Dunno?....can we forgive the Mongols?
.....the Assyrians on a per capital basis beat the Nazis!
We seem to be doing alright forgiving the Chinese Mao piled up more bodies then Hitler!
How about the Cambodians? Again on a per capital basis they beat Hitler? ...
The Russians...there was that Stalin guy!
Stupid article!
I agree it is a silly premise. Can we forgive modern day Germans for what their grandparents did in WWII? Of course we can, but the whole premise is framed pretty flimsily.
That said, a fundamental Christian premise is forgiveness, how that Christian concept is applied over time is the question.
I have Armenian blood. Can I forgive the Turks for the Armenian Genocide? Sure. But I didn’t live through it myself, so...what good does it do forgiving anyone for something I don’t hold against them.
I think one of the best examples of forgiveness is that of Louis Zamperini who was captured and severly tortured by the Japanese in WWII. After the war, his life was a living hell, he nearly choked his pregnant wife to death in a nightly bout of PTSD, he became an alcoholic, and his life spun out of control. He found Christ, and was able to travel back to Japan and meet personally with some of the very Japanese guards who tortured him (they were being held in prison by the allies for possible war crimes)
He forgave them in his heart and they were utterly astonished by it. How he could do it, I can’t imagine, but I do understand the power of forgiveness myself, having been in a very specific situation that I carried for many years.
But I think forgiveness can only come from within a person. You cannot force it on people externally, it has to come from the heart.