Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: Jesus Returning the Keys to St. Peter (1820)

¹⁵ When they had finished the meal, Jesus says to Simon Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He answered: “Yes, Lord, you know that I hold you dear.” Jesus says to him: “Feed my lambs!” ¹⁶ Again, for the second time, he says: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord, you know that I hold you dear,” Peter answered. Jesus says: “Be shepherd to my sheep!” ¹⁷ Then he says to him for the third time: “Simon, son of John, do you hold me dear?” Peter became sorrowful that Jesus for the third time asked whether he held him dear, and he said: “Lord, you know everything. You know that I hold you dear.” Jesus says to him: “Feed my sheep! ¹⁸ Truly, truly, I say to you: When you were young, you fastened your belt yourself and went where you yourself wished. But when you grow old, you shall stretch out your hands, and another shall fasten the belt around you and lead you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹ This he said in order to make known by what kind of death he would glorify God. When he had said this, he said to Peter: “Follow me!”

John 21, 15–19

The text I have chosen as the point of departure for today’s reflection took place between the resurrection and Christ’s Ascension Day, and is in my opinion one of the most beautiful in the Bible. At the same time, it is also relevant in light of this week’s major ethical discussion, the statements made by the Progress Party’s (FrP) advisor Hårek Hansen. Or should we rather say: the absence of ethical discussion.

In the text from the Gospel of John, Jesus meets Peter privately, and the background is clear. Peter had denied his relationship to Jesus three times, indeed even sworn that he did not know who Jesus was while Jesus was being interrogated by the high priest.

It was also Jesus who said to Peter that we shall forgive seventy times seven, that there is no limit to our duty to forgive, since we ourselves have been forgiven everything by our God.

For FrP’s Hårek Hansen, however, there was no mercy. He lost both his job and his membership following his statements about immigrants from Pakistan.

Double standards in new Norway: Merciless towards Norwegians, submissive towards immigrants

There is something strange here. Firstly because the Left as a rule receives forgiveness for its transgressions, but also because of how weak the Right appears in the face of criticism from the socialists.

When Norway’s communist-light Red Party’s Mímir Kristjánsson, in a state of intoxication, threatened a critic by referring to violent milieus connected to Hells Angels, he was of course met with strong criticism, but he was also given the opportunity publicly to apologise. He took responsibility for what he had said, and many believed that he should be given the opportunity to ask forgiveness and move on afterwards.

The case also triggered a broader debate about whether the public sphere and politics allow room for repentance, forgiveness, and rehabilitation when someone has done something serious, but acknowledges fault and attempts to make amends.

This possibility, then, is not to apply to Hårek Hansen.

That is to say: Hårek Hansen belongs to a party whose leader Sylvi Listhaug has Jesus as an ideal and where the party dares to point to the Christian worldview as the basis for its politics, but which nevertheless allows no room for forgiveness, while the party leader bows to criticism from politicians who believe in nothing, people without an ethical foundation for their so-called values.

How in the world did we get there?

It is one of the greatest political paradoxes of our age that we are witnessing, a paradox that also preoccupied C.S. Lewis, namely that many people like to hold opinions about the behaviour of others, while themselves rejecting belief in a higher morality. And that is precisely what characterises our own age. The right to change one’s position on moral questions is perceived as a human right, while at the same time there is no mercy for those who hold the same views that the majority held only a short time ago. We see it everywhere, whether in discussions concerning, for example, immigration, abortion, or belief in fluid gender identity.

But why do we allow ourselves to be governed by them?

There is every reason to believe that Sylvi Listhaug would have dared to stand up against the pressure FrP experienced following TV 2’s publication of Hårek Hansen’s statements had she been more clearly rooted in the Christian worldview. But once again we see the consequences of a lack of spiritual depth, and this applies not only in this case. We have allowed the Left and other politically correct figures on the Right to dictate what we are to think for far too long. Without a struggle, their purported ethics have been permitted to define the position of the Right, and thereby also the political direction of the country.

But we also sacrifice our own if it is demanded. The politically correct demand the right to decide who shall be forgiven.

This is perhaps the greatest difference between parts of Europe and the United States. America’s conservatives do not allow themselves to be pushed around by godless Democrats; they dare to fight with the weapons that faith gives them. That is to say truth and reason. We have nothing left. Even forgiveness has been taken from us, and reason rooted in God is merely a pale memory.

Norway’s PM teams up with broadcaster who publicly shamed Progress Party advisor