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• Forgiveness by Dr. Orr-Ewing

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Transcript

Welcome to the Kathleen Noller podcast brought to you by the C.S. Lewis Institute. I'm your host, a former atheist turned Christian. Join us today as we dive into Christianity together and see if we can withstand some of our toughest objections. So, our objection today is a little bit different than some we've seen in the past. It's about forgiveness. So, it's as follows. In a world broken by trap, abuse, cancel culture, and pride, can we as sinners truly achieve forgiveness as the Bible asks? A forgiveness that restores the original relationship without punishment and reparations can be seen by some as an outdated concept that fails to take the implications of trap seriously and underplays the need for justice. True forgiveness in the face of deep harm may not be possible in our fallen world. So, to discuss this weighty objection, we have Dr. Amy Orr Ewing. She holds a DPhil from University of Oxford. She is an international speaker, theologian, and public advocate for the Christian faith. She's an author of many books, many of which you might have read, including Mary's Voice, where is God in All the Suffering, and Why Trust in the Bible.

Dr. Orr Ewing has spoken in the UK Parliament, the US Capitol, the West Bank of the White House. She's an honorary lecturer at University of Aberdeen and a distinguished scholar at Wheaton College. And she previously served as president of Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics. She now lives in Oxford, England with her husband and their three sons. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be on.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah, fantastic. So, as I mentioned, you've written many books on apologetics, and you've studied other biblical topics. Why forgiveness? Why did you choose to write this book at this time? And why is it so important to you?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Thank you so much. So, I've been involved in public advocacy for the Christian faith or apologetics, you know, thinking about the big questions around faith and whether God's there for, you know, over well over years, probably nearer years.  And I would describe the sort of eras in the West of kind of persistent unbelief as being characterized, you know, between the late s and up to about. You know, the predominant objection was around postmodernism and, you know, relativism and pluralism and There are all these faiths and all these truths.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And how could there be any legitimacy to the exclusive claims of Christianity? And wouldn't being a Christian mean being a sort of intolerant bigot? And that would be awful.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: So that was sort of like, you know, as I was starting out. And then... Along came Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. And there were lots of questions about God's existence, science and faith, you know, materialism, you know, i guess a fresh conviction that God doesn't just not exist, but that belief in God is dangerous and pernicious and, you know, is sort of like responsible for all the bad things, wars and all the bad things in in culture.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And then I think towards the end of just before the pandemic, what I began to see and experience on campus was something quite different. And you know university campuses or just out and about meeting people who are intelligent people, but who don’t believe in God or the Christian faith. And I discovered this sort of  obviously what we might call identity politics,  this kind of rise in a sense of justice really mattering and people really mattering and people suffering really mattering and in fact because her identity is constructed and it's you know constructed on the basis of intersectional layers of injustice and the grievance we experience because of those injustices  like your power is experienced in the world through grievance, victimhood and rage. And within that context, obviously, we've it we now experienced this very kind of politically divided cultural moment. You know, you mentioned cancel culture in the intro. We experience this incredible division and this sort of rippling sense of rage and aggression. And in that context, the Christian gospel sounds like moral weakness. And I experienced a lot of young people telling me, you know, basically forgiveness is moral weakness because you are letting perpetrators of harm off.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And so rather than what we experienced in postmodernism, which was the idea that sin and judgment and our need for Christ as a sacrifice exclusively, that being kind of like way too judgmental. Now what we're experiencing is people saying, it's not judgmental enough. Like we want perpetrators of abuse and harm, you know, people who did wrong in slavery or of oppressed minorities need to be punished.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And, you know, forgiveness means people get off and basically you don't care enough about sin is what I was hearing, you know, basically young people calling for death for transgressions, like it almost like an Old Testament kind of idea

Kathleen Noller: yeah

Amy Orr-Ewing: So into that context, I began to think about how does the Christian gospel connect and how do we take that objection seriously? like Because when you look in the church and at the same time we were experiencing in the church, you get into the s and we experienced this absolute collapse in leadership huge moral failing sexual predation sexual abuse in the church you know time and time again organizations covering that up for the greater good of their ministry or whatever priests who'd abused children being allowed to just carry on but in a different parish you know and actually

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: seeing forgiveness being weaponized against those who'd suffered. So, on the one hand, I was hearing this objection in the culture and then on the other hand, sort of seeing an objection to forgiveness and grace in the church. And so, I spent a few years thinking about this, wanting to really untangle it, like, is there an answer to that question of whether there is such a thing as forgiveness that doesn't minimize moral wrongdoing and egregious harm?

