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A Just Forgiveness Responsible Healing Without Excusing Injustice by Everett L. Worthington Jr. [IVP Books,2009]
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First published October 13, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 1, 2024
I have read several books written by Everett Worthington Jr. and have enjoyed each one of them in its own way. Dr. Worthington is a Christian psychologist who has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University as well as doing private counseling. His research focus for about a decade was on forgiveness when he unfortunately had to deal with this on a personal basis when his mother was brutally murdered.
In several of his other books he deals in detail with his story -- both of his mother's death and brother's subsequent suicide. In this book, he is focusing more on the aspect of justice as it relates to forgiveness.
One of the important aspects of forgiveness from Worthington's standpoint is what he calls the "Injustice Gap." The bigger this gap, the harder it is to forgive someone else. Different things can shrink this gap -- the offender apologizing or offering to make restitution, or some level of punishment being meted out on the offender. Often, even as the victim feels their injustice gap shrinking, the offender feels theirs growing and the chances of forgiveness remain slim.
This book is a psychological book, but it is also a book that is unabashedly Christian. Dr. Worthington addresses forgiveness in a variety of settings, including church, the home, and the workplace. He once again reviews (although not at length) his REACH model of forgiveness, as well as his CONFESS model of asking for forgiveness.
I was a little bothered by his use of the Crusades in his chapter on the church. I agree that the church has often done a poor job of standing for right in situations like Germany in World War II, but the Crusades are an odd situation. Rodney Stark has addressed them in a couple of his books and made the Crusades were about making Palestine a safe place for pilgrims to visit and gaining forgiveness of sins for the knights involved. They had little to do with colonization, loot, or even converting the Muslims to Christianity. Anyway, that isn't a major part of that chapter, but it felt like a popular perception of what the Crusades were shoehorned into this chapter.
He separates decisional forgiveness from emotional forgiveness and explains that just because someone is struggling with emotional forgiveness, it doesn't mean that they have not forgiven. At the same time, if they can achieve forgiveness in both areas, they will have more peace and happiness than if they only have decisional forgiveness.
I think this book is helpful from a conceptual standpoint, but not as much from a practical standpoint when it comes to figuring out how to balance forgiveness, punishment, restitution, and reconciliation. I think Dr. Worthington would say that every situation is different (they are), that forgiveness is different from reconciliation (it is), and that forgiveness is needed for those who follow Jesus. It still leaves the question of how much punishment should be applied to offenders and how to bring healing to communities that have been deeply hurt. Maybe the best we can do is have a theoretical framework and in humility, bring it bear on various situations we find ourselves in.
In several of his other books he deals in detail with his story -- both of his mother's death and brother's subsequent suicide. In this book, he is focusing more on the aspect of justice as it relates to forgiveness.
One of the important aspects of forgiveness from Worthington's standpoint is what he calls the "Injustice Gap." The bigger this gap, the harder it is to forgive someone else. Different things can shrink this gap -- the offender apologizing or offering to make restitution, or some level of punishment being meted out on the offender. Often, even as the victim feels their injustice gap shrinking, the offender feels theirs growing and the chances of forgiveness remain slim.
This book is a psychological book, but it is also a book that is unabashedly Christian. Dr. Worthington addresses forgiveness in a variety of settings, including church, the home, and the workplace. He once again reviews (although not at length) his REACH model of forgiveness, as well as his CONFESS model of asking for forgiveness.
I was a little bothered by his use of the Crusades in his chapter on the church. I agree that the church has often done a poor job of standing for right in situations like Germany in World War II, but the Crusades are an odd situation. Rodney Stark has addressed them in a couple of his books and made the Crusades were about making Palestine a safe place for pilgrims to visit and gaining forgiveness of sins for the knights involved. They had little to do with colonization, loot, or even converting the Muslims to Christianity. Anyway, that isn't a major part of that chapter, but it felt like a popular perception of what the Crusades were shoehorned into this chapter.
He separates decisional forgiveness from emotional forgiveness and explains that just because someone is struggling with emotional forgiveness, it doesn't mean that they have not forgiven. At the same time, if they can achieve forgiveness in both areas, they will have more peace and happiness than if they only have decisional forgiveness.
I think this book is helpful from a conceptual standpoint, but not as much from a practical standpoint when it comes to figuring out how to balance forgiveness, punishment, restitution, and reconciliation. I think Dr. Worthington would say that every situation is different (they are), that forgiveness is different from reconciliation (it is), and that forgiveness is needed for those who follow Jesus. It still leaves the question of how much punishment should be applied to offenders and how to bring healing to communities that have been deeply hurt. Maybe the best we can do is have a theoretical framework and in humility, bring it bear on various situations we find ourselves in.
April 26, 2012
This book is a significant contribution to the relatively new field of forgiveness studies. The author, a career psychologist, cares deeply about this subject--he faced the issue of forgiveness personally as he dealt with the murder of his mother.
The most important contribution of this book is the concept of "just forgiveness". Worthington notes that part of the dynamic of unreconciled relationships is the "justice gap". The offended often deal with this justice gap by retaliation or punishment, which simply reduces the justice gap on one side only to increase it on the other. Instead, Worthington explores the strange virtue of humility which can lead one to pursue forgiveness.
As a psychologist, he also looks at the mental and physical structures, processes and triggers that are necessary to change in the process of forgiveness. And perhaps most significant, he addresses applications of just forgiveness within the family, the church, the workplace and the world. This is probably the most comprehensive and substantive book I've read on this subject!
The most important contribution of this book is the concept of "just forgiveness". Worthington notes that part of the dynamic of unreconciled relationships is the "justice gap". The offended often deal with this justice gap by retaliation or punishment, which simply reduces the justice gap on one side only to increase it on the other. Instead, Worthington explores the strange virtue of humility which can lead one to pursue forgiveness.
As a psychologist, he also looks at the mental and physical structures, processes and triggers that are necessary to change in the process of forgiveness. And perhaps most significant, he addresses applications of just forgiveness within the family, the church, the workplace and the world. This is probably the most comprehensive and substantive book I've read on this subject!
August 16, 2013
Worthington is a giant in the field of forgiveness studies, having authored countless books, having advanced the core cadre of social science perspectives on this phenomenon and having conducted a mass of original scientific research to understand it better. This book however is a much more theological writing piece with a significant concentration on the understanding of the intersection of justice and emotional need.
June 7, 2015
Loved this quote: love was more important than power.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews