiveness. First there is the wrong done, then the pain that results from it, then the acknowledgment of that pain, then there is the trial where the wrongs are listed, then we hand it over to God for justice and forgiveness. I was honestly surprised to see all those extra steps so starkly laid out. She then drew out my description of forgiveness, which had just two steps; the wrong is done, and I give it to God and forgive. I had been making forgiveness cheap. In my rush to forgive the church that abused me, I had even skipped acknowledging the pain and naming the abuse.

God is the God of justice. I think it has been very easy as a church to skip over justice. We need to allow ourselves to acknowledge the pain, speak out about the offenses, and then hand it to God for justice and forgiveness. I had always wondered why so many past hurts still hurt me so badly. It wasn’t until recently that I had even been able to say that the church I had to flee was abusive. I had been in such a hurry to forgive so that I could move on, that I hadn’t slowed down enough to even acknowledge and name the pain.

So where does that leave us with Abraham and Isaac?

Unfortunately I don’t have an answer that is likely to be satisfying. However, after going over and re-assessing forgiveness, we went back to the passage, and with fresh eyes I read through it once again. I noticed that the story was about God changing how we offer ourselves in worship. I don’t know how Isaac felt, we aren’t given that information in the passage. What I do know is that instead of having to sacrifice himself, a ram was given. God was showing them and us that there was no need to destroy ourselves to worship and honour Him.

I thought my jump to forgive was a way of honouring God. I thought I was being sacrificial and honouring Jesus. I now realise that in rushing to forgive I had skipped acknowledging the pain, bringing it under the light and handing it to God for justice and then forgiveness. I was trying to destroy myself in order to honour God. Forgiveness isn’t and never was cheap.

Jesus on the cross was a visceral and painful thing. Something so costly, God offered himself as a sacrifice. Jesus didn’t skip the pain, the trial, the justice and jump straight to forgiveness. It was not cheap for Him.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to forgive - it means our understanding of what forgiveness is needs to change, so that we don’t rush through. I think this is especially important when we as LGBTQ+ people in the church are so often and so readily asked to forgive and forget before the pain is even acknowledged and the offenses heard.

Let’s not destroy ourselves for cheap forgiveness.