The subtitle of this book is ‘A Theological Analysis” and it is authored by a professor of theology, and he addresses the major questions surrounding and connected with forgiveness using the scriptures, drawing on many sources from film, television and literature of all sorts. Bear in mind that it is the work of a scholar and represents extended reasoning and argument. It is a major work, provocative, challenging and delivers us from cheap grace and the easy therapeutic ideas of forgiveness offered in some of the popular books on this subject found in Christian Bookstores. To reason and write on forgiveness as the author does demands a toughness and courage of mind to challenge the way the language of today’s church has been eroded concerning sin and judgment, retribution and restitution. The whole aim of the book is to bring us to God, to life in His kingdom where He, through Christ has the settled purpose of bringing about reconciliation and the new creation. The chapters and sections of the book take many turns and examine the many ideas and viewpoints expressed on this central matter of our lives. This is a book to read and re-read, it challenges us to enter into the Kingdom of God and learn the craft of forgiveness through fellowship with the Trinitarian Being of God showing us that we must be prepared to habituate this communion with God in the face of apparently pointless suffering rooted in sin in which we are participators as those who have sinned ourselves and suffered the sinful actions of others. Thankfully this book lifts us away from that which is only personal and private into the realm of the sin and suffering as manifest in the Holocaust of the Nazi’s against the Jews, the Palestinian conflict with the Israelis and the Rwandan genocide. Here is a book that demonstrates what the Christian Church should be embodying concerning compassion and judgment. Forgiveness and forgetfulness are bandied around in some Christian circles, even used as buzz words but this book makes us examine the easy notions implicit in the use of these words, showing us the necessity of not forgetting, but remembering, yet not remembering with retribution in mind but remembering well. We are led to contemplate our own sin, need of continuing repentance and acceptance of forgiveness against the background of God’s story in the whole of history. I would say that this book represents a profound reasoned wrestling with these issues that are affecting us all and we are brought to view them in the light of God’s own Being and inspired to seek to dwell with Him in His kingdom and mature in the life that embodies forgiveness.
