Everett Worthington, Jr., a well-known expert on the emotional and psychological dimensions of forgiveness, has given us a book so many need: forgiveness applied to more than just interpersonal dimensions. His new book is called A Just Forgiveness: Responsible Healing Without Excusing Injustice
.He makes this statement about a situation that was provoked for me a few months back when I heard from a pastor-friend about relations breaking down in a church: "Most people who leave their job in frustration and anger don't do so because of unfairness of pay, perks or privileges. They leave because they have unresolved conflict with a co-worker or boss. It just gets to the place where they don't feel like going to work and they start looking for a new job. I wanted to help people resolve workplace unhappiness and hurts."
Anyway, here are the topics discussed in this most practicable of books:
Understanding forgiveness through understanding humility, justice, forgiveness and dealing with wrongdoers. He uses a "REACH" theory: Recall the hurt, empathize, altruistic gift of forgiveness, commit publicly to forgive in a way that can be observed, and hold on to forgiveness.
And living out a just forgiveness in the:
Family
Church
Communities and Society
World
What can we do? is his last question.
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Does he address forgiveness in the context of criminal justice?
There is much on restorative justice (forgiveness and justice in situations where violence has been done) online if you google it. I know there are a few theologians at the Conflict Transformation program at Eastern Mennonite University who talk about restorative justice and forgiveness, even when it comes to international conflict resolution.
This is such a needed conversation worldwide! We need to become much more creative in solving conflicts-- personally, in groups, nationally and internationally.
The Australian Government has made two formal apologies in the past 2 years. The first, in Feb 2008, was to "the Stolen Generation", Aboriginal children who were separated from their families and forced to live on missions (more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations and http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23206140-2,00.html ). The second apology, made earlier this week, was to 500,000 "Forgotten Australians" - children taken from their parents in the United Kingdom and Malta brought to Australia, taken to boarding houses and farms, where much abuse took place (more info: http://www.forgottenaustralians.org.au/ and http://au.christiantoday.com/article/australia-apologises-for-abuse-of-child-migrants-from-britain/7233.htm ).
The main sticking point now is not the apologies, though there are dissenters, but the issue of reparation. See http://au.christiantoday.com/article/peter-adam-urges-recompense-for-indigenous-injustice/6830.htm and http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2009/s2744335.htm
Regards,
John
Azim Khamisa (www.azimkhamisa.com) has a forgiveness-based restorative justice program for youth in the justice system: Constant And Never-Ending Improvement (CANEI). It's in eight communities around the country and showing good results. More at http://www.nyap.org/CANEI.cms.aspx
A fine, fine read is:
Miraslov Volf's Giving and Forgiving (see my review)
and
Chris Brauns's Unpacking Forgiveness (see my review).
Volf's is likely to provide more in terms of applying forgiveness to groups and in a non-church setting, but Brauns is not to be ingnored!
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