Of crucial importance to mental, emotional, spiritual and public health, Amy Orr-Ewing offers a superb account of why forgiveness is vital. What’s more, she elucidates how forgiveness looks in various contexts and circumstances making this an immensely practical guide. Although writing from her personal story, along with anecdotal illustrations borne out of her experience with others, readers will gain confidence by her exposure to a wide variety of reliable academic sources from which she gleans great depth and much-needed wisdom. Everyone, regardless of religious persuasion, will greatly benefit from the insights of Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear.
My remarks will be brief, as I’ve read a great deal on and written about forgiveness previously. There are a few things I want to mention, which struck me as helpful and significantly enlarged my understanding.
First, her position laid out in chapter 4 is strikingly similar to mine when she states, “Forgiveness is offered without conditions, but it cannot be fully actualized and finalized until the wrongdoer repents.” She notes that judgment belongs to God and victims are not required to hold on to bitterness but can, by offering forgiveness, be released from the heavy burden of vengeance or grievance. This release is made possible, in part, when victims recognize they have been forgiven much and continue to be in need of forgiveness (pp 58-59).
Granting forgiveness is not merely a mental exercise but involves ‘embodied action.’ She recounts the moving story of Corrie ten Boom when encountering a German guard from the concentration camp where her sister was put to death. When the guard extended his hand asking for ten Boom’s forgiveness, she reluctantly took his hand and, as such, embodied forgiveness (p 62-63). I was reminded of the father’s reaction to his prodigal son upon his return in Luke 15:20-21. Not only is it appropriate for forgiveness granted to be tangibly expressed, but an embodiment of forgiveness offered can also be used instrumentally in enabling repentance in the offender.
She concludes the chapter stressing the importance of ‘embodied forgiveness.’ Though some ambiguity remains about forgiving the unrepentant (see below), she stresses — and I agree — that enacting forgiveness in a tangible way is crucial.
Forgiveness in the Christian life is offered unconditionally to those who have harmed us, through the power and love of God in Christ, but this forgiveness is actualized by repentance. Our part as followers of Christ is to offer it—empowered by the cross—and while there may be disagreement over whether to forgive unrepentant people, as well as over the mechanics of how forgiveness operates, these nuances are peripheral to forgiveness as an embodied reality.
Chapter 6 speaks to the healing power of forgiveness. In most cases throughout the book, she is careful to distinguish a forgiveness that is ‘enacted’ or granted from a forgiveness that is offered. Whether offered or granted, Orr-Ewing insists forgiveness helps the victim. This is not some cheap, therapeutic forgiveness model that appeals only to the psychology centered on reducing anxiety for the victim while not taking seriously the nature of the offense. Instead, this is a real enactment that plays out in moving toward genuine healing for the victim. From the perspective of the benefit to the victim she writes:
Forgiving someone who has hurt us is never simple—it can feel like an impossible ask. But holding onto those moments, replaying the pain again and again, often leads us into a spiral of bitterness and silent rage. The gospel doesn’t ask us to ignore the wrong or pretend it didn’t happen. Instead, it offers us something astonishing: the chance to be free. Forgiveness is not about letting someone off the hook; it’s about releasing ourselves from being chained to their actions. It’s choosing to step into freedom, not because the past didn’t matter, but because it no longer has to define us. When we forgive, we are not condoning harm; we are choosing freedom over bitterness.
I’m not clear on her meaning here, but unless I misunderstand, she likely means victims ‘offering’ forgiveness, not ‘enacted or granting’ forgiveness. Otherwise, to grant forgiveness where there is no repentance makes light of the offense and minimizes the genuine peace victims long for, all of which she explicitly states elsewhere. Still, her point is solid that trauma and pain, however real, should not define victims and the freedom obtained to move forward through offering forgiveness brings health and reduces or eliminates anxiety. “Self-forgiveness, forgiveness of others, and divine forgiveness all invite us to confront hurt honestly, rather than suppress or weaponize it, and to choose freedom over bitterness” (p 98).
My highlights here only touch on the value of this book. Subsequent chapters insist that not only are our personal identities richer, but our communal and national identities strengthened when forgiveness is at the forefront of our posture toward others. Amy Orr-Ewing’s Forgiveness gives us much to think on and so much more to act on. In a culture stoked by gratuitous provocation and immersed in contemptuous indignation we’ll find that our mental, emotional, spiritual, and public lives are remarkably enriched and enhanced when we lean into forgiveness. It is a gift that we have been given, and one that we are to give away, over and over again and again, until “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).