The dance of forgiveness

Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel, but learning how to embody it is not easy. In their new book, "Forgiving As We've Been Forgiven," L. Gregory Jones and Célestin Musekura provide a guide for the practice of forgiveness.

February 1, 2011 | Célestin Musekura’s mother had been presumed dead in the 1992 Rwandan genocide. Many months later, though nearly their entire village had been destroyed, she was found alive.

Mandela and Suu Kyi

Another 5-star article from Cardus. The author compares Mandela with Suu Kyi.

Point of View
Extraordinary Leadership
December 17, 2010 - Janet Epp Buckingham

I was sitting in a conference room at a historic English chateau when I heard that Nelson Mandela was being released and the African National Congress unbanned. Two of the men sitting in the conference room began to cry; they were black South Africans who had not been allowed to go back to South Africa for 25 years.

For now, excuse me if I don't forgive you

A 20-year-old Terri-Lynne McClintic is pleaded guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Grade 3 student Tori Stafford. Here I re-post excerpts from the statements of grief and loss from the Staffords. I admit that in such situation it is really hard to even think of forgiving the offender.

Victim impact statements from Tori Stafford’s family (December 09, 2010)

Rosie DiManno

WOODSTOCK, ONT. - The emptiness is overwhelming and words do not suffice.

But those who knew Tori Stafford best, loved her most, did try to articulate their unbearable loss in victim impact statements read into the court record, prior to the conviction and mandatory life sentence for murder in the first degree imposed on Terri-Lynne McClintic. A temporary ban on the proceedings has now been partly lifted.

What follows are excerpts from the statements delivered by members of the 8-year-old’s grieving family.

Pohl on grace enters with the stranger

The practice of hospitality is central to Christian institutions and Christian leadership, says theologian and ethicist Christine D. Pohl.

Christian leaders have a critical role to play in restoring the institutional practice of hospitality, Christine D. Pohl said. And the best place they can learn about hospitality is often from those who are on the margins, she said.

“You have to be a stranger yourself,” Pohl said. “There has to be an intentional marginality, an intentional experience that becomes part of our spiritual discipline.”

Institutions are essential to the practice of hospitality, which Pohl says is not simply a matter of pleasantries but of finding ways to identify with the experiences and perspectives of marginalized people. “One can’t claim the role of host all the time; … it is a gift also to be willing to be guests and to share in people’s lives.”

Is it Time for Forgiveness? The Journey of Forgiveness: A Living Narrative of Transformation

Dr. Gayle L. Reed

Gayle Reed received a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in Educational Psychology. During her work at the University of Wisconsin, Gayle participated in the Forgiveness Research Program under the auspices of Dr. Robert Enright. Dr. Reed's research on forgiveness therapy for women after spousal abuse is published in the October 2006 issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Gayle currently teaches "The Psychology of Interpersonal Forgiveness" at the University of Wisconsin Extension and has an ongoing practice of forgiveness psychology workshops and individual forgiveness recovery consultation.

Forgiveness is perhaps the central virtue in a person’s religious or spiritual life. Yet it may be the most difficult response to consider after a horrific and violent event such as the recent campus shootings at Virginia Tech. Questions naturally arise: Shouldn’t one be angry about such a cruel and senseless event? Isn’t the pursuit of justice more important than forgiveness? Shouldn’t we find out why someone didn’t provide better protection from the violence? Wouldn’t the victims have to ignore their very real feelings of pain and grief if they forgive too soon? But other questions arise also: How should a person best respond to unjust suffering? Can an unfairly injured person become a stronger, better person by forgiving? How does forgiveness impact the restoration of a wounded community?

During the forgiveness process, it is, indeed, important to spend sufficient time uncovering anger and grieving the undeserved pain of the wrongdoing…but with the express purpose of relinquishing debilitating resentment and/or revenge. Most central to forgiveness is the paradoxical benevolent response of goodwill toward the wrongdoer (even if he/she is no longer alive). In this way the injured person him/herself finds release and healing. Then engagement in the pursuit of restorative justice and related social causes can proceed with a positive energy that is no longer confused by or acting as a form of resentment or revenge. Thus can communities also become places of healing rather than the settings of relentless cycles of violence and revenge (however subtle or “legally justified”).

Miroslav Volf's lecture

Free of Charge? Forgiveness and Faith in a World of Rejection and Rights
Brown University
8 February 2010.

NAE urges cancellation of planned Qu’ran burning

Press Release: NAE Urges Cancellation of Planned Qu’ran Burning
For Immediate Release: July 29, 2010
Contact: Sarah Kropp, 202-789-1011

The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) encourages increased understanding and reconciliation between those of different faiths and backgrounds, and it laments efforts that work against a just and peaceful society. The plans recently announced by a Florida group to burn copies of the Qu’ran on September 11 show disrespect for our Muslim neighbors and would exacerbate tensions between Christians and Muslims throughout the world. The NAE urges the cancellation of the burning.

