Forgiveness Without Self-Abandonment: How to Forgive Without Ignoring the Harm with Amy Ore-Ewing
Episode Notes
"Can I forgive someone and still keep healthy boundaries?"
"Why does forgiveness still feel impossible?"
Forgiveness is one of the most beautiful teachings of the Christian faith—and one of the most misunderstood.
Many of us learned that forgiveness meant moving on quickly, letting go of our anger, or restoring a relationship before trust had been rebuilt. But what if forgiveness isn't about minimizing harm at all?
In this episode, Dr. Alison Cook sits down with theologian, author, and advocate Dr. Amy Orr-Ewing to explore a richer, more biblically grounded understanding of forgiveness. Together they unpack the difference between forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, and repair—and why naming the truth of what happened is an essential part of healing.
Whether you're navigating family wounds, betrayal, church hurt, or simply wondering why forgiveness feels so difficult, this conversation offers both compassion and hope.
You'll learn:
- Why forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation.
- How forgiveness differs from denying or minimizing harm.
- Why anger can be a healthy and necessary part of healing.
- How forgiveness and justice can exist together.
- What Scripture teaches about forgiveness after abuse or betrayal.
- Why forgiveness is often a journey rather than a single decision.
- How God's grace empowers forgiveness without requiring self-abandonment.
Forgiveness isn't pretending the wound never happened.
It's telling the truth about what was lost while slowly allowing God's grace to heal what was broken.
Make sure to check out Amy’s new book, “Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear”
More Resources:
You can now preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 78: The Mental Health Benefits of Forgiveness and Thoughts on Grace with Max Lucado
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
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TRANSCRIPT
Forgiveness is required where repair is required in a relationship where a loss has occurred.
There's an actual place for visceral anger when a human being has been harmed or hurt.
You don't stay there, but to pretend that that anger and rage isn't a real part of the human
experience of suffering is not a requirement of a Christian faith. We don't have to pretend that.
As a Christian, when I forgive, I'm not alone in like covering,
paying for the debt that has been incurred. There's this source of grace, this source of payment,
which comes from outside of me that I receive and I become a channel of when I forgive and I become
active as a participant in something divine and something really beautiful and wonderful.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's Deep Dive episode of The Best of You. I am so
thrilled you're here with me today. Today's conversation was so rich.
I got so much out of it, and it really inspired me to think more deeply about this topic.
Today, we're talking about one of the most central, beautiful, complicated,
and often deeply misunderstood words in the Christian faith. forgiveness.
For so many of us, forgiveness is a word we learned early on. We learned that God forgives us.
We learned that we are called to forgive others. We learned the cautionary tale that bitterness can
take root in the soul and that we should be forgiving of others. And all of that is true.
But some of us also learn something else along the way that isn't true that isn't helpful that
isn't what forgiveness actually means we learned that forgiveness means to rush past pain we
learned to silence anger before we've even named the harm we've learned to feel guilty for still
feeling hurt by someone we've learned that forgiveness meant pretending something didn't matter or
minimizing what happened or restoring trust with the other person before there's even been
repentance recognition repair or safety. And this is where things can get really confusing for many
of us because forgiveness isn't a denial of harm. Forgiveness isn't the same as reconciliation.
Forgiveness doesn't erase the need for justice. And when we reduce forgiveness in that overly
simplistic way, we actually lose sight of the power of what it really is.
Forgiveness doesn't mean staying in a relationship. that is unsafe. It doesn't mean protecting a
system, a leader, a family image, or someone else's reputation at the expense of the truth.
And yet forgiveness is still one of the most powerful, beautiful, and distinctly Christian gifts
we've been given. So how do we hold both? How do we reclaim the power of forgiveness without
weaponizing it? How do we honor the command to forgive others without rushing the process of
healing? How do we tell the truth about what happened to us and still remain open to the
supernatural grace of God? And this is what today's conversation is all about.
My guest today is Dr. Amy Orr Ewing. Amy is an international author, speaker, and theologian who
helps people think deeply and honestly about the Christian faith in the midst of some of the
hardest questions of our time. She holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford.