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Is there such a thing?

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: And, you know, can we kind of redeem the idea of grace, as it were, without sort of bowing to saying, you know, like we have to say that make the harm smaller? And was there some thinking we needed to do within the church about what forgiveness is and what it isn't so that cheap grace theology is not kind of weaponized against victims?

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So that's kind of how I came about beginning to think about this and write about it. And the book is attempting to do both of those things as well as quite a few other things.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, and I think it does it well. And I like that you note this sort of antipodal forces attacking the idea of forgiveness from sort of angles that we're too forgiving or maybe not forgiving enough. When you mentioned that shift that you saw in the culture in response to forgiveness, and suddenly, it was about, you know, we're not taking sin seriously enough. And how do we go after people more What do you attribute that moment to? Was that do you think that's more of a, like a heightened public awareness about the failure of, of public figures? Do you think it was just, you know, something and in the cultural moment at the time?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because there’s a massive contradiction behind that, which I found myself, you know, gently pointing out in in lots of Q&A responses, because if you're trying to argue that harm matters at a profound level, then you need to have a better account of what a human being is. Because it's hard to argue that harm against a cluster of atoms here by chance with absolutely no purpose and no creator that it does really matter at more than a cellular level. You know, it's hard to make the case if you don't believe in any kind of

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Image of God or transcendent source for human life or a sort of specificity about human beings, like a specialness about human beings.

Kathleen Noller: and yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: So, there's a contradiction there. I think a few things were going on. One was the sort of rise of cultural Marxism, which is about, you know, these kinds of delineations based on you know, grievance and injustice. And so, people, and then obviously through Michel Foucault's writing, this idea, ideas of power and domination.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: how you get power and how you assert power, because power is so important and that's the legacy of postmodernism.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: But basically, the route to power is injustice and, you know, up turning up and down up upside down who has privilege. So, I think it was a sort of perfect storm of that. But I do also think...  that the sort of decadence of the culture, the egregious nature of the sexual crimes of men in power and, you know, obviously we had Me Too that that began.  And that speaks deeply to the sort of moral intuition that human being’s matter, including weaker human beings, including women. And that is obviously how, you know, Christianity first really took hold in the Roman world, saying that a woman, a slave, you know, that children matter. And...  Yeah, so that that deep intuition that people's suffering matters. So, sort of when I was first really thinking about this, I wrote a piece in the Times here in the UK, like an opinion piece, just kind of arguing, because everyone was sort of hand-wringing about council culture, which obviously council culture is ...bad and you know divisive and it's ruined people's lives and careers and mob rule and all of that but I tried to make the argent that underneath it something profound is being said like finally people or a generation are saying something actually matters we're not nihilists if  if we practice cancel culture because we're saying people matter and when suffering happens and bad things happen to those people that actually really matters. And then I made a theological connection between council culture and death for transgressions. And then I was like, but the Bible doesn't end with death for transgressions. There's a solution in redemption.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: so that was sort of the logical steps along the way.

Kathleen Noller: Yes. I love that. That's very helpful to know. And I think it's also helpful for people to know that you, while simultaneously writing this as a scholar and sort of having this bird's eye view from all of your experience and apologetics over the years, you've also spoken very publicly about navigating the Ravi Zacharias ministry situation and all of the cover up and abuse and betrayal. So, I know that you've discussed this previously, but for folks who are not aware of your role and your experience there, would you mind just summarizing that quickly and telling us if that has played into your understanding of forgiveness now?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah, sure. so, I was part of an organization that had been founded by a man called Ravi Zacharias, who after his death in, women came forward alleging very serious sexual abuse and crime, really, predation. And it wasn't just one person; it was more than one person.  Not that I shouldn't really say just because obviously one person is far too many to have experienced that.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And so, you know, there's a sort of understandable ah struggle when something like that happens with a very loved and admired leader. And then the issue of obviously this person had died and has surviving family members who are really grieving.  But essentially, there was ah of quite a struggle to have those allegations taken seriously and then have an independent investigation and then for that to be finally published and made known rather than sort of, you know, the organization’s response to the investigation being published, let's put it that way.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And so that was ah a very difficult time for a lot of people, me included. And through that process, you know, I lost my employment, I lost friends. and But I gained the absolute privilege of meeting some of the women who'd been harmed and beginning to, I think, understand something more of how sexual abuse functions in religious contexts, particularly with very powerful people.

