Intellectuelle   Kristine

Forgiveness. A favorite topic and term bandied about Christendom with the frequency of drawing breath. Why do so many equate "forgiveness" with restoration and reconciliation, often using the terms synonymously or interchangeably? What is forgiveness? What does it mean to forgive someone? It is a one-time event, or a process? Does forgiveness absolve the offending party of all responsibility for the offense, wound or grief they caused? What is forgiveness within a biblical context? What does it look like? How does it work? Perhaps more importantly, what is it not mean?

Few have delved into the depths of this often over-simplified, misconstrued as misapplied subject as fully as Dr. Lewis Smedes of Fuller Theological Seminary. Smedes is a nationally recognized expert who's authored several books on the topic. Although he's now in glory, Dr. Smedes' insights on what forgiveness is and isn't remain. I think they're worth sharing. Here are a few:

"Five Things Everyone Should Know About Forgiving"

Let's say that you've been hurt. Somebody you counted on let you down. Somebody you trusted betrayed you in your trust. Somebody who promised to take care of you, instead took advantage of you. The hurt goes deep. What makes the pain worse is that you were wronged. You did not have it coming. Nobody deserves to be treated the way you were treated. It was not fair.

One thing is for sure. You cannot change what happened. There is no delete button for the past. You are stuck with it. You cannot forget what happened. You cannot erase it from your mind. It is like a video tape sewed inside your head. And every time it plays its rerun, you feel the pain all over again.

Now you have to make the hard decision. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a pain that you did not deserve to get in the first place? Or do you want to be rid of it, healed, freed from it, so that you can go on with your life without that painful memory shadowing you?

(see part I and part II)

Additional Observations:

- Chiefly problematic is Glenn's penchant for proof-texting and her frequent violation of the historical-grammatical method of Biblical exegesis. The presentation is zealous but sloppy (see comments above.)

- At 270+ pages, Freedom for Mothers is twice as long and half as lucid as it could be. Newbies are likely to find this plodding tome tedious and overly ambitious. A number of women with whom I spoke dropped out around Unit 5 or 6 with comments like "too long", "don't have time", "way too many pages", etc.

- The Contents portion of this tome (pp. 9-10) lists ten units and Mothering Skills, but lacks page numbers for easy reference. Not exactly "user friendly."

- Utilizing the old "shotgun approach," Glenn sprays superficial "Bible bullets" all over her text rather than focusing on salient points and topics and covering them in-depth. Leaps in logic as wide as the Grand Canyon open at times between one unit, topic or text and the next, leaving the study virtually incoherent in places.

- Much of Wisdom and Freedom is written from the perspective of a white, middle or upper-middle class American (at least in the edition noted). Assumptions are made about jobs, bank accounts, leisure activities, homeowner status, family chemistry, disposable income, etc. that are inaccurate (and possibly offensive). See the Mothering Skills Discussion, Toys and Technology: Tots to Teens in Unit 3, pp. 67 - 70a.