She's so well read. You'll hear that in today's episode. She goes so deep on this topic. She's an
international speaker, theologian, and a public advocate for the Christian faith. She is also the
founder of Advocate Collective, which supports her writing, speaking, justice, advocacy,
and her work with survivors of abuse and church hurt. She is the author of several books,
including Why Trust the Bible, Where is God in All the Suffering, and her latest book, we're going
to talk about today, forgiveness, reclaiming its power in a culture of outrage and fear.
What I so appreciate about this conversation is that Amy doesn't flatten forgiveness into a slogan
or an easy catch-all bucket. She helps us see that biblical forgiveness begins by telling the
truth. It begins by naming the harm, naming the loss, naming the reality of what happened.
It doesn't ask us to pretend. In fact, it can't exist if we don't first acknowledge what happened.
It doesn't ask us to bypass grief, anger, or our body. response to trauma.
And at the same time, Amy helps us see that forgiveness isn't weakness. It isn't being passive.
It isn't letting someone else off the hook. It's a courageous participation in the grace of God.
And the process cannot be rushed. Forgiveness is a journey that can take time to move through the
whole body, the whole nervous system, the whole soul. So for those of you who have ever wondered,
why can't I just forgive or does my anger mean I'm a bad Christian or can I forgive and still
maintain distance? from someone. I know this conversation is going to be deeply freeing and hopeful
and encouraging to you. You'll hear us talk about forgiveness and justice, forgiveness and
reconciliation, the Psalms and holy anger and what happens when forgiveness is coerced and why true
forgiveness never minimizes the dignity of the person who has been. This is such a rich and nuanced
conversation. I'm thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr. Amy Orr Ewing.
Well, I'm thrilled, Amy, to just meet you and just benefit from your expertise today.
This is such an important topic. And as I was saying before we started recording, I just so
appreciate how... and how nuanced your work is on the topic of forgiveness not undermining its
importance and also not minimizing what it's not I would love to just start personally what's your
own experience with forgiveness whether personally pastorally maybe with your work with survivors
of abuse what What's your own personal experience with forgiveness that made you interested in the
topic? Yeah, thank you so much. And thank you for inviting me on.
It's such a deeply, sometimes actually triggering word for Christians,
this idea of forgiveness. So my context is that I grew up in a family where my parents radically
experienced Christian faith. in their 30s so they had both come from atheist backgrounds and then
you know they were sort of all in for jesus and became church planters my dad was an amazing bible
teacher and evangelist and so i would say i grew up in a context where was very kind of biblically
based and um you know deeply rooted in us was this truth that you know we need to be really careful
not to be unforgiving I mean you know it's really really important that you forgive and that you
you know repent and repair relationships and so in the faith tradition that I was in I think there
was a high value placed on that and I remember as a younger person you know experiencing hurts and
you know sometimes quite quite painful things and worrying as a follower of Jesus that I might be
in danger of unforgiveness when I experienced pain, including after I thought I'd forgiven someone.
So, you know, that was kind of my faith context. And then, you know, I've been married for nearly
30 years. I have three sons and my husband in 2020 went through a really profound experience of
CPTSD. He'd had traumatic abuse as a child and for various reasons,
bereavement and other other reasons this kind of flared up um for him and so uh having you know my
husband's also a pastor and so I'd We'd walked with people in our own lives and in our church lives
who'd experienced abuse, walked through this journey of figuring out how you feel the feelings in a
healthy way, how you go on a therapy journey where that is needed, and how forgiveness can feel a
bit dangerous in the context of someone who's experienced egregious abuse.
And then in my work life as well, I was figuring out how to process,
you know, like catastrophic, egregious spiritual abuse and sexual abuse by the founder of a
ministry that I had been involved with. He's called Ravi Zacharias. Your listeners may be aware of
that case or, you know, maybe could look that up.
walking with women who'd experienced sexual abuse at the hand of a very senior christian leader and
seeing then in the christian community how the concept of forgiveness was sometimes it felt like it
was sometimes used to sort of prop up the system around a christian leader who'd you know caused
tremendous harm including sexual abuse so those are some of the some of the strands and then my
actual work in public theology i'm involved in apologetics and kind of presenting the christian
faith in contexts where people have objections, intellectual objections to faith.