Kathleen Noller: who

Amy Orr-Ewing: And was very blessed to learn a lot from experts in this field, people like Diane Langberg and Boz Javidian and others who, Rachel Den Hollander, others who supported different ones of us along the way. So I think probably it does form some of the background to this book, but  I really address that much more directly in my previous book called Lead Like the Real You, where I speak more about my kind of personal reflections on that and some of my work now in advocating for survivors of sexual abuse so it it's there but probably more now  in the background to this is this wider this is not about one individual or one organization it's a much wider systemic problem

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: and within Christian communities where cheap grace is practiced and where the emphasis is on forgiveness that doesn't require a full accounting of the harm and moral wrongdoing that has occurred, that doesn't require repentance or confession, that doesn't require any kinds of attempts at, you know, restitution or putting things right. And the is essentially becomes a theological kind of weapon to shut people down rather than address and deal with sin. And, you know, basically, as I began to look at definitions of forgiveness, what I realized is that, you know, the probably the predominant view of forgiveness outside the Christian faith, where forgiveness where forgiveness is seen positively, so you know, we've already talked about the circles in which it's seen negatively, you know, it's seen as, as some you know, enabling moral wrongdoing and letting people off.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: But where it's viewed positively without God in the picture, the primary sort of view of forgiveness is as a psychological tool with psychological benefit for a person who's suffered. And the easiest analogy I can think of is the movie Frozen, you know, where Elsa sings, let it go. And there's this sort of idea that you always play a psychological trick on yourself in that you release what happened to you to the universe and you just let it go. But here's the thing, if what you have suffered is a crime or it is an extreme example of something heinous that is truly evil, is it right to let it go? You know, there's a struggle there, isn't there? about and is it helpful? So, I think that uniquely within the Christian faith, we have the possibility of the psychological benefit of forgiveness, which, you know, all the studies show is beneficial to a person who practices it. Without the downside of being required to minimize the scale of the harm that happened. In fact, what the Christian faith does is it maximizes the scale of the harm that happened. Because any harm that happens to any person, given that a person is a human being made in the image of God, so any harm that happens, either that we do to someone else or that happens to us, takes on a kind of transcendent dimension.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Like sin is more than the s of the parts. It has a kind of spiritual power.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: And that's why we feel it's harm on ourselves, on our bodies. You know, our relationships are so profound. And so, it requires a much bigger solution than a psychological trick. And the solution that the gospel of Jesus Christ and the New Testament suggests is a that this would require like solving this, dealing with this problem, this kind of cosmic level problem. of pain and harm done to a human being or by a human being would require a cosmic solution. And that's what the Christian faith proposes the crucifixion of Jesus is, that this is more than the execution of an individual in Roman history you know, thousands of people died by crucifixion. But the reason you see crosses on buildings and on jewelry and, you know, in the kind of very architecture of the West, just a tool of execution, the reason you see that is that it is a symbol of something you know cosmic occurring within history and that is that Jesus Christ was both God and man and that his death was a sacrificial death  taking upon himself the sins of the world and think about you know one harm against one person made in the image of God and then multiply that by billions, taking upon himself the consequences of that as well as, you know, the judgment for that and  being a sacrifice for that so that when we forgive and are forgiven, the harm done to us and by us is actually paid and accounted for and never minimized.

And that means that, you know, when we practice forgiveness as Christians, we're not minimizing the harm done to us. And when we receive forgiveness through Christ's death on the cross, we're receiving something truly awesome, which can reset our lives, renew our lives and be like a second birth, like being born all over again. Something ontological happens to our very person. So, I'm trying to sort of argue that we need as Christians in these days to regain the wonder and the magnitude of what the crucifixion of Jesus means. And then we also need to sort of proclaim that and, you know, share that message in a very broken world and in a very broken cultural moment because it has implications for individuals, but also for community and society, I think.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, it's interesting how something so far downstream just comes back to those first principles. And I'd love to go through a sort of theology of forgiveness with you, if we might, and go through.

