"Rather than considering forgiveness exclusively in terms of an encounter between individuals or groups after injury, this book argues that availability for the possibility of forgiveness represents an original forgiveness, an indispensable condition for the prospect of human relations"--

In Original Forgiveness, Nicolas de Warren challenges the widespread assumption that forgiveness is always a response to something that has incited it. Rather than considering forgiveness exclusively in terms of an encounter between individuals or groups after injury, he argues that availability for the possibility of forgiveness represents an original forgiveness, an essential condition for the prospect of human relations. De Warren develops this notion of original forgiveness through a reflection on the indispensability of trust for human existence, as well as an examination of the refusal or unavailability to forgive in the aftermath of moral harms. De Warren engages in a critical discussion of philosophical figures, including Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Mikhail Bakhtin, Edmund Husserl, Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean Améry, and of literary works by William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Heinrich von Kleist, Simon Wiesenthal, Herman Melville, and Maurice Sendak. He uses this discussion to show that in trusting another person, we must trust in ourselves to remain available to the possibility of forgiveness for those occasions when the other person betrays a trust, without thereby forgiving anything in advance. Original forgiveness is to remain the other person’s keeper—even when the other has caused harm. Likewise, being another’s keeper calls upon an original beseeching for forgiveness, given the inevitable possibility of blemish or betrayal.

Gary Inrig brings wonderful breadth, depth, and balance to a very difficult subject: forgiveness. As one 83-year-old theologian, Rev. Herb VanderLugt, says, "This is the best book on the subject I have ever read." Whether it's living forgiven, learning to forgive, what to do when an offender refuses to request forgiveness, whether we're asking, giving, or waiting for forgiveness, this book covers the subject with Inrig's on-the-mark illustrations and solid biblical teaching. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the subject of forgiveness to the Christian faith. If the Bible makes it clear that Christians are forgiven people, it also makes it clear that we are to be forgiving people. How and when do we do that? What does it look like?

No one can avoid conflict, sin, and evil, or the hurt and brokenness they cause. The best way to transform conflict and hurt from being life-destructive to being life-constructive is to forgive and to be forgiven. Authentic, biblically based forgiveness is a gift that God offers to humanity so that hurt can be healed, the cycle of retaliation broken, a painful past soothed, and estranged relationships reconciled and restored. Dr John Tran explains how forgiveness in both Western and Chinese cultures differs from the practice outlined in God’s word. Authentic Forgiveness calls us to examine our own cultural traditions and points us towards the search for true reconciliation, where people risk to communicate, extend trust, and work through anger and pain. Combining biblical and theological understanding with practical strategies for local church ministry, Tran offers an inspiring paradigm of action for Christians in urban Asian contexts and beyond.

Drawing on the philosophy of A Course in Miracles, Casarjian gives a new and surprising definition of forgiveness and provides original exercises and meditations that acknowledge our hurt even as they lead us beyond it. The book explores special cases involving family members, crime victims, self-forgiveness, and forgiveness of God.

The gun was never supposed to go off. When a drug dealer assured twenty-nine year-old Ron Hammer and his brother-in-law that they could make some quick easy money, they were intrigued. He promised them that when a local grocer delivered a bag of money to his store to cash Friday paychecks, they only needed to show him a gun and he'd hand over the bag. But high on meth and dulled by liquor, the men scuffled with their target, and the gun accidentally fired. And when Phillip Robinson rushed from the shelves he'd been stocking to investigate the commotion at the front of the store, he saw his father lying on the sidewalk, dying. The lives of Ron Hammer and Phillip Robinson, whose paths should only have ever crossed at the IGA checkout line, became inextricably linked by one foolish decision that would shatter a web of lives. Over three decades the two men came to discover not only that they both needed to be set free, but that-in God's unlikely economy of redemption-their liberation was bound up with one another. Like the famous prodigal son and his dutiful older brother, the moving story of Phillip Robinson and Rondol Hammer reveals how two men wrestling with law and grace discover unlikely redemption. Forgiveness in the First Degree offers hope to all who need for God's gracious mercy to work its way from their head to their hearts.

Offering a definitive overview of a vital aspect of human experience, this unique volume will help forgiveness researchers of the present and future to steer a more coordinated and scientifically productive course. It serves as an insightful and informative resource for a broad interdisciplinary audience of clinicians, researchers, educators, and students.

In this book, David Konstan argues that the modern concept of interpersonal forgiveness, in the full sense of the term, did not exist in ancient Greece and Rome. Even more startlingly, it is not fully present in the Hebrew Bible, nor in the New Testament or in the early Jewish and Christian commentaries on the Holy Scriptures. It would still be centuries - many centuries - before the idea of interpersonal forgiveness, with its accompanying ideas of apology, remorse, and a change of heart on the part of the wrongdoer, would emerge. For all its vast importance today in religion, law, politics and psychotherapy, interpersonal forgiveness is a creation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the Christian concept of divine forgiveness was fully secularized. Forgiveness was God's province and it took a revolution in thought to bring it to earth and make it a human trait.

Why is revenge such a pervasive and destructive problem? How can we create a future in which revenge is less common and forgiveness is more common? Psychologist Michael McCullough argues that the key to a more forgiving, less vengeful world is to understand the evolutionary forces that gave rise to these intimately human instincts and the social forces that activate them in human minds today. Drawing on exciting breakthroughs from the social and biological sciences, McCullough dispenses surprising and practical advice for making the world a more forgiving place. Michael E. McCullough (Miami, Florida), an internationally recognized expert on forgiveness and revenge, is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, where he directs the Laboratory for Social and Clinical Psychology.

Forgiveness is the science of the heart; a discipline of discovering all the ways of being that will extend your love to the world and discarding all the ways that will not. This is a book about growing up, becoming whole, connecting to others, and becoming comfortable in one's own skin. It is inspirational, healing, and programmatic. Miller explores the facts of forgiveness, including forgiving others, forgiving oneself, and the results of following the path of forgiveness. Also included is a section on forgiveness exercises (including journaling, making amends, and practicing patience). This is a broadly based spiritual and self-help book. Rooted in the philosophy of A Course in Miracles and drawing from other spiritual teachings (including Christianity, Sufism, Buddhism, the I Ching, and Jungian psychology), The Forgiveness Book is for those interested in spirituality, wholeness, and living a better and more fulfilling life.