Sub-question: Does forgive, as Jesus preached it, mean no consequences for the offender?
Some apologists will say, yes, Jesus said forgive, but he didn't say forget. So essentially you're still entitled to hold a grudge. You can do everything a grudge-holder would do as long as you don't resent the person in your heart.
Background:
I come from an alcoholic family, and the strong desire for them to drink has led most of them to steal quite a lot of my stuff. Half of them are thieves and boozehounds and the other half are enablers and apologists for them. Most of them are believers in the frankly cultish version of sort-of-Christian monotheism preached in Alcoholics Anonymous.
This is how I came to decide that even though most Christians are good people, I didn't like Christianity. One of my unrepentant alcoholic family members stole my most prized possession and sold it, then refused to do anything whatsoever to make it up to me. My family took me to a Christian minister who said I just had to forgive it with no strings attached and at that point I moved away and cut ties.
Jehovah's Witnesses earned major points with me because they proscribe disfellowship for such awful behaviour. Someone who is an unrepentant thief and drunk is kicked out of the community. I don't consider them as bad as other Christians because even though they will probably say you should forgive the thief, you just disfellowship them anyway, in practice they are willing to give consequences to bad behaviour, which is my whole problem with Christians precisely because of the whole forgiveness motif.
To me, forgiveness means you do not get to give consequences. I hate to argue definitions but in this instance this is the definition.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forgive
Emphasised relevant. I don't like to argue by the dictionary because it's fundamentally dishonest. Words are often imprecise instruments and there's not always a particular word that's perfect for what someone wants to say. This is where definitional argument usually comes in: Someone picked the wrong word, or even described what they were referencing the best they could with a similar word when no precise one was available, so their point is invalid. Furthermore I don't think our dictionary is a good reference for what someone who lived 2000 years ago and spoke a different language actually meant by what he said. The only reason I use the dictionary in this case is because this is the definition that has been used against me. This is what the word means not because the dictionary says so, but because the people who use the word actually use it so. I only add the dictionary reference to preclude anyone else from getting definitional and saying that I'm mistaken about the meaning of forgive, when I'm not.forgive
Definition of forgive
transitive verb
1 : to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : pardon forgive one's enemies
2a : to give up resentment of or claim to requital (see requital sense 1) for forgive an insult
b : to grant relief from payment of forgive a debt
excuse, condone, pardon, forgive mean to exact neither punishment nor redress. excuse may refer to specific acts especially in social or conventional situations or the person responsible for these. excuse an interruption excused them for interrupting Often the term implies extenuating circumstances. injustice excuses strong responses condone implies that one overlooks without censure behavior (such as dishonesty or violence) that involves a serious breach of a moral, ethical, or legal code, and the term may refer to the behavior or to the agent responsible for it. a society that condones alcohol but not narcotics pardon implies that one remits a penalty due for an admitted or established offense. pardon a criminal forgive implies that one gives up all claim to requital and to resentment or vengeful feelings. could not forgive their rudeness
Some Christians seem to agree that forgive means no consequences, while some don't. The Bible seems to support that it means no consequences when Jesus told the tale of the unforgiving servant and it details that forgive a debt means do not collect that debt. I'm not extending that beyond the logical implication when I expect that this also means that forgive a thief means do not expect repayment or punishment.