WWJD? Not burn the Quran

A small church in Gainesville, Fla., (ironically called Dove World Outreach Center) has announced plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, in vengeful commemoration of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington nine years ago. This news item happened to reach me while I was attending a conference in Berlin, Germany - and for that reason it struck me with special force.

Earlier that same day, I had stood in a public square known as the Bebelplatz, just across the street from Berlin's Humboldt University. In the middle of the Bebelplatz there is a translucent panel embedded in the pavement. Looking down through the glass, you see below ground many rows of white bookshelves, all completely empty.

Celestin Musekura

Raising up hope

The founder and president of ALARM Inc. trains civilian and religious leaders in Africa in character building, theology, conflict resolution, community development and forgiveness.

An ordained Baptist minister and a native Rwandan, Musekura earned a master’s degree in sacred theology and a doctorate in theological studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He received a master of divinity from Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology in Kenya. Musekura has studied conflict resolution, mediation and reconciliation at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia and Southern Methodist University in Texas.

While at Duke Divinity School’s Summer Institute, Musekura spoke with Faith & Leadership about training prophetic leaders in Africa. The video clip is an excerpt from the following edited transcript of the interview.

Kim Shin Jo

A North Korean man trained to kill the president of South Korea is forgiven, and now a pastor. CNN's Kyung Lah reports.

Kim Shin Jo is a protestant minister - the gentle leader of his church. But the 69-year-old is best known by history as a trained killer.

Three decades ago, he and 30 others slipped from North Korea into Seoul to kill the South Korean president.

He was the face of evil and terror for a generation of Koreans - a North Korean commando fighter who came into Seoul to assassinate the South Korean president at the time, Park Jung Hee.

Kim recalls the chilling announcement he made to reporters more than 30 years ago:

"I came from North Korea to kill president Park Chung Hee. I came to cut the throat of Park Chung Hee," Kim said.

"We were taught that America had turned South Korea into a colony," he said, "and our mission was to remove the puppet government."

In January, 1968, 31 North Korean commandos managed to slip across the border, through the woods, and make it within a few hundred meters of the president's residence. But a South Korean police officer confronted them. A gunfight ensued.

In the end, more than 30 South Koreans were killed. All of the North Korean commandos were killed, except one who managed to make it back into North Korea and Kim Shin Jo, who was captured.

Kim underwent months of interrogation while captive behind bars. A South Korean army general befriended him - and broke through his hardened training.

"I tried to kill the president. I was the enemy," Kim said. "But the South Korean people showed me sympathy and forgiveness. I was touched and moved."

The government eventually released Kim, finding he never fired a shot from his gun and didn't hurt anyone during the assassination attempt.

Kim later worked for the South Korean military, became a citizen, married and had a family. Then he became a minister.

He is now the country's symbol of redemption.

Today, tensions on the divided peninsula are the highest in a decade - with few answers for workable, long-term solutions. But Kim is living proof that even the hardest of hearts in this conflict can change.

Kim reflected on footage of himself held captive in 1968.

"On that day, Kim Shin Jo died," Kim said. "I was reborn. I got my second life. And I'm thankful for that."

Forgiveness or punishment?

A nun's death and illegal immigration: Forgiveness or punishment?
By Elizabeth Tenety
August 4, 2010; 10:30 AM ET

On Sunday, Sister Denise Mosier, 66, a Benedictine nun and former missionary in Africa was killed and two others gravely injured when, on their way to a retreat, their car was hit by an alleged drunk driver.

The 23-year-old driver, Carlos Martinelly Montano, is reported to be in the United States illegally from Bolivia, and has two previous drunken-driving convictions and has been awaiting long-delayed deportation hearings.

With immigration debates flaring up in both Arizona and Virginia, it didn't take long for immigration reform advocates to politicize Sister Denise's death.

But the Benedictines are emphasizing mercy over politics.

As the Post reported:
Sister Glenna Smith, a spokeswoman for the Benedictine Sisters, said Tuesday that "we are dismayed" by reports that the crash . . . is focusing attention on the man's status as an alleged illegal immigrant. Critics of federal immigration policy have seized on the crash. "He's a child of God and deserves to be treated with dignity," Smith said of the driver, Carlos A. Martinelly Montano. "I don't want to make a pro- or anti-immigrant statement but simply a point that he is an individual human person and we will be approaching him with mercy. Denise, of all us, would be the first to offer forgiveness." . . . "We are also confident that responses of mercy and forgiveness, though not usually easy, are not optional for Christians," read the order's statement on Tuesday.

