This outstanding book shows how forgiveness can heal our angry world

In a culture marked by outrage and cancel culture, theologian Amy Orr-Ewing argues that forgiveness – rooted in the gospel – offers the healing our anxious age desperately needs. It’s a timely manifesto for troubled times, says our reviewer

When Erica Kirk took the stage at the funeral of her husband, Charlie, the conservative Christian influencer killed by a gunman, she spoke words of forgiveness.

In stark contrast to comments made by President Donald Trump at the high-profile service, she declared through tears: “My husband, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life. That man, that young man – I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it is what Charlie would do.”

Erica’s words were greeted in the stadium last September by a standing ovation, and they sped around the world. Those sentences of forgiveness were, for many, the defining point of the funeral and stood apart from the avalanche of angry calls for retribution made after the assassination.

The question prompted by Erica Kirk’s words stands at the heart of this timely and well-written book – Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear (Brazos Press). 

Could forgiveness be the answer to our troubled, divided world?

That vital question is engagingly explored by theologian Amy Orr-Ewing, although without direct reference to Erica Kirk. She declares: “Forgiveness might be the greatest healing agent there is in an anxious world. It is time to reclaim its power.”

Orr-Ewing, an international speaker, theologian, author and public advocate for the Christian faith, has spoken in the UK Parliament, the US Capitol, at the White House and at numerous major conferences. She is well-placed to review the culture on both sides of the Atlantic and further afield and perceive the urgent need for forgiveness in both public and private lives.

She writes that: “the cultural moment of outrage, hostility