In Ross Douthat's hypothetical, President Donald Trump's ticket into heaven came with one awkward condition: forgive a few political enemies. The president wasn't buying.
In a 60 Minutes interview that aired on November 8th, Douthat asked Trump to imagine standing at the gates of paradise. Suppose all that stood between him and eternal happiness was finding it in his heart to forgive people like James Comey and Nancy Pelosi. Could he manage that?
Trump said claiming to forgive them would be the easy answer. After more prodding, he gave a less convenient one: "I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will."
The exchange came five days after an election that gave Democrats majorities in the next Congress and Americans fresh reasons to resent one another. But you don't need to be on a ballot to understand the temptation. Most of us have at least one person we'd rather avoid at the gates of paradise, if only to keep the afterlife pleasant.
There's a reason Douthat asked. At conservative blogger Charlie Kirk's memorial service in September 2025, his widow, Erika, publicly forgave the man accused of killing her husband.
"That man, that young man, I forgive him," she told the crowd, explaining that forgiveness was what Jesus taught.
When Trump spoke later, he offered a different perspective: "I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them."
Christianity has some uncomfortable things to say about this. So do other religions, although they don't all agree on how much forgiveness an enemy deserves, or whether they must earn it first.
A Commandment Nobody Said Would Be Easy
Jesus himself doesn't leave much room for a satisfying revenge fantasy. In his Sermon on the Mount, perhaps the most famous sermon of all time, he instructs his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. In Matthew 6, he connects forgiving others to receiving forgiveness from God. And when Peter suggests forgiving someone seven times, Jesus raises the number to seventy-seven, or seventy times seven depending on the translation.
That is quite a lot of second chances.
Yet in Luke 17, Jesus says to confront someone who sins against you and forgive them if they repent. Christians disagree over whether that condition applies to personal forgiveness, particularly when the offender remains unrepentant. The command to love one's enemies remains difficult either way.
Pope John Paul II offered a remarkable personal example. In 1981, a Turkish hitman named Mehmet Ali Ağca shot him in St. Peter's Square. John Paul publicly forgave his attacker and, two years later, even visited him in a Rome prison cell. Ağca remained behind bars until Italy pardoned him in 2000, following a request from the pope.
The pope could forgive a man while the justice system continued to punish him. And as we explored in a recent article on whether Jesus would watch a public execution, Christians have argued for centuries about when punishment becomes vengeance.
What About the Person Who Never Says Sorry?
Here's an unusual thing about the Jewish Day of Atonement: You cannot simply apologize to God for stealing from your neighbor and call the matter settled.
Judaism's tradition of teshuvah, repentance or return, puts much of the work on the person who caused the harm. The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides taught that the offender must make restitution, seek the injured person's forgiveness, and change their conduct.
He had a memorable image for someone who confesses but plans to keep sinning: imagine a person taking a ritual purification bath while holding a dead lizard. As long as you're clutching the source of your impurity, the bath won't do you much good.
And if your victim refuses to forgive you? Maimonides says to return with three people to help plead your case, making up to three attempts. Once you've sincerely tried, you generally aren't required to keep asking. He also cautions the injured person against stubbornly rejecting genuine repentance.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, discussing repentance on On the Media, put the victim's side of the equation more bluntly: "Forgiveness is what the victim can offer to the perpetrator, but they're not obligated to."
Imagine a relative who betrays your trust, keeps doing it, and demands that you stop dwelling on the past. What exactly has changed besides their expectation that you'll be the bigger person?
Is Justice a Failure of Mercy?
In Islam, the Quran places mercy and accountability almost side by side. Quran 42:40 allows proportionate redress for wrongdoing, while promising God's reward to someone who forgives and pursues reconciliation. The following verse says there is no blame on people who seek justice after being wronged. Verse 43 praises those who patiently forgive.
That is a long way from telling people to settle every score however they please. Islamic teachings also warn about anger. In a saying recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad describes the truly strong person as the one who controls himself when angry, rather than the one who overpowers others.
The Quran's story of Joseph brings the dilemma closer to home. His brothers abandoned him in a well, where travelers found him. He was later sold into slavery. Years later, when the brothers finally faced him, they admitted their wrongdoing. Joseph answered that there would be no blame on them that day and prayed that God would forgive them.
The Ancient Argument Over Being Too Nice
Long before American politicians traded accusations, a couple in the Hindu epic Mahabharata was having a fierce disagreement about when enough is enough.
Draupadi and her husband Yudhishthira had been exiled after a rigged dice game cost them their kingdom. Yudhishthira favored restraint. Draupadi was furious. Recounting an older teaching that warns against forgiving every offense, she declared that "the present is not the time for forgiveness!"
People who forgive every offense, the teaching argues, only invite further mistreatment. Their enemies learn there is no price for harming them. But someone who punishes everyone is feared and hated. Wisdom lies in knowing when to be firm.
Yudhishthira replies with a defense of patience and warnings about anger. Both know they've been wronged; they just have different ideas about what to do next.
It's an argument plenty of families could have around the dinner table, preferably without losing a kingdom first.
What Your Grudge Is Doing to You
The Buddhist Dhammapada teaches that hatred isn't ended by more hatred. But one of Buddhism's strangest stories explores what happens when someone genuinely changes his ways.
In the Angulimala Sutta, a notorious murderer who wears a grotesque garland of his victims' fingers is approached by the Buddha. After speaking with him, he chooses to abandon violence and becomes a monk. Later, while begging for food, the former killer is pelted with stones and broken pottery. He returns to the Buddha, bleeding, his bowl smashed and his robe torn.
The Buddha tells him to endure the painful consequences of his earlier actions. Angulimala may have changed, but his spiritual transformation doesn't undo the deaths he caused.
Can Some Things Never Be Forgiven?
Decades after surviving Josef Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz, Eva Mozes Kor made a remarkable decision. In 1995, she publicly forgave the Nazis, including Mengele, although she emphasized that she was offering forgiveness only on her own behalf.
"Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your soul and set you free," she later explained. She believed that forgiveness had given her power over a past that once controlled her.
Fellow Holocaust survivor Aaron Elster felt differently. As a boy, he hid for nearly two years in a Polish family's attic. His younger sister, Sara, was murdered by the Nazis.
When asked whether he could forgive, Elster said the perpetrators would have to seek forgiveness from Sara herself.
"I have no right to forgive, and I will not forgive."
Forgiveness With the Door Still Closed
Arapaho Christian DJ Gardner left his church after its pastor denounced Indigenous ceremonies. As he explained in our report on the Wind River Reservation, he had been praying about forgiveness.
"In order for me to strive to be like Jesus, I would have to forgive," he said. "But there are some lines you just don't cross."
He could forgive the pastor and still choose never to return to the congregation. The two decisions belong to Gardner, and even his faith doesn't make them easy.
After the midterms, Episcopal Bishop Robert Hirschfeld warned that Democratic victories could become an excuse for "more retribution and contempt, just from another side of the aisle." He also rejected the idea of turning the church into "the Democratic or Republican Party-at-prayer."
His own approach wasn't entirely comfortable. He admitted his knees were knocking when he approached a MAGA-supporting neighbor in his garage to ask him to pray. They came away knowing each other's names.
Trump was asked if he could forgive his enemies with heaven on the line. He couldn't.
When is it time to forgive your enemies, and when is it time to make them pay?
As the pantheist Fredrick Nietzsche pontificated, “Beware of those in whom the urge to punish is strong.” This Rev gives this Nietzsche quote five stars.