And so I'll be on university campuses and taking live Q&A and often thinking about the question
from an intellectual point of view of God and suffering. And so I began to wonder whether this idea
of Christian forgiveness was something that I was being called to think about more deeply and to
integrate. some of the sort of theological thinking, but also experiences of supporting people who
are survivors of abuse journeying into a healthy spiritual place and how there was a tension with
forgiveness there. Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, that's why you really come to this with some,
you've been around the block in many different ways with this.
Before we... dive in, I'm curious, because that's also been my experience that forgiveness is,
for many of us who grew up in Christian homes, it is sort of a very essential,
sort of central idea. Why do you think that is?
Well, I think one of the reasons might be that some of The kind of female heroes of the faith that
I grew up being exposed to would have been like the top two I can think of are Corrie ten Boom and
Elizabeth Elliot. And both of them, if you think about their hero stories for us,
the sort of heroic Christian. woman is a woman who's forgiven horrific harm yeah whether that was
the death of her husband or for Corrie ten Boomie the death of her sister and you know wider wider
suffering so I wonder whether that's part of it interesting I think as well you know it is true
that a healthy functioning relationship any healthy functioning family you know you you need to
learn how to practice sort of everyday forgiveness for community to to work right and so anyone who
maybe was exposed to Bonhoeffer's teaching on community or or even if you're a mum just trying to
figure out how to get your kids to get along you know on a very basic level it is like important
but the problem is when you sort of apply what works or what is needed to work in the normal rub of
everyday community living. And you apply it at a very simplistic level to egregious moral
wrongdoing without more nuance. I think that's where some of the problem comes in.
Yeah, that's really interesting about the heroes because it is powerful in those settings.
But I also think, I wonder as we're talking, because I was kind of trying to get,
just thinking about this whole topic, you know, we have, and it's true that we've been forgiven.
We've all been forgiven. Right. And that is such a starting place of.
Yeah, exactly. It's the starting place of being a Christian. I mean, it's just. Yes. It's kind of
this idea we were talking with. I don't know if you know Stephen Tracy's work with mending the
soul, but he was talking about how we have this idea we're all sinners, you know, so there's.
But that sort of is a is a debt clear where there's different ways in which we've been impacted by.
sin and harm as humans. And so that kind of leads me into,
before we kind of get into, because there's justice issues and there's all the issues you were
talking about where there's been deep, egregious harm. How would you define forgiveness,
what it is and what it is? biblically,
theologically, and then even psychologically? How do you think about what it is? That's a huge
gauzy question. Let's just start there. Yeah, I've written a book on this one.
It's like, yeah, how do you do this in 20 seconds?
So I think for me, the starting place for Jesus's teaching on forgiveness is he sort of helpfully
conceptualises forgiveness in the realm of debt and loss.
You know, the New Testament language, when Jesus is talking about forgiveness, the mental picture
is that a loss has occurred and a debt now exists because that loss has occurred.
Now, that loss could be a financial loss. It could be a loss of bodily autonomy. It could be a loss
of peace. It could be, you know, loss of dignity. It could be some kind of loss psychologically.
Forgiveness is required where repair is required in a relationship where a loss has occurred.
Forgiveness is forgiving or releasing the debt that is actually owed to you because of the loss you
have experienced. Now, if we sort of then zoom out a little bit and think about it from a Christian
point of view, if we're followers of Jesus. at the centre of the Christian faith is this image of
the God made flesh you know God in Christ Jesus of Nazareth not just living a perfect life and then
you know dying an unfortunate death but that his death is actually a sacrifice for all the losses
of all the harms of all the people in all the world like a cosmic sacrifice occurs that that gives
tremendous value to the loss you or I have experienced because it says that to release it to
forgive it would require this kind of cosmic intervention this from from outside of ourselves and
so as a Christian when I forgive I'm not alone in like covering paying for the debt that has been
incurred There's this source of grace, this source of payment,
which comes from outside of me that I receive and I become a channel of when I forgive and I become
active. as a participant in something divine and and and something really beautiful and wonderful
that actually dignifies me as the one who's suffered but also empowers me to do something I
actually wouldn't be capable of which is forgiving this harm that has been done to me without
minimizing either my own value or you know the value of of what's occurred so um one of one of the
crucial steps I think that is often missed both in the church but actually outside the church if we
don't have the Jesus and God bit when we talk about forgiveness is this that number one forgiveness
is conceptualized so without God or Jesus forgiveness is conceptualized a bit like Elsa in that
movie Frozen where she sort of sings just let it go like you release into the universe
you let it go and that in a way requires you to play a psychological trick on yourself because the
body keeps the score right and you in the mind you know that what has happened to you really hurts
and really matters so you letting it go requires you to somehow feel that either it doesn't matter
anymore or that it is released in some way um that is sort of on you but crucially and uniquely
christian forgiveness doesn't ever ask you to do that christian forgiveness begins with saying the
harm that happened matters it hurts it was wrong and that a debt has been incurred that is so huge
that to forgive it would require this cosmic help from outside i think that's really amazing
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Yeah,
that's really beautiful. You can't gloss over the depth and the darkness and the evil,
for lack of a better word, of the crime, of the harm in rushing to the unforgiveness.
