Kristin Chapman:Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the Nickel Mine school shooting when gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV killed five young Amish girls and injured five others before turning the gun on himself. In the midst of this tragedy, the Amish community shocked the world with its level of forgiveness, which even included reaching out to the gunman’s family.
Donald Kraybill, author of “Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy,” told CNN, “There were really three surprises to this story: One was the surprise of the violence itself, and then the quick, almost instant, Amish forgiveness was the second surprise that stunned and shocked the outside world, and then third, the Amish themselves were surprised that anybody on the outside was surprised about forgiveness.”
Why do you think the act of genuine forgiveness shocks our present culture?
Good question.
My short answer is that forgiveness runs counter to what we instinctively feel we should do when confronted with a wrong. Unfortunately, just as our mathematical intuition is often wrong, so too is our moral intuition.
I think most people also know forgiveness is good, but they also know it is hard. That's why they get so encouraged and challenged when they here stories like this. It's how many people want to be. I think this would shock any culture in a very good way.
Read my posts from last year on the Amish tragedy here and here.
Here are some of my other posts about forgiveness:
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