The Power of Forgiveness

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

Authors: Kenneth Briggs, and the book is based on a film by Martin Doblmeier

Publisher: Fortress Press, paperback, 205 pages including: Preface, Introduction, 8 chapters, an Epilogue, Index of Persons, Index of Subjects, and Acknowledgments

Authors

At the time of this publication, Kenneth Briggs had been a religion writer for Newsday, a religion editor for The New York Times, then a freelance writer and teacher of college courses in religion, journalism, and interdisciplinary studies, and author of Holy Siege: The Year That Shook Catholic America, and Double-Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns. Martin Doblmeier is President and founder of Journey Films. He produced over 25 award-winning documentary films on religious and spirituality topics, including the widely acclaimed BONHOEFFER. His films have aired on PBS, NBC, ABC, the History Channel, and networks around the world.

Observations

This volume was written by Kenneth Briggs as a companion to Martin Doblmeier’s film of the same name. The book is also the result of contributions from the latter’s colleagues Dan Juday and Adele Schmidt, as well as collaboration with Fortress Press’s editor in chief, Michael West. Doblmeier has also provided material from the film, including images and interviews. 

The Introduction provides a brief prelude of each chapter in this volume. The 8 chapter titles are: One Religion; Two Health; Three Impossible; Four Forgiveness Power; Five Forgiving Oneself; Six The Justice Factor; Seven The Two-Way Street; Eight Repairing Divided Houses; and Epilogue Journey toward Forgiveness. 

Chapter 1 focusses on the tragic killing of five children and wounding of five children at a school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania in 2006. The Amish went to the shooter’s family and offered them forgiveness. The reason and purpose of forgiveness, according to the Amish is that it is God’s will to do so as it is revealed in the Bible and Jesus is their perfect example. For Christians, following Jesus’s teaching and practice, Martin Luther King Jr. stated that: “Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude”(p. 14). 

From the perspective of Judaism, in an interview with Elie Wiesel, forgiveness is seen through the lens of the Holocaust, and he said no to forgiving the Nazis who killed six million Jews. However, in a German Bundestag speech, Wiesel invited Germans to ask Jews for forgiveness. “Hate is destructive and therefore I fight hatred,” [Wiesel] said, noting that many of those with whom he was liberated came out hating. “So I’m against that,” he says. “Anger I’m not [against]. Anger is a good thing” (p.18). For devout Jews, there is a four-step process of repentance that can be practiced anytime: i) regret; ii) cessation; iii) confession; iv) resolution. For many Jews, forgiveness has to be directly between the offender and the offended, it cannot be indirectly between the offender and the offended’s spouse or family, for example. 

In Islam: “One of Allah’s 99 names is Al-Ghafoor, the Forgiving One, and the follower of Muhammad is expected to show forgiveness as sign of fitness for the life beyond” (p. 22). 

In Hindu and Buddhist religions, one pays for one’s wrongs by suffering for them in a future life. According to Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh: “Forgiveness will not be possible,” he said, “until compassion is born in your heart. Even if you want to forgive, you cannot forgive” (p. 25). 

According to social scientists, forgiveness is good for one’s health—both mind and body benefit. According to Dr. Kathleen Lawler-Row’s research, the “most overarching finding is that every time we measure forgiveness it is associated with positive health. …fatigue, sleep, physical symptoms, number of medications, in every case the more forgiving the person the better their health” (p. 46). Dr. Everett Worthington believes that: “Forgiveness is not opposed to justice. Forgiveness works hand in hand with justice, and I think if understood correctly each spurs the other on” (p. 49). 

Chapter 3, “Impossible,” focusses on the difficulty of forgiveness in relation to evil acts like genocide, and to persons such as Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Saddam Hussein, and Idi Amin. In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks of “goats,” people who fail to love and may possibly be punished eternally. “If we are called upon to imitate God in loving, forgiving ways, aren’t we also required on occasion to imitate God’s refusal to forgive?” (p. 59). According to Jewish tradition, associated with Maimonides: “Unforgiveness has also been considered morally permissible if the violator doesn’t ask for pardon, admit guilt, and show remorse” (p. 60). 

Chapter 4, “Forgiveness Power,” focusses on forgiving enemies, and cites the following quotation from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1957 sermon, “Loving Your Enemies”: “He (or she) who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love,” he goes on: “The degree to which we are able to forgive determines the degree to which we are able to love our enemies” (p. 81). For Professor Don Kraybill, pacifism and forgiveness are intricately related: “In declining to retaliate, the non-resister, like every forgiver, extends a hand of life and love to one who has caused harm or intends to” (p. 88). For Christians Jesus’s pacifism is a sign of the inbreaking of God’s realm, which ultimately defeats and ends all violence. 

In chapter 5, “Forgiving Oneself,” counsellors have noted that many emotional problems weigh people down because they seem unable to forgive themselves. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all involve God in the forgiving process to one extent or other, and in all traditions God is the court of first and last resort” (p. 115). 

Chapter 6, “The Justice Factor,” raises the question of whether justice can result in forgiveness or if it is against forgiveness. Retributive justice is most likely not to involve forgiveness, as justice is associated with the need to somehow punish the offender, and thus seems more in line with “an eye for an eye” sense of justice. 

“Justice may be accomplished without forgiveness, but forgiveness is hard to imagine without some degree of justice that bolsters the victim” (p. 127). 

According to David M. Lerman: “restorative justice rests on a set of principles. They include placing the needs of victims first; recognition that breaking the law fractures human relationships; an offender’s willingness to own up to the crime and show personal growth through the restorative justice process; and an earnest effort to fix the damage” (p. 132). When it comes to justice, forgiveness may be more in the background than the foreground.

In chapter 7, “The Two-Way Street,” both parties are viewed as victims and offenders at the same time. One example cited is the breakup of the Beatles. One or more of the Beatles could feel that they were victims from one or more other members of the band. However they too were likely offenders contributing to the band’s breakup. Had all of the Beatles realized this, and asked each other for forgiveness, perhaps the band would have stayed together. “The Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut, Lebanon invites visitors to sort out the maze of perpetrators and victims for themselves without implicating anyone directly” (p. 148). 

Chapter 8, “Repairing Divided Houses focusses on the divisions within nations, such as Protestants and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland. “All nations and peoples get fractured sooner or later, or so it seems, either from internal or external forces” (p. 163). Professor Robert Enright describes forgiveness in Northern Ireland classrooms. “Dr. Seuss’s books have helped open up the subject, along with aids such as “forgiveness glasses,” (i.e. sunglasses) which, when put on, suggest a kinder, gentler way of seeing someone in need of forgiveness.” (p. 167). Another example cited in this chapter is the forgiveness offered by such influential leaders as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in apartheid South Africa, and the Truth and Reconciliation process there. 

In “Epilogue Journey toward Forgiveness,” there are many comments from viewers of Doblmeier’s film. Doblmeier upon speaking with these viewers about forgiveness states: “I try to let them find their own answers; many I feel have needed to be confirmed in their own instincts” (p. 183). In North America, many value individualism and the competitive ethic over the common good. “For Doblmeier, the “power” of forgiveness was never in doubt. If anything, it had taken on “elevated importance as a central message of the Gospel” (p. 193). 

Those readers of this review looking for a resource on forgiveness will find this volume very helpful.