And you see that in the story of Jesus. You're right. It's awful. horrific but you have to start
with naming the violence and the and the and the yeah exactly and the new testament doesn't skirt
over that yes so yes you know when jesus says father forgive them for they know not what they do
We've had all these other words from the cross, I thirst, like the physical penalty and cost to the
human body of crucifixion, the physical suffering. We've had the dear woman, here is your son,
like the devastating relational fallout of the pain and suffering of this world.
there's not like a rush to just say the magic words and we're done. It's like,
no, Christian forgiveness is a journey that doesn't ask us to minimise the harm that has happened
or rush over it. In fact, you know, as I was writing the book, one of the things I found really
fascinating is how, you know, in the Bible we have... you know what we call the imprecatory the
imprecatory psalms the psalms where a human being voices the unsayable like i hate you so much i
want your children to die violently because you've hurt me so much you know which obviously we
don't condone but those words are there because there's an actual place for visceral anger when a
human being has been harmed or hurt And, you know, you don't stay there.
But to pretend that that anger and rage isn't a real part of the human experience of suffering is
not a requirement of the Christian faith. We don't have to pretend that. And the journey of
forgiveness is... is not about glossing over or trying to make the pain or harm smaller so that we
can you know by sheer force of will forgive it's like no acknowledgement and that's also why
confession and repentance are so important and you know god doesn't forgive us without confession
and repentance And there's a very, very deep and close relationship then between how we forgive
people as followers of Jesus in terms of the person who's harmed us actually confessing and
repenting. There's a close relationship there too. Yeah, I love that you brought up the Psalms as
an example of the journey. That we meet the psalmist in there,
you know, kill the, you know, the... The real vitriol in many ways,
we meet them on the journey. This is how I feel, God. And we can.
And find consolation in that when we are on the journey. Right now, what I feel like is I want that
person to die because they've hurt me so much. That's what I feel like. That's the emotional truth.
Do I think that's where I want my soul to stay? No. But biblically,
that is part of the journey. I think that's really a really beautiful.
way to look at those psalms uh for the listener there's a place for that yeah exactly the idea in
psychology of effective justice like yeah the the experience of anger and and rage or just you know
not even just for the person who suffered but often for the the loved ones of the person who
suffered to be allowed to feel This is really wrong.
Like everything in my body tells me this is wrong. Everything in my soul tells me this is,
you know, a violation of what we hold dearest. And what I've so often seen,
unfortunately, in the church and is that that step is just not allowed.
It's like, you know, you are a very bad Christian if you in any way.
voice any of that or even are sort of seen to feel any of that and um that I found it really
interesting in the research for the book looking at some of the studies around forgiveness and
obviously there's this as you'll be aware this strand of work that looks at how forgiveness can be
harmful There's a whole body of psychological literature that says forgiveness is harmful.
And what I wanted to do was make sure, you know, I don't just sort of cherry pick the research that
is kind of good for our side, for Christians. You know, this says forgiveness is so great and these
are the benefits. But also to try and grapple with what does that mean?
How could forgiveness be harmful?
The study suggested that forgiveness was harmful where it was coerced.
