Christian faith calls for forgiveness and mercy. But how can Christians forgive without excusing wrongdoing? Psychologist and leading forgiveness researcher Everett Worthington gives Christian foundations for understanding just forgiveness and dealing with wrongdoers in this comprehensive guide which offers practical resources for both individuals and communities.

In this manual on how to forgive, there are insights and exercises without a preachy message or assumption that people “should” forgive. With chapters that explain what forgiveness is and how to deal with obstacles to it, it also addresses reconciliation with others and one’s own self. Practical and accessible, the book does not require religious practice or philosophy; it simply shows how to forgive in order to enhance self-esteem, be happier, and break free from limitations that can hold a person back.

How do you forgive the unforgiveable? Is it possible to truly be free from what others have done to you? Each of us has a story and has experienced hurt in some area of our lives. Whether in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, we all have experienced pain and disappointment. If not dealt with, these wounds begin to impact our everyday life at a crippling rate. We live bound by fear, insecurities, anger and jealousy; often chalking it up as "normal." Yet, in reality, we are being held captive by what others have done to us. We desire freedom from our pasts and our pain yet struggle with how to attain it; we wonder if it is even possible. Addressing a broad spectrum of issues from common offenses to abuse and betrayal, the author leaves no question as to God's opinion of mistreatment, and how we can heal and live a life of freedom from our past and present hurts. With practical tools, you will discover that freedom isn't just possible; it's attainable.

By demonstrating how forgiveness, approached in the correct manner, benefits the forgiver far more than the forgiven this self-help book benefits people who have been deeply hurt by another and caught in a vortex of anger, depression, and resentment.

Although history is replete with tales of revenge, Christian forgiveness provides an alternate response. In this volume, Pentecostal scholars from various disciplines offer their vision for forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. The essayists offer long-overdue Pentecostal perspectives through analysis of contemporary theological issues, personal testimony, and prophetic possibilities for restoration of individual relationships and communities. Though Pentecostals remain committed to Spirit-empowered witness as recorded in Luke-Acts, these scholars embrace a larger Lukan vision of Spirit-initiated inclusivity marked by reconciliation. The consistent refrain calls for forgiveness as an expression of God's love that does not demand justice but rather seeks to promote peace by bringing healing and reconciliation in relationships between people united by one Spirit.

Looking at the experiences of women in early modern Portugal in the context of crime and forgiveness, this study demonstrates the extent to which judicial and quasi-judicial records can be used to examine the implications of crime in women’s lives, whether as victims or culprits. The foundational basis for this study is two sets of manuscript sources that highlight two distinct yet connected experiences of women as participants in the criminal process. One consists of a collection of archival documents from the first half of the seventeenth century, a corpus called 'querelas,' in which formal accusations of criminal acts were registered. This is a rich source of information not only about the types of crimes reported, but also the process that plaintiffs had to follow to deal with their cases. The second primary source consists of a sampling of documents known as the ’perdão de parte.’ The term refers to the victim’s pardon, unique to the Iberian Peninsula, which allowed individuals implicated in serious conflicts to have a voice in the judicial process. By looking at a sample of these pardons, found in notary collections from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Abreu-Ferreira is able to show the extent to which women exercised their agency in a legal process that was otherwise male-dominated.

The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Forgiveness brings into conversation research from multiple disciplines, offering readers a comprehensive guide to current forgiveness research. Its 42 chapters, newly commissioned from an internationally acclaimed group of scholars, are divided into five parts: Religious Traditions Historic Treatments The Nature of Forgiveness Normative Issues Empirical Findings While the principal aim of the handbook is to provide a guide to the philosophical literature on forgiveness that, ideally, will inform the psychological sciences in developing more philosophically accurate measures and psychological treatments of forgiveness, the volume will be of interest to students and researchers with a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, psychology, theology, religious studies, classics, history, politics, law, and education.

The story is about experiencing the world for almost eighty years and finally a love affair, with God whom I trust, you may have too. Each day, as I would kiss my children on the top of their heads, taking in the sweet smell of their hair, I would envision kissing and smelling the beautiful head of God. I especially experienced this sensation with our youngest son, Michael, until the last day he was with us. I wasn’t angry with God when Michael, our youngest son was taken from Barbara and me. I always knew we belong to God, and especially our children are, without a question, on loan to us. We are all on loan, and hopefully, we will someday be together with the Savior of humanity and His creatures. My aim about writing about events happening before and after Michael’s death made me wonder if angels surrounded us to help ease the terrible pain that could have overwhelmed us. Was it my sins that caused this horrible pain to be initiated on Barbara and me? No, my sins were forgiven long ago through Jesus Christ. Michael, as each of us, are challenged living in a world full of sin and death. How did we get ourselves into this predicament of having to live in a world of sin? The cause came from our first parents, Adam and Eve, who did not appreciate the gift that was given to them in paradise to live a heavenly life. Adam and Eve sinned and were cast out of the paradise garden into the world to experience for themselves the hardships of not being completely with God. I think presently, it is our human nature not to appreciate the gifts we have already in front of us and in our hearts. Often after many people experience feverish hardships in the world, they may begin to understand God’s way is the absolute way to internal happiness. The world isn’t capable of offering us internal happiness, but we may find those gifts already inside us to discover. Are we like Adam and Eve? Yes, we are quite alike in that we are living in a world that can glamorize and only offer sin. However, to break away from that world of sin, all we need to do is ask God. This book had seeds planted from the 1970s when Barbara and I questioned each other about how to make a better world. Barbara said, “We convert the world one person at a time.” And I said, “No, it will take too long, we don’t have time. There has got to be another way.”

This book sets out to deepen our moral understanding by thinking about forgiveness: what does it mean for our understanding of morality that there is such a thing as forgiveness? Forgiveness is a challenge to moral philosophy, for forgiveness challenges us: it calls me to understand my relations to others, and thereby myself, in a new way. Without arguing for or against forgiveness, the present study tries to describe these challenges. These challenges concern both forgiving and asking for forgiveness. The latter is especially important in this context: what does the need to be forgiven mean? In the light of such questions, central issues in the philosophy of forgiveness are critically discussed, about the reasons and conditions for forgiveness, but mostly the focus is on new questions, about the relation of forgiveness to plurality, virtue, death, the processes of moral change and development, and the possibility of feeling at home in the world.