Amy Orr-Ewing: yeah so

Kathleen Noller: You talked about you know Christ on the cross and the New Testament and how that has sort of defined under our understanding of forgiveness. I have sort of a question related to that New Testament understanding and then want to look at the Old Testament too with you and see how that can inform our understanding of forgiveness as well. So I know for us, you know, in Western Christianity, if we believe in this penal substitutionary atonement where sin creates this debt and this sort of legal liability before a just God, which must be paid in this form of Christ on the cross, would you define forgiveness as the cancellation of a debt or how would you define it in that context of Christ's crucifixion?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah. So absolutely, and Jesus in his teaching on forgiveness often uses the imagery of debt. So, when you are harmed in some way, you incur a loss. That might be a loss of bodily autonomy, it might be a loss of finance, it might be a loss of reputation, could be any kind of loss. And so, the debt is now there and it's real. And so Yes, I do believe in penal substitution with one caveat. I think that the sort of caricatures of this idea often presents it as God cosmic child abuse. That's the kind of famous phrase, the idea of sort of God the Father abusing with his judgment, God the Son. But I think that completely misunderstands the Old Testament as well as New Testament imagery about this. So, in the Jewish scriptures, of course, the prefiguring of this event of the sacrifice of the son happens. It's called the Akedah in Jewish understanding where Isaac and Abraham go to Mount Moriah and Isaac is called to sacrifice his beloved son, his one and only son. And the text there depicts Isaac as not a child, but as an adult who has the capacity to carry the wood for his own sacrifice up a mountain and depicts Abraham as a much frailer, older man. So, Isaac could easily have overpowered the father. So, the visual image is not cosmic child abuse, but a willing son walking up the mountain, you know, lying down on the word and being willing to give his life.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And I think that's really, important. So yes, Jesus is our, substitute and in his death, we get to parties He's our representative, our substitute, and we then get to participate. So there's this covenant idea in the benefits of his righteousness that he wins for us. So, it's profoundly theological. I’d say I think there are two kind of important theological words that I often come back to, New and ah New Testament ideas. One, and they're in the Old Testament, of course, in the sacrificial system. The first is that word expiation, which is this idea that, the debt that we carry and the impact of our sin and think about sin is that which kind of spoils our lives harms us as well as others that  at the cross that goes from us onto Jesus and he carries it away so that burden or if you could you imagine envisage it as a kind of filth or a dirt. I think a helpful image is like a sponge. You know, if you’re, if you have a baby, I've got three children. And if you have a baby and you put your baby in the bath and then you, you, you wash your baby, maybe with a sponge, you know, you've got some baby, like that baby kind of soap and you, you clean your baby at the end of the day but that sponge  on their body absorbs from them the dirt that is on them into the sponge and you it's carried away from you onto this sponge and that's the image of expiation that Jesus at the cross carries things away from us onto himself and then more kind of debt is this idea of propitiation which is where Jesus is that sacrifice, he carries away and absorbs, instead of us absorbing it, the right judgment and justice for things that we've done wrong. Now, I would say, you know, as a younger Christian, I used to sort of struggle with this idea because it makes God sound very harsh, you know, like God wants to pour out his wrath and judgment either on us or on Jesus.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Like this is a sort of mean, not very nice God. But i first sort of, the penny for this dropped for me when my husband and I were leading a church in the inner city in London and I was discipling a woman who had come to faith. in Jesus in a dramatic way, beautiful way. And she had an ex-partner who was very violent. She had what we call in Britain a restraining order. So, he wasn't allowed to come near her I can't remember what that's called in America, but, and he was in prison. But when he got out of prison, he came to her apartment, broke in sexually assaulted her oldest daughter and then beat the living daylights out of her and left her for dead, my friend. So she experienced horrific domestic violence, sexual violence, all of it. And the next day when I saw her in hospital, and, you know, I saw the impact of evil on her, my thought as someone who loved her was not, I don't want that guy to face any justice. Because I love her, I wanted and desired and love called for a full reckoning for this man.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And in the same way, I think the love of God and judgment of God are held together in this idea of propitiation that because we matter so much, we've been made in his image, harm and moral wrongdoing against us, need to be judged. They need to be judged at a divine level because we are eternal beings, you know, with sacred values. And in the same way, harm that we have done needs to be judged too. And it would be unloving to not to not judge. like God's love and judgment, it held together. And they're gloriously held together in Jesus, the willing substitute. So, the experience of Christ on the cross, of God's wrath, God's righteous judgment of evil being absorbed by that living sacrifice, the Son of God, who because he is God, can carry that judgment of God, is a beautiful and powerful and freeing image. And it's very close to his love. His love and his judgment go very closely together.