So where a person who was not ready...
and was not really choosing this themselves but was either shamed into or you know that there was a
social pressure or other kind of pressure they were kind of coerced into forgiveness then it
actually became psychologically harmful to them because of course they weren't actually really able
to experience the joy of forgiveness and the benefits it was not real so coercion was harmful and
then the second thing that was harmful was this element of being rushed through the real stages so
that you don't actually get to you know i i would argue is it really forgiveness if there's a
minimizing of the anger that that isn't actually what what what what forgiveness really is meant to
be so yeah this can actually cause harm and unfortunately in the survivors that i've worked with i
don't think there's a single one who hasn't had that harm layered on top of all the other harm
they'd already experienced. And so I really wanted to, you know,
write into this and speak into this so that we can stop causing further moral injury.
Often it's really well-intentioned, you know, it's Christians saying, I want you to have this
spiritual benefit of forgiveness. Yeah. But you're actually causing moral injury to people who've
already been crushed and trampled underfoot. by the beast they experienced.
That's such a powerful way to untangle that knot,
right? So in Christian spaces, and we'll get to kind of where you were talking about with the sort
of, it almost seems like sort of a shallow let it go that isn't really forgiveness outside of,
but in faith spaces, the harm has been rushing at Best case scenario,
rushing people and worst case scenario, abusively coercing people.
And here's, let me give you a really practical example. Here's, you know, what I've heard in every
single case, I think, where a survivor has been sexually abused within a Christian setting.
So either an organization or a church by a senior leader. And there will be,
at some point, an equivalence made between the sin of the sexual abuse and the sin of unforgiveness
of the survivor who's coming forward. And, you know, they're causing division and gossip and,
you know, they're not forgiving. Letting this guy who, you know, made some mistakes,
he and his family need to be protected here. It's like... I mean,
it's so outrageous. And, you know, when I say it out loud, we can think how ridiculous. But
honestly, it is every, every situation that I've been involved with that dynamic has been in play.
So a psychological pressure to silence the victim who themselves is a Christian and believes in
forgiveness and is then made to feel this kind of moral dilemma about speaking up,
which is hard enough already.
That's what I mean about the sort of weaponization of it. It is.
It is absolutely a weaponization and it is absolutely a re-traumatizing of someone who's already
experienced trauma. It's abuse. It's spiritual abuse, you know, and there's just no other way to
look at it. And a total failure to draw a distinction between truth-telling and forgiveness.
You know, I love Rachel Denholland has been such a pioneer in this area. I think her speech,
I'm sure your listeners will be aware of her sort of victim impact speech at the sentencing of
Larry Nassar, the sexual predator who abused the US gymnastic team.
And she spoke about, as a Christian, her, you know, heart...
felt and honest offer of forgiveness to this man who'd absolutely marred her life and her call on
the judge to hand out the fullest sentence of the law and there is no discontinuity theologically
as a christian biblically there's no discontinuity between those two things so i can forgive and i
can pursue the full civil or criminal penalty of the law yeah That's right.
That's right. Both of those things can be true. And that person can receive divine forgiveness for
the spiritual wound they've caused. And I think evidence that they've actually repented would be a
willingness to admit to, to own up, repent and plead guilty and pay the civil or criminal penalty
for the crime. Right. So in this case, I'd love for you to talk to us a little bit about this.
You know, that's a great example. I think about similarly to a marriage that's been destroyed by
betrayal or infidelity. I can forgive this person. I might not stay married to them. I might let
the natural consequences play out, right? Forgiveness does not equal reconciliation.
Forgiveness does not equal repair.
Talk to us about then, you know, you describe forgiveness as a rat,
kind of getting at why then? What is the purpose of forgiveness? not very clearly.
It's not letting somebody off the hook necessarily. It's not removing consequences.
It's not repairing. It's not going back into relationship with them. So you talk about it as
meeting a great human need. So what then is the need underneath it?
I would draw the distinction between there always being repair.
And reconciliation possible. But if there is ever going to be repair or reconciliation possible,
there would have to be forgiveness there. Sure. Yes. So we can have forgiveness that doesn't then
flower fully into repair and reconciliation. There could be numerous reasons for that. Normally,
the most significant one would be that the person who caused the harm and the breach.
is either unrepentant or is in a state that they are an ongoing danger to the well-being of the
person that they've been closely aligned to in a covenant, whether that's a parental or marital
relationship. And there needs to be healthy separation for the safety of the individual.
