How Many Times Should We Forgive?

Seventy Times Seven
The Power of Forgiveness
by Johann Christoph Arnold
Plough Publishing House
1/800-521-8011

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” How many times have we said these words of the Lord’s Prayer without thinking of the true meaning of the second clause? In his masterful book, Seventy Times Seven, The Power of Forgiveness, author Johann Christoph Arnold challenges us not only to consider the meaning of those words but tells us how es sential it is to have the courage to try to live them.

This magnificent work contains a series of powerful sketches, concrete contemporary applications of the Sermon on the Mount, true stories of forgiveness. The power of the book builds as we read vignette after vignette, as Arnold skillfully interweaves stories, observations on forgiveness, and quotations from noted authors.

Arnold begins his book posing a searching question about a man who abducted and brutally murdered a 7-year-old girl. The title of chapter 1 asks, “Can such a man be forgiven?” The next chapter, “Resent ment and bitterness” cites the Chinese pro verb that says “The man who opts for revenge should dig two graves” and answers the question by showing how in withholding forgiveness we only destroy ourselves, physically and spiritually, and still do not achieve the resolution we desperately seek because resentment and bitterness consume us.

The most familiar arenas of forgiveness discussed are “Forgive ness in daily life,” (Chapter 3) “For giveness in marriage” (Chap ter 4), and forgiveness in cases of “The ab usive parent” (Chapter 6). Exam ples of betrayal by close friends or colleagues or the sowing of discord through petty small grudges and gossip illustrate his point that we do well to see the two sides there are to every story. Marriage, we are told, requires daily forgiveness; and it is even possible through prayer, healing, and God’s grace, to forgive the grave pain caused by marital infidelity. In cases of abusively harsh upbringing, forgiveness of the abusive parent by the adult child is necessary for healing from a broken past. The only end to parent-child estrangement comes when the victim of child abuse forgives the parent for neglect and emotional or physical abuse. Ar nold tells us, “In forgiveness we find true healing”....”Then miracles can happen.”

A more difficult type of forgiveness is “Forgiveness when reconciliation is impossible” (Chapter 5) or when the wrongdoer cannot be confronted or even found; the never-apprehended murderer, de sertion by a fiance, child molestation by a parent. But the author states that even without repentance of the wrongdoer, one must forgive. One case of the kidnapping of a 7-year-old prompted the victim’s mother to begin to work for reconciliation between murderers and families of victims.

Two areas many seldom think about, “Forgiving God” (Chapter 10) and “Forgiving ourselves” (Chap ter 11), get thoughtful consideration. Accepting God’s will, opening our hearts in the face of apparently senseless suffering, is crucial. Ar nold says that God “seems to let us endure trials—at times long and difficult periods of anguish—in order make us to turn to him” (p. 108). Through suffering (such as that of a woman who had 3 miscarriages before giving birth to a healthy child), God teaches us to depend on Him and appreciate more the gifts we have in acceptance and forgiveness.

Examples of difficulty forgiving oneself include a man who unintentionally kills his son, a woman who later regretted an abortion and her life of promiscuity and he donism, and Vietnam veterans haunted by guilt-ridden memories of the past. In one remarkable story, a pilot who organized a napalm bombing in Viet nam in 1972, an incident publicized by a widely seen photograph of a young girl running in flames, meets her years later at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. She forgave him, and they continue a healing friendship.

The core of the book discusses the topics, “Overcoming hatred with love” (Chapter 7), “Forgive ness in the face of bigotry” (Chap ter 8), and “Bless those who persecute you” (Chapter 9). Drawing from present-day experiences, Ar nold posits that punishment does not bring closure to the sufferer, that only forgiveness brings closure. Al though forgiveness is not the same thing as removing responsibility, and punishment can be accompanied by forgiveness, Ar nold stresses the need for finding peace through forgiveness. But, “In a so ciety that places a premium on re venge, this is hardly a popular idea” (p. 69). There are some extraordinary stories of heroic forgiveness here, including that of Chris Carrier, abducted, shot and left for dead, who says that “Forgiveness allows us to move on...Forgiveness is a gift.” The only answer to ra cism and bigotry is seeing that we are all capable of bigoted behavior and all in need of forgiveness, and that we are all fallible human beings, hiding behind self-justification. The Sermon on the Mount’s “blessed are the peacemakers” is exemplified in the harrowing case of the seven trappist monks killed in Algeria.

Not a Catholic Christian, Arnold (who does not believe in the Sac rament of Penance) presents a largely Catholic view of confession and penance in the later chapters on “Forgiveness through confession” (Chapter 12) and “Forgive ness and the church” (Chapter 13). In a tale of the Black Forest town swept in 1844 by a wave of confession that started with the confession of one repentant man, Arnold illustrates the cleansing, unburdening, and breaking from old ways that comes with acknowledging our faults to another. For, “Sin works in secret and it can lose its power only when it is revealed” (p. 130).

In his own church, the little-known Bruderhof (modeled in this respect after the early church), the goal of public penance for serious sins is one of restoration, not punishment, and penance is followed by complete forgiveness and joyfully accepting the disciplined person back into the church. For public expiation is “not a fight between people, but a fight against the evil that separated us” (p. 145).

“All things new,” the final chapter, reinforces the message that forgiveness is power if everything is seen in the “light of love” and that “humility paves the way for reconciliation,” hardly ideas we can ex pect to be popular in our age of un forgiveness and rage.

Although it takes a bold author to anticipate criticism to his own work, Arnold does just this when he appends a sort of letter-to-the-editor in the form of a “Response to Seventy Times Seven” by Mumia Abu-Jamal, a writer on Pennsyl va nia’s death row. Abu-Jamal comes closest to praise when he says he was “disturbed” by the book, but he immediately adds that “the stories seem to shine on the personal level, yet fall flat on the political level.” Calling forgiveness a luxury for the rich that the downtrodden cannot afford, Abu- Jamal only shows that not everyone is ready for the ra dical and still po litically incorrect Christian message of forgiveness.

For it is a profoundly Christian and yet also profoundly counter-cultural message that Arnold urges when he says we must forgive even acts most people would consider un forgivable. Yet Jesus of Nazareth did just that and for two millennia has asked us to do so as well. Was not the crucifixion the most horrifying event in human history, more so than any holocaust, war, or genocide? If any event could be considered unforgivable, it was Christ’s own betrayal and death. Yet Jesus forgave and as His imitators we are called on to do the same.

Pope John Paul II has given us a vivid example of forgiveness when he visited his would-be assassin in prison and forgave the man for the attempt on his life. We would ex pect no less from the Holy Father: speaking of the sin of Cain in The Gos pel of Life, he tells us, “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity.”

Although the chapters are short and a bit sketchy, there is much food for contemplation in them. I would like to have seen more of the struggles and dramas of these people. But that would make for a longer, and perhaps different, book. The present one more than suffices to get across its timeless message.