The Benedictines may be advocating forgiveness, but when it comes to immigration reform, the Catholic Church rejects official pardon.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops say they are not amnesty advocates, but are rather taking a 'path to citizenship' approach: The USCCB has called for a comprehensive reform bill that would, among other provisions, " give migrant workers and their families an opportunity to earn legal permanent residency and eventual citizenship."

At a recent House Judiciary subcommittee meetings, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona framed the debate in moral terms. "Immigration is ultimately a humanitarian issue since it impacts the basic rights and dignity of millions of persons and their families. As such, it has moral implications, especially how it impacts the basic survival and decency of life experienced by human beings like us," Kicanas said.

In light of Sister Denise's death, what is the proper role of religious forgiveness in society? Are the Benedictines right to emphasize Christian forgiveness? Are the bishops correct to eschew amnesty?

When is it right to forgive, and when to punish?

The trial of Pope Benedict XVI

Thursday, May. 27, 2010
The Trial of Pope Benedict XVI
By Jeff Israely and Howard Chua-Eoan

How do you atone for something terrible, like the Inquisition? Joseph Ratzinger attempted to do just that for the Roman Catholic Church during a grandiose display of Vatican penance — the Day of Pardon on March 12, 2000, a ritual presided over by Pope John Paul II and meant to purify two millenniums of church history. In the presence of a wooden crucifix that had survived every siege of Rome since the 15th century, high-ranking Cardinals and bishops stood up to confess to sins against indigenous peoples, women, Jews, cultural minorities and other Christians and religions. Ratzinger was the appropriate choice to represent the fearsome Holy Office of the Inquisition: the German Cardinal was, at the time, head of its historical successor, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. When his turn came, Ratzinger, the church's premier theologian, intoned a short prayer that said "that even men of the church, in the name of faith and morals, have sometimes used methods not in keeping with the Gospel in the solemn duty of defending the truth."

Is human forgiveness possible?

The story I describe here occurred in Indonesia, in my first year of ministry as a parish pastor. As usual, before and after the service, I approached some of my parishioners to say hello to them, or to hold a small conversation with one or two people. On one occasion I had a chance to talk with Juliana (not her real name).

Juliana was one of my parishioners with whom I faced the problem of forgiveness. She was a sixty-five-year-old woman who had lost three of her family members in a fire.

Juliana was a wife with two daughters and two grandchildren. She owned a clothing kiosk which did good business at 'Senen' market. Her husband and daughters were always there for help. "We work in shifts," she said.

One day a horrific incident happened, the market had caught fire. A huge fire broke out and damaged kiosks, stalls, and buildings everywhere, including Juliana's kiosk. Meanwhile, an unknown group of people crossed the kiosk, plundering and looting as they went. Juliana reported that three of her family members were killed in the incident, namely her husband, her youngest daughter, and her sixteen-month-old grandson.

Juliana's husband and his grandson were asleep when the market was engulfed in flames. They died together upstairs in the kiosk. Juliana said, "Perhaps when my husband awoke and became aware of the incident, it was already too late." Her youngest daughter was killed while fleeing the fire. Juliana suspected someone had beaten her unconscious before the fire consumed her body as she was found dead with her right-hand grabbing hold of her neck.

Juliana herself, her eldest daughter, and her granddaughter were away from work when the incident took place. Therefore, they were all safe. But the fact that she and other family members were safe did not make her glad or feel relieved. Instead, she seemed to be very sad and depressed.

One parishioner who was a close friend of Juliana said to me, "Ever since the incident, even though Juliana still attends the church, she becomes very quiet and cries easily."

In my pastoral visit, however, I found that she was quite open to talk about her concerns and about the incident. What I noticed during the visit was that she told the story repetitively as though she was trying to find out what had happened. She extended her outrage to the perpetrators. Her suspicion was that arsonists had caused the incident and the death of her beloved daughter was not just an accident but a homicide attempted by the looters.

Juliana's experience raises important questions about the possibility of forgiveness. If I were to ask Juliana whether she was concerned about being able to forgive those arsonists and looters, I suppose she would immediately give no reply. Having listened to her story, I could not help but wonder: Had she failed to forgive? When the wounds haven't yet healed, could I expect her to forgive? Is forgiveness an isolated event from a larger healing process? If she immediately forgave those who wronged her, what does forgiveness mean to her? How does a Christian understanding of forgiveness inform what Juliana needed to do in relation to the perpetrators?

The word of reconciliation

"The second epistle of Paul to the Corinthians is a message announcing that God’s work of reconciliation has begun."

by Richard Hays
July 20, 2010 | 2 Corinthians 5:14-6:2

Editor’s note: Faith & Leadership offers sermons that shed light on issues of Christian leadership. This sermon was preached June 1, 2010, at the Duke Center for Reconciliation’s Summer Institute. Scripture quotations follow the NRSV, except where the author has provided his own translation.

Agca has been released

The man who shot Pope John Paul II has been released from prison.