[DameAutour]

Forgiveness is one of the most misunderstood Christian virtues. It is also one of the tenets that separates Christianity from all other religions, most relevantly, Islam. The notion of "love your enemies" seems antithetical to human nature itself.

[SoDak]

I read this book last year, then promptly picked up 4 more copies to distribute to friends.

[DameAutour]

The real test is this. Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad ass it was made out. Is one's first feeling, `Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible?

I have been guilty of this. I don't think I even saw just how bad and unChristian this is. We must be careful of having this attitude against "enemies", for example, Muslims or leftists or Bill Clinton.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?

I can't help remembering something I read about Corrie Ten Boom, who had been placed in a Nazi concentration camp for helping Jews to escape during the Holocaust. Years later she was at a gathering and spotted one of her Nazi jailers. She said it was a tremendous struggle for her to be able to forgive the man, but finally did because of her obedience to Christ. Afterwards, she wrote: "I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then."