Unforgiveable?: Exploring the Limits of Forgiveness, Stephen Cherry, Bloomsbury Continuum, 2024. pp xvii, 222. ISBN 978-1-3994-0132-6 hardback, eBook 978-1- 3994- 0131-9, ePDF 978-1-3994- 0131-2.
It is unusual for a book to begin with a warning to readers but that is just what Stephen Cherry does. Because his subject is the aftermath of serious, traumatic and life-changing harm done to individuals the content and discussion may be disturbing and to some, offensive. Whether or not some harmed and damaged people can ever forgive, and in what way is the subject of Cherry’s question mark titled book. Stephen Cherry, now Dean of King’s College, Cambridge is an authority in this wide-ranging and sometimes unfathomable subject. His previous books and his personal qualifications in psychology equip him well for this task.
Equally unusually Cherry’s opening is a dialogue with himself about the content and possible shortcomings or inadequacies of his previous books. He does this by writing a series of letters to himself from imagined individuals. He then begins what is a continuing and multi-disciplined dialogue about the possibilities for forgiveness. Alongside psychological and philosophical dialogue about forgiveness Cherry has the Christian tradition as a challenging theme throughout. All this, as Cherry says early in his book is because he wants to ask if we as Christians have a ‘faulty doctrine of forgiveness’ and if so, what harm has it caused as different approaches have been tried.
He looks in some depth at the reconciliation ministry of Desmond Tutu and the work which he influenced strongly as Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Cherry provides a significant critique of Justin Welby’s own approach and writings on forgiveness. He is also helpful in examining from many aspects how survivors feel and how they explain what, if at all they mean by forgiveness. He instances many with their own stories and testimonies who say that unilaterally they can forgive those who have done much harm to them. He is critical of Christianity, especially as practiced by some in the United States when they say they forgive those who harm them without any direct contact or understanding of the situation of the person they are forgiving. It is important to remember that the title of the book, with its question mark, is ‘Unforgiveable?’.
The chapters on Jesus and forgiveness are important as is the one about Jewish approaches to forgiveness. Challenging the all too prevalent assumption that one of the main platforms of Christianity is unconditional forgiveness Cherry looks at the actual sayings of Jesus on the subject. In St Mark’s gospel the few references are primarily about God’s forgiveness. There is only one mention in St John. Even this invites controversy, ‘If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’ (20:23). He points out that the Greek word – aphiemi – is not usually translated as ‘forgive’ but ‘to let go’, ‘liberate’ or ‘release’. Unlike the current Christian emphasis on ‘forgiveness’ there are far more instances of the verb than the noun. Cherry also reinterprets the ‘seventy times seven passage in Matthew (18:22) and the similar one in Luke (17:3-4), the forgiveness passage in the Lord’s Prayer and the ‘Father forgive them’ last words of Jesus from the cross. He concludes the chapter with his dismissal that, ‘the myth of Christian forgiveness as something that is always possible and always good’ saying that ‘The reality is . . . that there really are limits to the possibilities of forgiveness for every human being, and that recognising these limits is fundamentally important to respecting and supporting those who have been harmed’ (p.122).
This book was probably written before the outbreak of the current hostilities in Gaza. Cherry examines the Jewish attitude to forgiveness and instances at some length the work of Simon Wiesenthal in his pursuit of Nazi persecutors and the illustration given by Wiesenthal in his book ‘Sunflowers.’ Here, when a dying persecutor wants him to forgive, he listens but then walks away in silence. While agreeing with Wiesenthal’s action, Cherry then goes on to instance Rabbi Abraham Heschel, that you can only offer forgiveness to those who are still alive. Later he references the prayers at Yom Kippur that when the victim is dead there can be no forgiveness (p. 98). In contrast Cherry says that on the Forgiveness Project website post-mortem forgiveness is one of the largest discussion categories. There is a necessary review of the frequency of mentions of our unworthiness and the need for forgiveness in Anglican liturgies and especially in the Book of Common Prayer. This opens up the whole question of confession, repentance and absolution and what ‘absolution’ is meant to do.
The memorable thrust of this book is not about how the people of any faith offer forgiveness but about the lasting effect of damage and abuse on those who are harmed. This is the content of the letters Cherry writes to himself from ‘survivors’ – itself an important and emotive word. Cherry’s wide experience comes into play particularly in the discussion of objections to blanket forgiveness. He is acutely sensitive to the perpetrator receiving forgiveness and this takes the reader deep into the continuing suffering of victims who are also survivors. They want to explore how to live with integrity and faithfully with the aftermath of harm. The book then goes on in depth with an analysis of how on any side victims and perpetrators can move forward. Issues of repentance and what is means to say ‘sorry’ take the reader to a new place. In doing this he includes many references in literature where an author offers their own interpretations of forgiveness through the dialogue of their characters
The inhibition at the beginning of this book is well justified. It goes in depth to difficult and painful places for many. It does explore forgiveness but makes no attempt to offer one comprehensive and satisfying answer. He does examine with analytic thoroughness whether the Christian churches have got their traditional and many current approaches wrong. Cherry helps the reader in this by his own dialogue with himself through the imagined objectors and responders to his writing. He then proposes the concept of ‘non-vengeful unforgiveness . . . an in-between or liminal space’ This he says is a space between full forgiveness and vengefulness and is a space which does not desire revenge and has no hatred but is without a victim’s forgiveness for the perpetrator (p.186). Stephen Cherry has produced a landmark book primarily through this challenging refocussing. It is one which should be essential reading in other professions as well as for those within the churches engaged in theological, teaching or pastoral ministries.
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