Kathleen Noller: Yes. And I love, you know, the sense of the synthesis of the two, right? Because it's, you know, it's all speaking to the same God, just perhaps in, you know, through different stories and different language. And  I think something that I've heard is maybe an armchair objection to sort of Christ dying on the cross, but I think one that maybe we should address as well as this idea that, okay, you know, first of all, if God is dying on the cross, if Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world, then is he just sort of not letting everyone off the hook in this lifetime? Maybe they'll be punished after death and eternity, but in this lifetime, nothing's really happening to them. and then the other response that I've heard is, okay, well, if we're called to, you know, if we if we pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, are we called to forgive in this sort of Christ-like manner of just absorbing all of the implications of the sin, right? The wrath of God for somebody else's sin upon ourselves. And what does that look like practically translating that crucifixion and all the action of Christ into our personal lives?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah. Thank you.  Well, the first thing I would say is we're not Jesus. And like the sacrifice of the Son of God is one off. You know, it's once for all. And we could never be that because we're not God and we can't be. humanity's representative to God or God's representative, if you like dealing with humanity. So, there's only one who could be that, and that's Jesus.  I think, so like if I could just scroll back a tiny bit to think about what forgiveness is and isn't in terms of the New Testament practice of forgiveness in the life of the believer and what Jesus is talking about in the Lord's Prayer, because there's some disagreement amongst the believers about what that even word means and I think there are sort of four  common positions in Bible believing churches. So, the first let if I just explain what they are then I'll explain what mine is and why I think it answers your question.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah, absolutely.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So, I promise I am going to answer the question, but we kind of need to cover a couple of things first. So, four options. Option number one is close to how I described the world's view of forgiveness, you know, Elsa, let it go. And that is predominantly visualizing forgiveness as an experience that a believer has. And so there’s not much focus on what's sort of happening with the perpetrator of whatever's gone on. The focus is on the spiritual benefit to you of releasing bitterness. And you'll find this in that being the very much the focus of forgiveness. You'll find this in, you know, more churches that are very focused on inner healing and perhaps more charismatic spirit filled churches where forgiveness, like everything else, is sort of practiced as an experience in the Christian life.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So, there's not a great deal of sort of theological thinking about whether the person needs to repent or you know how this is really functioning at a kind of forensic level. It's more about what's happening in you as you release this to God and you just sort of trust him with it. So that might be option number one. Now, one of the problems with that position... is that very often the experience of someone who's been greatly harmed is not a one-off experience of release psychologically or emotionally when they choose to forgive, maybe even say, I forgive you or pray. I forgive this person Lord by your power or whatever and so there can be like a lot of guilt and shame for a Christian who's constantly thinking have I really forgiven I'm not sure because it's all in my head and on me to practice this and experience it it's actually quite a lot of pressure so option number two is the idea that forgiveness and reconciliation, and this is quite closely linked, I think, to what you might have been suggesting in the question, that forgiveness and reconciliation are basically the same thing.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, I guess

Amy Orr-Ewing: so, if someone harms you in some way and you forgive them, what your forgiveness means is a boundary, ongoing relationship that is reset to as close as things were before the crime or the harm or the hurt happened. And so, you haven't really forgiven your friend if things aren't exactly back to how they were before the harm happened and reconciliation is complete. And crucially, that must happen irrespective of whether the person repents or not. You must forgive because God's forgiven you. You've got to forgive and have this boundary thing. Now, here's the problem with this. God doesn't forgive us like that. God requires us to rep confess, repent and believe.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And what are we required to believe? We're required to believe that Jesus Christ had to go to the cross because our sin is so serious that the son of God died in our place. Like the harm we've done really matters that much. And repent means turn around, a reorientation of life. And confessing means kind of own up and say sorry, right? So, there's a kind of issue there. The third possible position is I think what's practiced more in kind of reformed circles. And that is the idea that we do not forgive until someone confesses and repents. And they fully do that and then we forgive each other. Now, the problem with, I think, that position is that for most of us, we're never going to experience most of the harm and hurt we've experienced, you know, the perpetrator doing that. And the second problem with it is that it requires us to make a judgment as to whether the perpetrator has really done that or not.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So, we're in a position of assessing the person's confession skills, their repentance, you know, ability, and is this real and true?

