Several forthcoming Christian living and spirituality books include forgiveness as essential in personal relationships, portraying it as the path to peace of mind and soul for oneself and others. And as hard as it can be to forgive, Jesus has shown the way, these authors write.
HarperOne is releasing another title from mega-selling spiritual guide author (and presidential candidate) Marianne Williamson with a 100,000-copy announced first printing for The Mystic Jesus: The Mind of Love (Sept.) in which she writes about the "miracle" of forgiveness because it is an expression of love. And all such expressions are "like a tincture of God’s power that makes all the difference. Even the tiniest thought of forgiveness, of mercy, of love, can change the trajectory of our lives."
Forgiveness is a life-changing inspiration in one of bestselling Amish story-teller Wanda E. Brunstetter's novels. In The Forgiving Jar (Barbour, 2019), the main character finds an antique canning jar stuffed with prayers that steer her toward forgiveness. Now, Barbour is extending its franchise with The Prayer Jar Devotional: Forgiveness (Sept.). Brunstetter and Donna K. Maltese guide readers to create personalized collections of prayers and Bible readings on forgiveness.
In their Christian living guidebook How to Put Love First (Thomas Nelson, Oct.), authors Sadie Robertson Huff and her husband Christian present what they call a 90-day journey to health and happiness with one's love of God as their compass. And that compass often points to forgiveness. They write, "Forgiveness is hard, but living with the pain of unforgiveness is harder. Is there someone you need to forgive today? Is there someone you need to apologize to? Prayerfully ask God to help you. You’ll find peace in forgiveness."
Elizabeth Laing Thompson zeroes in on wounded relationships in her book When a Friendship Falls Apart: Finding God’s Path for Healing, Forgiveness, and (Maybe) Help Letting Go (Tyndale Momentum, Oct.). Writing with frequent biblical passages, she reminds readers, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 14-15). Thompson counsels that people must leave "correction and rebuke, justice and vengeance, in God’s hands... " And besides, she says, "You may find unexpected blessings in suffering and mistreatment. We are never more like Jesus than when we suffer injustice with a righteous attitude."
There's nothing righteous about letting wrongdoers off the hook without addressing the harm they've done, says philosopher and author Myisha Cherry. She's one of two scholars with books coming this fall from Princeton University Press that touch on forgiveness as a quandary for society — knotted up in concerns about social justice, the need for repair and reconciliation, and the insidious pressure often placed on victims of racism, sexual assault, and other crimes to "forgive" the perpetrators.
Cherry calls herself a "proud withholder of forgiveness" in her new book, Failures of Forgiveness, What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better (Sept.). Her key argument is that the purpose of forgiveness should be "radical repair (which) addresses the roots of a problem, aims for change, and requires everyone—not just the victim—to help make things right. Those who participate in radical repair must accept that some things may never return back to their original state, but that trying is worth the effort."
Cherry, whose earlier book was The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle, finds it horrifying when victims are pressured to forgive as a way of releasing their anger or contempt or demands for reparations. Forgiveness, she says, isn't magic. And if or when something is forgiven "we may have more to do," Cherry writes. "We might have to offer reparations, fire an employee, cut off a family member, cancel a celebrity, continue therapy, or live with regret..."
In the second book from PUP, political scientist Juliet Hooker includes a critical look at forgiveness as part of her examination of racism and "the never-ending drumbeat of incidents of police violence and killings of Black citizens." In her upcoming book, Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss (Oct). Hooker writes that often the only "script" that Black victims, particularly Black women, are permitted is a kind of saintly martyrdom, a sacrifice to keep the "peace" for the common good as defined by white people. Forgiveness then becomes a burden imposed on Black people, obscuring the need to act for change and protest injustice, she says.
Like Cherry, Hooker delves into the significance of some people publicly forgiving the racist who gunned down their loved ones at Charleston church Bible study. There are a lot of good reasons for forgiveness, Hooker told PW, "but the issue is what are we going to do to prevent this from happening again? Often people contrast forgiveness to anger. However, anger is an appropriate response to injustice."