Yeah, I mean, the beauty that forgiveness brings, I think, is then a different kind of relationship
and connection. So Rachel Jen Hollander can forgive Larry Nassar and he can go to jail.
He can go to prison.
But there's still a beauty in her forgiving him. There's a release for her from the woundedness,
from the ongoing need to get vengeance and any sort of festering bitterness.
And there's incredible health benefits. Again, you know, the studies suggest that the practice of
forgiveness for the person who practices it, regardless of whether there's a reconciliation,
just the practice. practice of forgiveness you know impacts diabetes and heart disease it impacts
like brain function and you know levels of anxiety and depression i mean the impact is absolutely
is absolutely vast for for the person in the instance where there's been a separation or a divorce
um even though that marriage hasn't survived in the form it was in previously like a reconciliation
hasn't been possible for whatever reason that could be that there was violence or addiction or
ongoing harm it could be any reason um but if the party that's been harmed is able to forgive and
is putting boundaries in place you know and not continuing to be a wife or husband but is forgiving
the person that's really harmed them i think that has huge implications for any children involved
it has huge implications obviously for the person themselves as they're able to go on and rebuild
their lives and learn from what they've experienced it may also be that you know being forgiven but
also
being allowed to actually experience the consequences of that poor behaviour enables that person
then to go on and get help, the cheater or the person who is primarily at fault.
So forgiveness can do so much good even when it doesn't flower into full-blown reconciliation in a
way that we might have hoped it would. And I think it undermines the power of forgiveness to say,
that in every case if it really was forgiveness it has to equate to full reconciliation so one of
the things that i um do in the book is sort of suggest you know that there are multiple models of
what forgiveness actually is operating particularly in the church and i suggest that um This view
that there's a big difference between forgiveness and reconciliation is actually the correct one.
So sometimes if someone accuses you of being unforgiving, it may be because,
you know, they haven't got the desired outcome that they want. But there could be all kinds of
reasons for that. A lack of repentance, you know, lack of confession. Other biblical reasons why.
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Yeah, I love that. I always say it takes two people to reconcile. It takes one person to forgive.
Reconciliation requires both people to come to the table. Forgiveness doesn't. And you talk about
this in the book, and I just kind of want to shift gears here to as much as forgiveness is...
I love how you just really talked about when it's weaponized and not used appropriately.
You talk in the book about these stories, and I think about the book The Shack. Do you remember
that book? Did you ever read that book? I don't want to spoil the ending, but that's kind of that
at the end. And it's just such a gut punch at the end when that's... The invitation to him,
I think, you know, the work you've done with these women survivors where most of us are just like,
how could you possibly forgive? How could you do that?
And this is a unique, as much as it can be misused and as much as I want my listeners to hear you
say, if someone is weaponizing it against you, it is so wrong.
It's not. It's not the way of Jesus. It's not what the Bible is saying. It is a journey.
You need to go through that full process of grief and pain and anger.
And just like the psalmist did, that whole journey is so valid. Do not rush it.
Do not let anyone coerce you into it. And all of that being said, what is this unique gift?
that the power of forgiveness brings into a world in your subtitle that is filled with rage,
that is in many ways, on one hand, there's a superficial sort of let it go kind of everything goes,
but on the other hand is angry and outraged and punitive. What is Christian?
a truly Christian understanding of forgiveness bring into this world?
Yeah, thank you. That's such an amazing question. And this is really how the other sort of route
into writing this book came about through just seeing the rising anger and outrage in the culture,
whether it be through identity politics and, you know, the idea of sort of power through grievance
and rage that, has sort of taken hold of a generation like we assert our identity on the basis of
intersectional injustice and then you know we're propelled forward on this power of rage and how
that's breaking apart families and communities and so countries I wanted to do in the book yeah and
nations I wanted to do in the book was to look at the question of whether There could be such a
thing as forgiveness, which really identified with and kind of upheld the impetus of that rage
where it says, you know, injustice matters because people matter and people are made in the image
of God. So harm experienced by a image bearer, a divine image bearer matters at a really visceral
level.
