The Context of Forgiveness
Grace in Amish Country
With the massacre at Virginia Tech and the chilling execution-style murder of four Delaware State students, it is not surprising that many Americans have almost forgotten an equally horrifying event that took place one year ago yesterday.
A demented gunman, Charles Roberts, took a school-room full of Amish girls hostage in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Before he killed himself, Roberts had murdered five girls in cold blood.
But as shocking as this senseless act of violence was, it was what followed that sent the real shock waves through the nation.
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Within hours of the shooting, several members of the Amish community visited Mrs. Roberts and her family, to express their sorrow over her loss and to say they did not hold anything against them. Another Amish man visited the killer's father. A Roberts family spokesperson said, "He stood there for an hour, and he held [Mr. Roberts] in his arms and said, 'We forgive you.'"
Four days later at the killer's burial, some 70 people in attendance were Amish. And when funds began pouring in for victims after the shooting, the Nickel Mines community established a fund for the shooter's wife and children.
Reactions to the news of this forgiveness ran the gamut from awestruck to disgust. Detractors like Jeff Jacoby opined in the Boston Globe, "I cannot see how the world is made a better place by assuring someone who would do terrible things that he will be readily forgiven afterward."
But what Jacoby and others missed was the broader context of the forgiveness. It was not a cheap forgiveness that denied the pain and wrong of what had happened. From amazing grief through amazing faith came amazing grace.
In a new book titled Amish Grace, three experts on the Amish explain, "Our actions are rarely random. We all embrace patterns of behavior and habits of mind that shape what we do in a given situation." As the authors note, there are "habits of forgiveness" in the Amish culture, Christian habits that come into clear focus. For instance, the Amish celebrate communion only twice a year, but they go through a month-long season of preparation. During that season of preparation, the Amish take seriously the admonition that if anyone holds a grudge against his brother, he is not to partake in the communion until he has put things right. A council meeting two weeks prior to communion is a time of admonishment, then there is a season of fasting, and sometimes the communion service is even delayed for weeks if there is more widespread disharmony among the community.
There is much more we could say about the wave of forgiveness that startled the world last October. Get the book Amish Grace, and read about it. You can even order it from BreakPoint.org.
But the question is, how are we working in our own communities to build cultures of grace? Do we teach our children to forgive? Are we actively working to restore offenders and to reach out in aid to victims? And are we overcoming the evil in the world by good, as we are commanded to?
The Amish have given us a great lesson in the way to defeat hatred and alienation. It is the Christian worldview—the only one that makes such a magnificent response to such a horrible tragedy possible.
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From BreakPoint®, October 3, 2007, Copyright 2007, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. "BreakPoint®" and "Prison Fellowship Ministries®" are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
