Book Review: Halstead, Philip and Myk Habets The Art for Forgiveness

Dr. Philip Halstead is a lecturer and Pastoral Counselor at Carey Baptist College. His research focuses on designing and running a series of forgiveness courses that help adults to explore their relationships with their parents. Dr. Myk Habets is Head of Theology and a senior lecturer in Theology at Laidlaw College. His research centers around constructive contemporary theology and moral theology (ethics). He is also Associate Pastor at Albany Baptist Church in New Zealand. The Art of Forgiveness provides a pathway for reflecting on the many dimensions of this Christian tenet. Composed of 16 essays, the book is divided into two sections. The first section entitled Theological and Biblical Foundations probes the ways in which the Christian tradition constructs and conceptualizes forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation. This first half of the text offers resources for what forgiveness is. The second section, Practical and Applied Perspectives, explores conceptions of forgiveness in their application and how behavior around practices of reconciliation (or lack of these) reflects belief. Transcending simplistic configurations of forgiveness, this second half of the text offers resources for what forgiveness does and how to do it, acknowledging that navigating forgiveness when wounded is not easy. Balancing theory and practice, the essays investigate several underlying principles: forgiveness is simultaneously an art, a fundamental human need, and a key Christian tenet. From various angles, the authors frame the conversation related to forgiving and being forgiven in ways that that are imaginative and grounded in pastoral theological practice. The authors lead the reader through moral complexities, honoring the richness of diversity, while challenging common presumptions about forgiving. This book, appropriate for the undergraduate and graduate reader, both clarifies and complicates the concept of forgiveness. One comes away with a multidimensional interpretation of forgiveness that provokes dialogue and self-examination while guiding praxis. The balanced approach in the first eight essays illustrates, as the editors articulate, that “the canvas and the paints are readied, as it were, and the subject is settled into place” (xi). The first essay (chapter 1, Habets) provides direction for the remainder of the section through a consideration of theological ethics framed as a Christocentric commitment with a Trinitarian context where forgiveness entails both gift and demand, and rather than being an isolated theoretical concept, is something embodied. After this review of the ontological foundations upon which interpersonal forgiveness is founded, various biblical and theological issues are addressed. The second essay (chapter 2, Barker) shapes forgiveness as a biblically and theologically supported interpersonal and conditional action where the context of a relationship is critical. Asserting the place of penitence, the author defines forgiveness related to justice and healing, where healing is reliant upon the victim’s relationship with God. The third chapter takes up what may be implied in a discourse around victimhood, that is, the impossibility of forgiveness or the unforgivable sin in the Old Testament (chapter 3, Saysell). This essay explores sacrifice and highhanded sin, questioning whether we can forgive without repentance. An encounter with the Jacob story in Chapter 4 (Robinson) continues this line of thought raising profound and confronting questions about personal practices of forgiveness. Intent upon outlining the place of progress into God, or theosis, this chapter delves deeper into emotional systems and groups underscoring that stories and emotions play out in the subconscious of participants. This approach challenges forgiveness as a rational process and supports the idea that forgiveness includes a spiritual and emotional wrestling. While this chapter considers Jesus’s avowal that embracing reconciling behavior is God like, the following chapter (chapter 5, Neville) looks at the intellectual history behind Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness identifying a tradition that preceded him for hundreds of years. Returning to ancient texts, the author traces the Jewish background of Jesus’s teachings and frames forgiveness in light of these texts. Chapter 6 (Harris) continues a textual analysis turning to the New Testament including The Gospel of Luke and his vision of forgiveness. In this chapter, the author notes Luke’s assertion Books Reviews