Ask whether, you know, if there was this sort of extraordinary cosmic intervention into our world
through the person of Jesus of Nazareth and his extraordinary death on the cross,
which, let's face it, the symbol of that is, you know, the defining symbol of the whole of Western
civilisation for the last 2000 years. Could it be that there is a key in the person of Jesus that
answers the heart cry of this generation that says, yes, your intuitive sense that harm matters,
that injustice matters. There's a truth in that, but that alone will lead you to where we are with
all this division, rage and grievance. But there's a power in the person of Jesus and his death by
crucifixion that's a power outside of ourselves, which both means that we can be forgiven for the
unforgivable and be reconciled to God and each other, but also empowers us to rebuild our world,
our communities, our families, our nations in a way that...
dignifies what it means to be human, but also offers this opportunity of redemption and grace.
And I think only in the Christian faith do we have that possibility. I think it has all kinds of
ramifications at the end of the book. I have a chapter where I think about nations,
what this could mean for nations and try and draw a distinction between patriotism and nationalism.
So, you know, you can probably tell from my accent that I don't live in America, right? I live in
the UK, but I'm in America a lot and I hear lots of people talking about Christian nationalism.
And then I'm in Europe and I hear, you know, the rise of nationalism in Germany. Father is German.
Rise of nationalism in France. We've got a kind of rise of nationalism in Britain. And thinking
about there's this real confusion between love of nation and nationalism.
So I began to think about that. What would forgiveness have to say even into that conversation?
And I realised that... The key distinctive between patriotism,
which, you know, we can believe that God orders people into nations, that a love of nation is a
godly thing to love the land you're born into and to want the good of your people. But that doesn't
require you to scapegoat the foreigner or to hate. the other nations you can have a love of nation
that can say i love my nation and i can recognize that there are things in my nation for which
we're not totally proud so i'm british we've got a history of empire you know pre-abolition we had
a history of slavery yeah i can look at my nation and say i love my nation But not everything we
have done or do is altogether perfect. You can't do that in nationalism. Nationalism is about
domination, superiority, expansion. It's about being better than others and forcing our will on
others. And the key difference between the two... It's forgiveness. Do I recognize I need
forgiveness? Do I recognize I sometimes mess up? Do I believe in the possibility of a second chance
or do I assert my superiority at all costs and scapegoat and go after anyone who challenges me?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's powerful. I think it has massive implications. Yeah, it's powerful.
And just as I'm listening to you, it just strikes me that It's the truth,
as Jesus said, that sets us free. And the truth cuts both ways. The truth of harm,
the truth of injustice, the truth of pain. We have to face it in our country,
in our community, in our family, in our church, in ourselves. And the good,
what's worth salvaging, all of that. And forgiveness.
It's really interesting listening to you. I mean, that forgiveness is that bridge between the two
things we all hold. Yes, it's like kind of integral to even how our society has been built.
So if you think about the impact of Protestantism, even on our form of capitalism,
where, you know, you have a limited company, you have the possibility of trying something that
could fail without your family being destroyed. You know, there's like this idea of forgiveness and
the possibility of second chance being built in there. And, you know, one of the things that I
found most moving, I think, when writing this and thinking about it was just seeing the beauty of
Jesus, you know, as a follower of Jesus in the midst of this. I was reading...
Peter Levine about the polyvagal therapy and came across this phrase where he talked about what a
trauma survivor needs in order to recover is for someone to bear empathetic witness.
The bearing of empathetic witness to what occurred and it struck me that That's exactly what the
centre of the Christian faith says God has done in Jesus. And so when we talk about forgiveness,
the central idea is that God in Christ has borne empathetic witness to the horror and harm and
trauma and suffering of this world and has said that we matter and our pain matters.
he's going to redeem us and give us this second chance and new life and grace and then when we
become his followers we experience so I think a Christian who forgives someone who's harmed them
doesn't necessarily just muster the strength to do that we receive a grace a power from outside of
ourselves but it's not just an idea it's real it's tangible it's granular and it's you know through
the power of the cross so we're kind of receiving this help this flow of grace which then we offer
to to to the world around us and that's kind of how communities are healed and families are healed
and like when we've really suffered egregious harm you know it can be a really important step in
our own healing this is a great place because i wanted to as we wind down because what i'm hearing
you say i love how you paint that picture because that also gets at the journey aspect of it
because sometimes the The quick fix forgiveness is out of our own willpower.