Kathleen Noller: Very true.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So, here's the fourth position, which I think is a biblical position. And that is that, like we've already said, forgiveness is envisaged by Jesus as a lot like a debt. And so, when we practice forgiveness, so as we forgive those who sin against us, we're not sort of doing good work, you know, just by ourselves, like mustering up the ability to do this. We're receiving grace through the power of the cross to forgive. So, here's, here’s, and when, when, when we forgive, what we're doing here’s, and easing basically divine vengeance and judgment to God. I don't think we're saying on a human level, if someone's committed a crime, they mustn't pay the civil or criminal penalty for that crime. I think we're saying it's not on us to bring about the divine judgment or eternal judgment that what they've done incurs on our behalf. So we're releasing to God his own role, which he's obviously already got. and We're saying, I'm not going after this, this vengeance. And  the illustration I use in the book, which I find really helpful, is that when you buy a house,  if you're ever were are in a position to buy a house,  usually what happens is that you save for a deposit, but you can't really afford the full cost of the house just through your own savings. So what's required is like a mortgage payment. Okay, to cover the debt that is the distance between what you can manage and what the price is. And I think forgiveness is like that.

The deposit is like our decision as a follower of Jesus that I'm going to obey his teaching and choose to forgive, which means I'm releasing deposit you know, ability to get and desire to get vengeance for what has occurred to me and divine justice for what's occurred, what has happened to me. And alongside that decision, my deposit is required this mortgage and that is covered, that debt is covered by the death of the son of God in history. So most of the payment is totally covered by him, and we receive that by grace. Now, what much of into an S, what's called a totally, a lawyer, him, attorney that's called the solicitor, and it goes into the solicitor's account. Okay. So, the funds have left your account. The mortgage funds have left, you know, that divine heavenly bank account, and they are now in the escrow or in the solicitor's account. So you've paid. You've forgiven. But here's the thing. The transaction only goes through once the seller transfers the deeds for the house and the solicitor or the attorney releases the escrow funds and then it's complete. that there's another layer to the transaction and I think that's what reconciliation is represented by.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So it can be true that I have forgiven through the grace of God with the help of the Holy Spirit through that decision to be a disciple of Jesus and you know, walk in forgiveness and release, trust God that he's ultimately going to judge. And ultimately what's happened to me will be paid for one of two ways, through the death of Christ in history. And that's if the person repents and confesses and believes.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: And if that doesn't occur, then it's still going to be paid. There is going to be a divine reckoning on the last day. We'll all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. So I can make that decision to forgive. And it's covered and I'm covered because of this mortgage. But I may well live in the zone of incomplete transactions. It may well be that I don't experience reconciliation in this life or not immediately because, you know, there hasn't been any confession or facilitated reconciliation with the other party that is safe and healthy and good. And so i don't need to live with fear or worry or doubt about whether I've forgiven. It can be true that I've forgiven and it can be true that I'm living in this space of things not being fully reconciled now. And I think what that does is that that brings tremendous peace. It helps us to live out that truth, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. I'm walking in obedience to the teaching of Jesus. I'm accessing this grace and this power of the cross to even be able to do that. And I'm hopeful and living with an orientation of a desire for reconciliation where that's sort of safe and appropriate and right. And the other thing that this does is it doesn't remove where crime has been committed. It doesn't remove a place for appropriate human justice. So let's think about a woman who's experienced domestic violence. It doesn't say to that woman, bring that violent husband back because you've forgiven, bring him back into your house to beat you and beat your children, because that's what forgiveness is. No, it says there needs to be appropriate boundaries ah and ah under the law and, you know full reconciliation without that man having an absolute, you know, intervention, massive therapy, you know, possibly going to prison isn't going to be possible, but you can still be a woman who is walking in forgiveness and in the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Kathleen Noller: yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And so i also think it helps untangle for some of us some of the wrong thinking about how abusers need to be handled in you know churches like it can be true that an abuser can receive  forgiveness sexual abuser can receive forgiveness from God but they need to confess and repent and if they're going to confess they need to own up to their crime and they will need to go to prison and pay for that crime as evidence of that confession and repentance.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And so, this idea that we very quickly rehabilitate leaders who've, you know, egregiously harmed others because we're forgiving them is also kind of, you know, really dealt with this model of forgiveness.

Kathleen Noller: Yes. I love the split into forgiveness and reconciliation, as well as your split of the divine component and the earthly component, because that gives a lot of freedom to the person who's been wronged to give it up to the Lord. But also, you know, we are stuck on this earth and we're in these mortal bodies and we have to live with that somehow.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah.

