Interdisciplinary Book and Film Reviews

AMISH GRACE:            HOW FORGIVENESS TRANSCENDED TRAGEDY By    Donald Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt,     & David L. Weaver-Zercher Reviewed by    Geoffrey W. Sutton The horrific slaughter of Amish children attending school in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, garnered international attention in October, 2006. When the Amish responded with forgiveness and reconciliation, people were doubly shocked. Christian teaching and psychological research on forgiveness can appear as sterile narratives until tragedies upend everyday life. The authors of  Amish Grace offer informed readers the kind of details and analyses that allow Christian clinicians and researchers to consider how Christian virtues and psychological research on forgiveness and reconciliation may be integrated. The authors explore the virtues of grace, forgiveness,...

Catch the Fire:  Soaking Prayer       and  Charismatic Renewal         By Michael Wilkinson  &  Peter Althouse Reviewed by    Geoffrey W. Sutton,  Soaking prayer is claimed by charismatics to facilitate and expand the reception of divine love in order to give it away in acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, compassion, and benevolence. Soaking is a metaphor that supports charismatic spirituality and practices like resting in the Spirit, prayer for spiritual gifts, healing, prophecy, and impartation, which we describe and explain in this book (p. 4). The authors offer readers an integrated sociological and theological perspective on soaking prayer as practiced by charismatic Christians associated with Catch the Fire (CTF), a church in Toronto, Canada and a worldwide movement. Wilkinson and Althouse contextualize soaking prayer in two primary ways.  1. Dramatic ...

  FORGIVENESS THERAPY AN EMPIRICAL GUIDE FOR RESOLVING   ANGER AND RESTORING HOPE By       Robert D. Enright &      Richard P. Fitzgibbons, Reviewed by      Geoffrey W. Sutton In the last few decades, forgiveness books and research studies have multiplied. Fortunately for clinicians, Enright and Fitzgibbons have provided a comprehensive work that is clinician focused with reviews of supportive research. I was glad for the opportunity to review this update by one of the world’s leading forgiveness researchers. My interest in forgiveness, particularly but not exclusively Christian forgiveness, began during my work as a psychotherapist. More recently I have been involved in several research projects focused on, or inclusive, of forgiveness. My point is that the psychology of forgiveness is important to both clinicians and academics. And forgiveness is a process of value to peopl...

The Railway Man By Eric Lomax Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton The Railway Man is an emotionally powerful film based on the true story of Eric Lomax. Eric (Colin Firth) meets Patti (Nicole Kidman) on a train. We’re on a quick romantic journey to marriage but soon discover Eric’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is linked to brutal torture as a POW. The severe PTSD symptoms threaten to destroy his relationship along with his life. We’re in a time shuffle from the relationship and early marriage in the 1980s to WWII. Lomax was a British officer sent to railway work as a slave of the Japanese when Singapore fell in 1942. After his marriage, Eric discovers one of his Japanese torturers, Nagase, is alive. Now the gut-wrenching inner struggle takes place on a larger stage. The war is not over for either man. Rather than reveal the dramatic and unpredictable conclusion, I’ll stop with the story-telling. Clinicians like me have seen many...