Whereas what you're describing is a process. And I felt myself as I was listening to you,
I was thinking in my head, it's a process of saying, a process, key word, of in my whole body.
And I do a lot of the parts work, the inner parts work, different parts of us. are on board before
other parts of us. Part of me wants to forgive and part of me is like, uh-uh. And it's a process
of getting your whole soul on board with, I trust you, God. I do not trust this other person.
And I maybe don't even trust that justice will play out in this lifetime, but I do trust you
ultimately. And that is supernatural. And therefore, because of you, I can.
release i can somehow because we trust justice will ultimately be done yes and it's not just lip
service it's in our nervous system it's in our bodies and that takes time that takes time yeah that
takes time i had a a um profound sort of traumatic experience in my early earlier in my 40s and had
um amazing therapy my psychologist was a practitioner of schema therapy so very much embodied and
um I really resonate with what you're saying that healing kind of it takes time to sink in to to
every sort of part of ourselves and i think the same is true of forgiveness which is why i want i
hope that both the message of how powerful this is as a tool and as a positive agent to heal the
world and to help heal us but also um i hope that those who've perhaps been in faith spaces here
today that this is not a weapon to kind of beat you with and make you feel guilty that you you're a
failure as a forgiver you know um or to feel coerced to be rushed into it but to be kind of invited
into this beautiful gift that we get to receive and share in but that we also get to practice and
then the impact on the body the impact on our relationships is so incredibly positive It's so
beautiful. I love that, you know, to really be invited. I love that word into the journey.
Two things can be true. And to really honor how powerful it is means we have to honor the depth of
the journey. Because it will transform us. And it is deeper. It's not lip service.
It's not shallow. It's not trite. It is profoundly transformational.
And maybe the next step is to just trust, just to let one part of us believe that it's worth the
journey. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What would you say as we close?
You've kind of said it, Amy, but, you know, just for the listener. who says, who's feeling that
way, is feeling that way. I do believe in it. I know it's good, but I'm not ready. I don't,
I'm angry. I'm, you know, I don't know how to get there. What would you want to say to that woman
listening today?
Well, I've been there. So first thing I would say is you're really not alone.
And you're not a failure as a person of faith. So to have those feelings. is legitimate as a child
of god and as someone who wants to follow jesus and you're not sort of required to um be rushed
through that in in a way that actually wouldn't be real or true so to just kind of pretend
forgiveness or even fake it till you make it i think the second thing i would say is that i love
the lord's prayer when jesus says when you pray say father that's an expression of attachment of
healthy attachment with the heavenly father hello be your name holy is your name a sort of
acknowledgement of god as transcendent and beyond us and then it goes on forgive us our sins as we
forgive those who sin against us and i would say as part of your daily prayer ask the lord to help
you Because the beginning of forgiveness is to even want to be in a position where it could be
possible. I think that's what our part is as disciples of Jesus.
It's just wanting it and asking for the Lord's help. And then I think the third thing I would say
is that if you've experienced abuse, egregious harm, violence,
spiritual abuse, sexual abuse and any of these deeper wounds it's worth um going on a journey with
someone who's actually trained to help you recover from that and sometimes you know we can i think
think like there's a quick fix but we wouldn't look at someone strangely a christian who broke
their arm and went to hospital and got it in plaster and got their professional help as well as
obviously their small group to pray for them and in the same way you know if there's this longer
term wrestle in your soul like it is it feels impossible on a human level to forgive it may be that
you you need some help in that journey with people who are trained and skilled to do that So I
think that's the last thing I would say and, you know, reach out for and seek that help. I love
that. Thank you so much just for. Diving into this topic, it's so important.
I feel just personally really enriched by your work. Tell, you know, tell my listeners where they
can find your work and find the book. Thank you. We'll be sure to link to it. Thank you so much.
So, yeah, it's called Forgiveness, Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear.
You can find it on Amazon or any bookseller, Barnes & Noble,
anywhere you buy your books. And if you want to find out more about my work,
I have a 501c3 in America called advocate-collective.org.
You can find me there or just follow my name, Amy or Ewing, on Instagram or Facebook.
I so appreciate the work that you're doing. It's so important and so needed. And we're just
grateful for your time today. Thank you so much.