Kathleen Noller: And so, to let sort of earthly forms of justice take their course as well. I had one follow up question from that like you mentioned, we're not in the position, right, to evaluate whether someone has repented properly and where someone's heart is at, what the purity of their heart is, what their stance is toward God, all of that. So in in the situation where somebody is a leader or somebody is in a position where they would be placed in a position of, they would be placing others in a position of danger if they were to be reconciled to those people before they were aptly repentant what is your suggestion for how to go about that process of forgiveness how do you evaluate that person again  prior to sort of trusting them with the tasks that they sinned in before how do you manage that and grapple with that without being sort of taking the place of god and becoming their judge.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah, so I think one of the important things in this kind of situation is that it's not necessarily on the victim to make those decisions. This is where we need the community of the church to do a better job, whether it's an eldership, in a church or a board in an organization.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: There are trusted and biblically literate people who understand the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation who also understand the difference between forgiveness and just restoring someone to their position. And the need for leader, remember the New Testament's warning that those who teach will be judged far more harshly than others.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: There should not be, I think, an assumption that forgiveness or even you know restitution of some kind of relationship leads to a person being able to be put in a position of trust ever again. I don't think that should be necessarily... expected, if that makes sense. And obviously it slightly depends on what happened. But if we're talking about clergy sexual abuse, certainly not that There isn't rehabilitation back into leadership in God's church.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: For that kind of egregious harm. I mean, Jesus' teaching on this is clear. He said it would be better to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown in the sea, so die by drowning, than to cause a little one to stable.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: And, you know, we need to think about the little one. That's who Jesus prioritizes in this scenario. not the sort of career of the of the and leader or former leader.

Kathleen Noller: Very well said.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So, I think for church boards to sort of get that right but then there are other the situations where you know people make mistakes where we're not talking about abuse or where people have you know mental or psychological breakdowns or you know, need very profound repair and therapy and help and actually can be restored. And they need, they are having been a pastor for a long time and a shepherd, they need to be taken care of and loved and nurtured, you know, back into life and health.

Kathleen Noller: yeah

Amy Orr-Ewing: And so, one of the questions is around having the discernment to know, is this this or is this that? Yeah. and obviously if there's  sexual abuse involved we know for certain it's not this it's that  but then there may be other situations that are less easy to discern and i think that's where it's worth bringing in people who are well trained in these things whether that's  you know psychologically trained or you know wisdom from outside of your own organization to make some kind of independent sort of finding having done a fair investigation and evaluation.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Because if we're honest, you know, it's very, very hard when we're caught up in a situation, and we know people personally, it's often harder to make that kind of assessment.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely.

Amy Orr-Ewing: So

Kathleen Noller: I think that's very wise, practical advice. And sort of along those lines, I'd love to ask you and sort of go back. And I was looking at Jose, which I first popped into my head when you think forgiveness. And I'm just going to quote a few things here for our listeners. Hosea, and the Lord said to me, go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods. God's speaking to the prophet Hosea about his wife.  And so, it seems here that there's this covenantal element to forgiveness. It's not merit based.  How do we, do we need to handle forgiveness differently for people with whom we have a covenant such as a marriage covenant versus people whom we don't?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Get

Kathleen Noller: Is there a difference there or is this just sort of a broad analogy that we don't really need to partition our relationships into?

Amy Orr-Ewing: Oh, thank you. That's such a really, insightful, interesting question.  so, I think the first thing I'd say about Hosea is that, you know, this was a kind of prophetic word to a prophet, that he would enact something specific.

Kathleen Noller: you.

