Forgive and Live

A very helpful and practical book on forgiveness. Una Kroll, an Englishwoman, says that a lot of people have a basic misconception about forgiveness, namely, that forgiveness is a feeling we ought to have when we've been wronged. Kroll offers a much more helpful way to think about forgiveness. To forgive, she says, is to release a person from the punishment they deserve and offer them a fresh start in the relationship. I like this definition because it keeps forgiveness on a practical level and prevents it from being merely an internal matter. Kroll says that reconciliation happens when both persons are willing to forgive and start afresh in their relationship. We can't always make reconciliation happen, she says, but we can offer forgiveness. I also like her emphasis on the usefulness of anger. We shouldn't rush to forgiveness, she says, but let it take its own time to come to fruition in our inner life. Anger can be motivating and cleansing, and we shouldn't pretend we can just banish our anger. "I am not in favour of superficial, quick and easy forgiveness. I am in favour of using righteous and creative anger to secure justice, for the offender and the victim...At the same time, anger is not always creative. It can be destructive." Kroll prefers to think about forgiveness in terms of hurt rather than in terms of sin and morality, because "sin" is such a loaded word these days. We need to forgive not because of something imposed upon us ("you ought to forgive him") but because we carry an unnecessary burden when we don't forgive. Kroll understands forgiveness in the context of Christian theology, in the sense that reconciliation has already happened between us and God by the action of Jesus on the cross. So forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian life. I found the book dense at times but Kroll backs up her theorizing with stories about forgiveness that make her point and give weight to her writing about forgiveness.