The Globalization of Labor and the Limits of Sovereignty: Immigration and the Politics of Forgiveness

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the phenomenon of ever-growing global migration of people with a following set of questions: (1) What are the main causes of this global phenomenon?; (2) What are the possible ethical and political issues of the rising global migration of people?; (3) What should be the theological response to these issues, and how should the church engage them? In answering these questions, this paper is specifically focused on the case of undocumented migrants: their social predicament, political impasse, and religious (theological) ethical engagement.     

Johann Baptist Metz's Memoria Passionis and the Possibility of Political Forgiveness

The idea of memoria passionis promoted by Johann Baptist Metz provides a strong basis for correlating the Christian creed of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and our political engagement in atrocious situations. However, Metz's idea of memory and remembering is not sufficient as we attempt to construct a just and peaceful society based on the Christian notion of forgiveness. This article attempts to make use of Metz's memoria passionis, while at the same time proposing the necessity of political forgiveness as an intrinsic aspect of such a memorative faith. In such a proposal, forgiving and remembering must be two unavoidable and intertwined dimensions of memoria passionis Jesu Christi.     

Democracy and the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

This paper explores the difficulties faced by European secularism in dealing with a Muslim diaspora of unprecedented size in the continent's history. It shows how this presence has highlighted contradictions in European conceptions of the religious and of the public-private divide. The paper does this by comparing Europe to Latin America where a quite different process of secularization seems to have taken place.     

Declarations of Forgiveness and Remorse in European Politics

This article examines the historical background, proliferation, and later internationalization of public declarations of forgiveness and remorse, first made in Europe a few decades after the end World War II. The author suggests that these declarations should be understood as a political practice, and bases her claim on three premises: (1) after 1945, politicians began apologizing not only for their own crimes but mainly for those perpetrated by the communities they represented; (2) these declarations implied a tacit acceptance of responsibility of both the group that declares its remorse and of the group that accepts and possibly forgives the former for its past crimes; (3) apart from representing a shared collective moral responsibility, declarations of forgiveness and remorse imply the continuity of a nation (or of other kinds of human collectivities). These three premises apply if declarations of forgiveness and remorse are not banal and conventional, but function as a political ritual. The author discusses the main controversies relating to these declarations, such as the problem of collective responsibility or the neglect of the victims of past crimes, and concludes that, despite their flaws, authentic declarations of forgiveness and remorse have important moral and political consequences.     

The forgiveness dilemma: emotions and justice at the Khmer Rouge tribunal

In post-conflict politics, forgiveness is as controversial as it is popular. Generally conceived as the overcoming of negative moral emotions such as resentment and anger, forgiveness is, on the one hand, credited with bestowing significant psychological benefits on its practitioners, contributing to processes of interpersonal and societal reconciliation, and avoiding revenge. On the other hand, however, critics warn that rather than helping to address the negative emotions, forgiveness actually helps to provoke resentments and grievances by heaping injustice upon injustice. Herein lies the dilemma with which this article is concerned. By examining the nature of the negative emotions and their relationship to the pursuit of justice, as well as the nature and consequences of forgiveness, it considers the role that victim participation in human rights trials plays in helping post-conflict societies to overcome the forgiveness dilemma. To do so, it focuses on Case 001, heard before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.     

Forgiveness and reconciliation in Hobbes’s natural law theory

Thomas Hobbes’s laws of nature dictate the making and keeping of the social contract. In addition, Hobbes’s natural law theory considers traditional moral virtues, such as mercy and gratitude, as being conducive to peace. Some Hobbes scholars have argued that these other natural laws call for ‘forgiveness’ and facilitate ‘reconciliation’. However, as this essay shows, Hobbes does not use these terms to mean the reparation of broken relationships between victims and perpetrators. Rather, Hobbesian reconciliation refers to efforts to propitiate enemies in order to win their favour, while forgiveness is a synonym for pardon, in the sense of punishment-forbearance. It is argued that neither of these requires true remorse and reparation of the wrong done. By contrasting Hobbes’s conception of anger with that of Aristotle, the article provides an explanation for why Hobbes maintains that the rage of enemies could be appeased by instrumental calculations of expected benefits, thus ignoring more deep-seated resentments caused by moral wrongs.     

Proclaiming the jubilee year for undocumented migrants: anti-immigration biopolitics and a Christian theopolitical response

President Obama announced a major executive action on immigration policy on November 20, 2014, which will protect up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. Obama's executive order, however, outraged Republicans in Congress, who argue that the president does not have the authority to delay deportations in such magnitude. On December 3, 2014, a coalition of 17 U.S. states led by Texas Governor-elect Greg Abbott sued the Obama administration to stop it from protecting undocumented immigrants from deportation. The purpose of this paper is to respond to the current political (d)evolvement with a new theological appropriation of the biblical concept of “jubilee.” I argue in this paper that Christian churches and communities should adopt a new theopolitical paradigm modeled after jubilee in engaging the political process to promote justice and peace for many undocumented people. The strength of this new model lies in its theological emphasis on the Christian ideal of forgiveness, and a key theological insight we can draw on from the concept of jubilee is that no humans should be kept under permanent indebted, enslaved, or illegal status.