![]() ![]() Keller believes followers of Jesus Christ need to demonstrate forgiveness to a culture that desperately needs it. I think forgiveness is going to be harder for future generations to come.” I’ve talked to several university faculty members, counselors and people on campus who say college students are absolutely, completely flummoxed and conflicted over breaking up, they don’t know how to do it. “They don’t go and talk to them and say, ‘Hey, you did this or that,’ they just have nothing to do with them. “What young adults learn is if they don’t like somebody or feel like they’re being used, they just stop texting and emailing,” the 72-year-old pastor noted. That’s an especially acute need with young adults, he said, who have a problem with forgiveness. One of his hopes is to explain the need for forgiveness. Vengeance believes that since you knocked someone’s tooth out, I’m going to knock all your teeth out.” Without properly understanding that relationship, people will continue to seek vengeance, he said. Keller believes the two go hand-in-hand: There can be no true justice without forgiveness. Many young people see forgiveness as the opposite of seeking justice.” You don’t see as many people being kind and forgiving, and a lot of young people question whether we should do forgiveness. The book is needed, he believes, because “there’s a lot more anger in today’s culture. Keller is a prolific author and was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 and led for 28 years. This is the topic of his latest book, Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? Now there’s a lot of people questioning it.” ![]() ![]() I think most people would say, “Oh yeah, forgiveness is great. ![]() “There’s a problem with forgiveness in our culture right now,” he said in a recent interview. I urge you to read his essay in detail.Tim Keller wants to help forgiveness have a good reputation once again. For example, Keller has very practical actions around forgiveness and unpacks our cancel culture in an incisive and thoughtful analysis. In my personal reflection on Tim Keller’s essay, I only spoke to the high points that caught my attention. We must never tire of forgiving (and/or repenting!) and seeking to repair our relationships.“ Tim Keller I Urge You to Read Keller’s Essay “ Christians in community are to never give up on one another, never give up on a relationship, never “write off” another believer and have nothing to do with them. Yet the sacrifice and offer has been made regardless of the acceptance. His forgiveness is offered to all–but not all accept it. The primary purpose of forgiveness is not a way to make me feel better or to combat hate I may feel toward those who have wronged me (although it may well do that as a by-product), it is my minor participation in Christ’s reconciling work on the cross. It may not always work right away, or ever, but it is the only route to healing and reconciliation. The sacrifice of forgiveness is not optional for me. The Amish uniformly expressed forgiveness of the murderer and his family.” Tim Keller The Bottom Line for Me “Within hours members of the Amish community visited both the killer’s immediate family and his parents, each time expressing sympathy for their loss. The families of the wounded and dead children immediately reached out to the family of the deceased gunman, as Keller put it, “expressing sympathy for their loss.” “forgiveness is either discouraged as imposing a moral burden on the person or, at best, it is offered as a way of helping yourself acquire more peaceful inner feelings, of “healing ourselves of our hate.” “ Tim Keller The Amish of Nickel Mines, PennsylvaniaĪs a counterpoint to our culture’s intolerance toward forgiveness, Keller cited the example of the Amish families whose children were shot and killed by a gunman in October, 2006. Keller then goes on to show, in a segment entitled OUR THERAPEUTIC CULTURE, that even when “forgiveness” is tolerated, it is only tolerated in a therapeutic sense … if forgiveness is of positive benefit to the victim of the injustice. “ the emphasis on guilt and justice is ever more on the rise and the concept of forgiveness seems, especially to the younger generation, increasingly problematic“ Tim Keller Indeed forgiveness is seen as an enabler of injustice. In the introduction entitled OFFENDED BY FORGIVENESS, Keller cites many examples where the younger generation has moved from forgiveness to retribution. Yet, despite his challenges he wrote a profound essay on forgiveness on. Tim Keller, is a writer, speaker, and a minister at a New York city Presbyterian church. ![]()
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