Skip to main content

NO ENEMY TO CONQUER-- A Book Review by Sutton


NO ENEMY TO CONQUER:      


 FORGIVENESS IN AN 

 UNFORGIVING WORLD

  By 

      Michael Henderson

 Reviewed by

      Geoffrey W. Sutton
The foreword by The Dalai Lama exemplifies Henderson’s approach to the topic of forgiveness. The work is not an academic treatise but a collection of narratives, amassed as 
“dramatic evidence validating the power of forgiveness and personal reconciliation to affect national life.” 
A Nigerian Pentecostal pastor and an Imam transition from enemy combatants to allies via forgiveness. Hotspot stories from Northern Ireland and South Africa illustrate the power of reconciliation. Indians and Rwandans graduate from victimization to empowerment. British and Japanese warriors take responsibility to engender new relations. 

Following an illustration of a safe place, the Swiss project at Caux, the importance of listening and apologizing concludes this trove of collective wisdom. The lessons learned by those who forged opinions in the fires of hate and turned them into bridges to freedom are powerful narratives, which may serve as catalysts for forgiveness and reconciliation. 

Although most narratives focus more on reconciliation than forgiveness and conflate the concepts such that it is often unclear whether forgiveness or reconciliation is meant, they offer qualitative evidence that a mixture of courage and humility can infuse encounters with hope that persons of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds can forgive and reconcile.

Here are some quotes.

Dalai Lama foreword to the book xii
…compassion plays a key role because it is both the source of patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and all good qualities. If it is correct that qualities such as love, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness consists of, and it is also correct that compassion is both the source and the fruit of these qualities, then the more we are compassionate, the more we provide for our own happiness.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu p. 79
“When I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person. A better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent upon the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive, you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on and even help the perpetrator to become a better person too.
The author on optimism and hope page 197 (afterword)
“There are many more stories out there that might help people be more optimistic about the future, a reality-based optimism that encourages greater participation. “Hope is the greatest weapon in the armory of the peacemakers.” Says William Morris, secretary-general of the Next Century Foundation.”
Although most narratives in the book focus more on reconciliation than forgiveness and conflate the concepts such that it is often unclear whether forgiveness or reconciliation is meant, they offer qualitative evidence that a mixture of courage and humility can infuse encounters with hope that persons of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds can forgive and reconcile.
Henderson, M. (2009). No enemy to conquer: Forgiveness in an unforgiving world. Waco, TX: Baylor.

Read more about forgiveness in Living Well available on AMAZON and other booksellers


Related posts and Resources

Effective Apologies

Handbook of Forgiveness - Review

Psychology of Forgiveness

Self-Forgiveness

Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Restoration (Book)




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Denial of Death and the Meaningful Life- Book Review

  The Denial of Death   by Ernest Becker A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton The prospect of death, Dr. Johnson said, wonderfully concentrates the mind. The main thesis of this book is that it does much more than that: the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.  — Ernest Becker, xvii I completed a recent reading of this old classic yesterday (13 December, 2015) because I was interested in Becker’s contribution to Terror Management Theory, which I find so helpful in understanding the ways U.S. leaders are publicly responding to terrorist activities. Becker’s ideas are more than forty years old and many have not withstood the test of time. However, his basic premise that we deny the reality of death in many ways remains valid
3 comments
Read more

A Christmas Carol offers lessons in Psychology and Faith A Book Review

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton My copy of A Christmas Carol was a gift on Christmas day, 1963. Two Christmases before I had walked the cold, fog-laden, smog drenched streets of Old London with my dad whilst my mother visited with her family. It was a grey day and a grey week. We took turns warming parts of our body by fireplaces here and there. After five years in the U.S. we had returned home to London on the occasion of my maternal grandmother’s death.  Dickens’ story paints a familiar tale textured by my early memories and enriched today by having watched my favourite rendition of A Christmas Carol ( 1984 ) with my wife on Christmas eve. My interest in reviewing the book is not just for a pleasant walk about the old streets of London but I'm motivated by a sense of appreciation for the poetic and colourful artistry with which Dickens plumbs the hopes and fears of humanity. So, follow
Post a Comment
Read more

WILLPOWER Setting & Reaching Goals- Book Review by Sutton

WILLPOWER Rediscovering the Greatest    Human Strength By Roy Baumeister & John Tierney Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton I go to a gym, which is crowded in January. Regulars know the early Happy-New-Year commitments to fitness will weaken sometime in February. Roy Baumeister has spent a good part of his career studying self-control. His book, Willpower   written with Tierney,  entertains and informs us with an organized set of findings explaining factors that influence self-control. Two critical factors weaken our judgments: food and sleep. We need glucose and sleep to be at our best when it comes to making wise decisions and marking progress toward our goals. A pretty woman can loosen a man’s grip on his career--we hear these news stories from time to time as one political group takes aim at each other's leaders--men who failed at sexual self-control and sadly blame women for their lack of self-control. Fat shaming happens. T
Post a Comment
Read more