Amy Orr-Ewing: And just like we might not lie down naked like Jeremiah did for a year or cook our food on feces, you know, which is all part of Jeremiah's, like prophetic enactment.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: This is a very specific prophetic enactment that Hosea is called to for a particular time in a particular place.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: So I think in terms of, you know, adultery in a marriage, the better place to turn to is the teaching of Jesus, which  does make clear that  if you are the party in a covenant marriage who has suffered the betrayal of your partner committing adultery, there is a biblical grounds for divorce. And I think we can kind of extend that to violence. You know, we see that in the God hates divorce and a man who covers himself in a cloak of violence in that Old Testament scripture as well. So, we see kind of clear teaching of Jesus that makes space. Now, what I think that does is I don't think Jesus says, if you're the party in a marriage who has been sinned against in this way, covenant vow broken against you, and adultery has been committed, it doesn't say you have to get divorced, but it says you can get divorced. So, there's agency now, there is a There is freedom for that person to make some decisions about what forgiveness and crucially reconciliation look like, right? So, does reconciliation mean our relationship is going to fundamentally change now because of what has occurred? And   on biblical grounds, we're going to separate, but we're going to do this in a way that is the best for our family and best for our children and in a way that honors Jesus and honors the Lord. Or are we going to work through a process of forgiveness that leads to full reconciliation of marriage? And I've seen both things happen in people that, you know, both options taken in people that we've counseled. But I think what is crucial is that the injured party is not being compelled to forgive and walk out reconciliation unless that is, you know, what God puts in their heart to do. And I think that obviously, you know, anyone advising someone in this kind of situation, you would want to see very, very clear evidence of repentance and, you know, good therapy and healing happening in the person who's committed adultery and a good sort of, you know, hard work put in to show that real transformation has taken place.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely. I like how you've noted many times that the burden is not on the victim. You've sort of mentioned that many times throughout the conversation. I think sometimes we can forget that and not try to put the burden on the victim, but inevitably gets shifted there when after the perpetration, the sort of next act people are waiting for is forgiveness and reconciliation.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Yeah. I think it's very empowering, isn’t it?

Kathleen Noller: And so, yeah.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Jesus is teaching. So, Jesus was kind of upending the injustice that women also often experienced within the sort of rabbinic today Jewish system around marriage and divorce. And he was saying no. you know, a person who has experienced this, including a woman, can, you know, can get this. So, I'm not at all, I don't want anyone to hear this and think Amy's very pro-divorce. I'm not, but I think it's far more likely that a marriage would be able to reconcile. if the injured party is not further traumatized and sort of put upon, they must just forgive this and get on with it quickly. Like, you know, forgiveness means a full accounting of this horror of the scale of the harm that happened, not a minimizing of that harm.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

Amy Orr-Ewing: You know and forgiveness may lead to reconciliation if, you know, amends are made and its true repentance. And there's a desire for restoration for both parties. But Jesus gives both parties, well, gives the, sorry, the victim party this possibility of freedom, which I think really dignifies that that person in either choice that they make. And  one of the things that I wanted to do in the book is to really  take seriously advances in brain science and mental health and i wanted to kind of deal with some of the literature that argues that forgiveness can be harmful to the person who suffered, because there is a whole school of thought out there that forgiveness is neutral, it's actually actively harmful. And so really kind of look through that and saw that, you know, where forgiveness is experienced as harmful, it's where two things happen. One, the person is sort of rushed. into forgiving without a full sort of accounting of and paying attention to the righteous anger and the scale of the harm around what has occurred.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: I found that so interesting because I think that happens all the time in the church. Like the person is sort of rushed into forgiveness, you know, absolutely immediately  without being given the dignity of actually experiencing the right kind of anger and the right sort of emotion of what has occurred, which actually then does empower you to forgive because you can't forgive if a true assessment of the scale of the harm hasn't been made.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: that was the first one and  so that the sort of being rushed into or minimizing and then the second one was that forgiveness is harmful if the victim feels in any way compelled rather than choosing it that's again so interesting because you know, I think we, you know, that that really speaks, doesn't it? And then as I went on in the trauma literature, what is helpful to a person who is healing from trauma? And the kind of central thing, i've i read this phrase, and this was not written by, you know, like Christian psychologists, this like mainstream psychology.

Kathleen Noller: Yeah

Amy Orr-Ewing: The central thing that a person recovering from trauma needs is for someone to bear empathetic witness to what happened. And then they can forgive and heal to have someone bear empathetic witness. And that phrase just struck me as so powerful as a theologian.

Kathleen Noller: yes

Amy Orr-Ewing: I thought, what an incredible description of God on the cross. God in Christ, bearing empathetic witness to the trauma and sins of the world in his body suffering this death by crucifixion the center of the Christian faith the baptized savior and  i just found that to be so beautiful and you know incredibly trauma informed as well so there's these lovely layers to  to what forgiveness means and how it can be practiced in a way that brings so much healing and health and goodness and beauty

Kathleen Noller: and what a great opportunity as well for the community around a Christian who has undergone some sort of trauma to be able to step up in a tangible way and provide that empathetic care to them as well thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for writing this book.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Thank you.

Kathleen Noller: I think this is just such a nuanced take on forgiveness, and I'm really encouraged to hear this and to see it sort of broadcast throughout the Christian community. I think it will help so many. So, thank you so much for writing this.

Amy Orr-Ewing: Thanks for having me as well.