“Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”

Scripture is very clear that sin is a hindrance to answered prayer. Isaiah 59:2 states, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” In Psalm 66:18 we read, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened …”

One of the most pervasive, tenacious sins in the Christian culture today is unforgiveness. It is disobedience to Christ, and it renders our prayers ineffective and powerless. Many times, an unforgiving spirit comes from a heart filled with pride. We often feel justified in our unforgiveness because of the wrong done to us. Or, the sin against us was so grievous in our own mind and heart that we cannot possibly forgive.

Probably the most common stumbling block in this area is when we say that we have forgiven someone outwardly, while still harboring the resentment or anger in our hearts. Jesus effectively illustrates God’s viewpoint on this matter in Matthew 18:23-25 when the king’s servant, who had been forgiven his debt, turned around and refused to forgive the debt of a fellow servant. The king turned his anger towards the man, threw him in jail and ordered him to pay back all that he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).

If you are struggling with your prayer life, could an unforgiving spirit be one area that is keeping you from effectively touching the heart of God with your prayers? From time to time, each of us must take a deep look into the dark places of our hearts, asking the Lord to reveal our sin to us. We can find healing from the sin of unforgiveness in the Scripture, for when we truly understand how strongly God feels about forgiveness, we can seek to be more like Christ in response to those we need to forgive.

Beth Moore, in her excellent book, Praying God’s Word, has a chapter devoted to “Overcoming Unforgiveness.” Using Scripture, she has a three-fold way to become more like Christ in this area. First, she has an extensive section of scriptural prayers which ask God to do a deep work in us that we might forgive as He forgives us. Next, she recommends praying “about” the person or persons we need to forgive. In essence, she says, we are “tattling” on the person to God. We express how we feel about what that person has done through venting our anger, our exasperation, etc. This was the very way that David dealt with those who were persecuting him. As you read through the Psalms, you will see clearly how David talked “about” those persons to God. He did not hold back from expressing his displeasure: “Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit” (Psalm 5:9).

Everett L. Worthington, Jr., A Just Forgiveness: Responsible Healing without Excusing Injustice (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009) 252 pages, ISBN 9780830337014.

Since this reviewer has sat under Worthington in a seminar setting in an American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) national meeting, it is a personal pleasure to review this book of his which seeks to “titrate” justice and forgiveness in order to either foster reconciliation or restore lives where reconciliation may be impossible to attain. “Just forgiveness” is one where both justice and forgiveness is served. Worthington identifies that humility is what brings justice and forgiveness together. Such an interconnection is accomplished “by a Trinitarian God who understands such interconnections” and is able to lead individuals, groups, and societies “to humble just forgiveness and peace” (p.230).

Worthington, who received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Missouri (Columbia), is professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond), and also an active member of the AACC, and is known for his work in marriage counseling. This reviewer owns one of his works in that area. In his A Just Forgiveness, Worthington starts off by discussing the place of forgiveness in marital and family relationships before continuing to show how forgiveness and responsible healing can take place in church, business, community and society, and the world at large where “injury has occurred” while also upholding the case for a “rational and relational justice” (p. 59).

The book is essentially divided into two sections. The first one hundred twenty-six pages concentrates on what just forgiveness entails. Those pages also delve into the tensions involved, the questions raised and the humility that is required for resolution of differences and hurts and restoration. The second part discusses how just forgiveness can result in family situations, within churches, workplaces, communities, and the world. He makes distinctions among distributive, retributive, procedural and restorative kinds of justice and shows how each works itself in actuality. Similarly, Worthington distinguishes decisional forgiveness and forgiveness from the heart and makes the case for a forgiveness that needs to be both rational and affective. One without the other does not bring about resolution, restoration, and/or reconciliation.

There is one place where Worthington follows Max Weber’s sociological distinction between “church” and “sect,” while recognizing their commonality as a community of believers (p.150). The sect usually arises “in opposition to an established church and organize around a person” (p.150) while a church is what emerges as a sect grows and becomes “unwieldy and unable to operate on the basis of a single leadership” (p. 150). Jesus, however, never made such a distinction. Since the term “church” describes those who “belong to the Lord,” no matter the size, degree of organization, and type of polity, sect and church are much the same in having the same submerged personality conflicts regardless of differences over polity, beliefs, or ethical standards.

One of the most interesting discussions in the book is in chapter nine where Worthington takes on the issue of just forgiveness in the world where he describes violent cultures, the role of prejudice, the origins and types of societal violence, and the underlying factors which lend themselves to the persistence of societal violence. Worthington examined the Amish response to the Nickels Mine Massacre of school children in Lancaster Co., PA; the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission experiment, the Colombian limited amnesty program, and the Rwandan Gacaca court trials (having to do with the 1994 Rwandan Genocide).

Becoming agents of reconciliation that glorify Jesus, not compromise His Gospel.

Introduction

Tony Richie at the 2011 convention of the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

An especially fruitful interfaith dialogue I was recently privileged to participate in released a cooperative statement containing several descriptive suggestions about the nature of religion and the religions. Among other things, it admitted that “religion has often been used, rather misused, to shed blood, spread bigotry and defend divisive and discriminatory socio-political practices”. That is sad but all-too-true. It also insisted, however, on the “necessity and usefulness” of interreligious dialogue “for promoting peace, harmony and conflict-transformation” in our world today.¹ And that, I think, is true too. I am therefore both challenged and encouraged at the present opportunity to wrestle through these issues together with religious others by focusing on themes of forgiveness and reconciliation among the religions from my perspective as a Pentecostal Christian. And I am convinced global Pentecostalism may have some unique contributions to make to this conversation.

Extinguishing the Forbidden Fire of Sectarian Strife

In the context of sectarian strife, really full-blown religious and racial prejudice and tension between Jews and Samaritans, two of Jesus’ disciples desired to call fire down from Heaven to consume their competitors. Jesus firmly forbade them. Some ancient manuscripts add an explanatory comment from Jesus that “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Lu 9:56 NIV margin). Biblical exegete Craig Evans opines that the explanation “certainly captures the essential point of the passage.” According to Evans, the episode “portrays a loving and gracious Lord who does not seek vengeance”.² In other words, Jesus wills forgiveness and reconciliation among rival religions and the Spirit he has given his disciples wills us in the same way. With its appreciation for pneumatological nuances, Pentecostalism’s theology and spirituality ought unquestionably to guide us in the same direction.