Dr. Kramer
COMS 560
5 April 2015
Unforgiveness, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation and their implications for Societal Interventions
In this article, Everett Worthington a phycologist specialized in couples observes the
interrelationship between forgiveness and reconciliation in a societal relation. He starts his
exploration with the definition of unforgiveness, forgiveness, conflict resolution, and
reconciliation.
1. Unforgiveness- is a cold, emotional complex consisting of resentment, bitterness, hatred,
hostility, residual anger, and fear (p. 172). The bible teaches about this thing in Ephesian
4:31-32, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every
form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in
Christ God forgave you.”
2. Forgiveness- is a juxtaposition or superposition of a strong positive emotions over the
cold emotion of unforgiveness. He relates this to positive emotions that can be empathy
for the perpetrator, compassion, agape love, or even romantic love (p. 173). According to
Sande (2004), Forgiveness is not a feeling or emotions. Forgiveness involves a series of
decisions, the first of which is to call on God to change our hearts.
3. Conflict resolution- is the way people or societies resolve differences.
4. Reconciliation- is the restoration of trust in a relationship where trust has been violated,
sometimes repeatedly (p. 176). The bible teaches in 2 Corinthians 5:18,“All this is from
God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation:”
According to Worthington, these definitions opens the door for further research of different
ways at both societal and intrapersonal levels to reduce unforgiveness that do not involve
forgiveness. He believes that some degree of forgiveness usually occurs as unforgiveness is
reduced. I definitely don’t agree with his thought process around reducing unforgiveness, this
sounds like an excuse; excusing says “That’s okay”, “what you did wasn’t really wrong”, you
couldn’t help it.” Forgiveness means to release someone, means to let go, refers to debts has
been paid, underserved and cannot be earned. Forgiveness can be a costly activity, not a
passive (Sande, 2004, p.206). He also presents the need for intervention to reduce
unforgiveness because the number of people involved. With all this in mind, he focuses on
the study of reconciliation and forgiveness with the goal of promoting them in the society.
Social policies need to be designed to prevent violence and conflict, to maintain efforts at
reconciliation, promote involvement in reconciliation, and remediating problems in social
disintegration.
