I appreciate greatly Kirsten Powers' reflections on the power of Christian faith to affect radical change in the believer's heart attitude towards those who murder beloved family members. She writes:
When Christians are in the news, it's usually because they have done something wrong — they've gotten on the wrong side of a culture war or cheated on their wife, or worse. What the world rarely gets to see is the powerful grace that flows from a deep faith predicated on the belief that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness.
The family members of those slain at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church bore witness to this central tenet of Christianity last week as the nation gasped in awe. "I forgive you," one after another told the stone-faced and unrepentant alleged killer, Dylann Roof, at his bond hearing.
Tweeting about the incredible scene, National Review writer Charles C. W. Cooke noted, "I am a non-Christian, and I must say: This is a remarkable advertisement for Christianity." Thankfully, the circumstances requiring forgiveness don't always involve the murder of a loved one. But sometimes they do.
This month, USA TODAY reported an unlikely friendship between Pastor Phillip Robinson and the man who murdered his father. After forgiving the killer — who had repented for the crime — Robinson testified on his behalf to win his release from prison and later visited him at his home, where they hugged and prayed together.
Bishop Angaelos, who heads the the United Kingdom's Coptic Orthodox Church,responded to the beheadings of Coptic Christians in Libya with a call for the Islamic State terrorists to be "prayed for and forgiven." This echoed the comments of an Iraqi Christian refugee who was asked by an interviewer how she would retaliate against the ISIL militants who drove her from her village. The young girl said simply that she wanted God to forgive them.
Laura Waters Hinson, the director of "As We Forgive" — an award-winning documentary about forgiveness and reconciliation after the Rwandan genocide — was witness to the role Christianity can play when radical forgiveness is required. Hinson chronicled the astonishing relationships borne of forgiveness after Rwandans began confessing to genocide crimes and were released into society. A woman who had lost her sister and niece forgave the man who had viciously clubbed them to death. He ended up building a house for her, and became her neighbor and friend. An Anglican bishop forgave the people who had skinned his niece alive, and became a leader in the reconciliation process.
"The only way they could forgive is to say 'this person who killed is also God's child, and I am not the one to judge them," Hinson told me. "They could give up their anger because they felt it was God's to handle. They felt they had been forgiven by God, so they were called to forgive this person. They all talked about the incredible release that comes from forgiveness."
When Gary Ridgway, known as "the Green River killer" (he was convicted of 48 murders) faced the father of a 16-year-old victim he heard the unthinkable: "I forgive you for what you have done," the grief-stricken father told him. "You've made it difficult to live up to what I believe, and what God says to do, and that is to forgive. And he doesn't say to forgive certain people; he says to forgive all. So you are forgiven, sir."Ridgway broke down crying.
It's the barbarism of these murders that place these acts of forgiveness — particularly when repentance is absent — in such stark relief. A Las Vegas man, Arturo Martinez-Sanchez, cited his Christian faith in 2012 when he forgave the man who had raped and murdered his wife and 10-year-old daughter and beat Sanchez within an inch of his life with a hammer as his two young sons looked on. When a reporter asked what he would say to the murderer if he could, Martinez-Sanchez replied, "I would say, 'I forgive you.' If he kissed me on the cheek, I would kiss him back."
Just like Jesus.
** I should also like to note that Peggy Noonan wrote a beautiful tribute to the people of Charleston, saying,
I have never seen anything like what I saw on television this afternoon. Did you hear the statements made at the bond hearing of the alleged Charleston, S.C., shooter?
Nine beautiful people slaughtered Wednesday night during Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and their relatives were invited to make a statement today in court. Did you hear what they said?
They spoke of mercy. They offered forgiveness. They invited the suspect, who was linked in by video from jail, to please look for God.
There was no rage, no accusation—just broken hearts undefended and presented for the world to see. They sobbed as they spoke. . . [Noonan provides quotes]
As I watched I felt I was witnessing something miraculous. I think I did. It was people looking into the eyes of evil, into the eyes of the sick and ignorant shooter who’d blasted a hole in their families, and explaining to him with the utmost forbearance that there is a better way.
What a country that makes such people. Do you ever despair about America? If they are America we are going to be just fine.
Afterward, outside the courtroom, people gathered and sang gospel hymns.
I just have to say what a people the people of Charleston are. They are doing something right, something beautiful, to be who they’ve been the past few days.
From the beginning they handled the tragedy with such heart and love. They handled it like a community, a real, alive one that people live within connected to each other. . .
Charleston deserves something, a bow. So too do the beautiful people who go to Wednesday night Bible study in America in 2015. They are the people who are saving America every day, completely unheralded, and we can hardly afford to lose them. . .