SPIRITUAL FOCUS ON BOOKS November 27, 2006 Issue

GOD'S GIFT OF FORGIVENESS

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

IT WAS A HAPPY COINCIDENCE that while our Sentinel staff was planning this issue on aspects of revenge, I should be reading Miroslav Volf's book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace.

Volf is a professor of theology at Yale Divinity School, whose upbringing in war-torn Croatia was marked by harrowing family experiences. His father was brutalized in a communist concentration camp, and lack of proper supervision led to an accident that killed Miroslav's five-year-old brother. Yet his parents forgave all of those responsible.

Forgiveness is difficult, he admits, even painful, and sometimes it feels utterly impossible. So, "Why should we give a gift of forgiveness when every atom of our wounded bodies screams for justice or even revenge? What would it mean for us to forgive and forgive wisely?" he asks. "And maybe above all, how do we muster enough strength to overcome resistance to forgiving?"

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