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Forgiveness is not something in the other world that we are looking for—it is an experience in this world, an experience of healing broken relations without which we cannot live. It is that fundamental. — Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete

Forgiveness is elusive, mysterious yet primal; it is both an idea and an ache. The giving or withholding of it touches us at the most profound level of our being. Over the last two hundred years it acquired the aura of a uniquely religious word, but forgiveness is now changing and there is no consensus about what it is or what it is becoming

For centuries, forgiveness has been expressed in prayer and meditation. Though the religious practices vary, it is embedded in all sacred texts. “All religions have some kind of structured forgiveness mechanisms that are rooted in fundamental existential concerns,” says theologian and Roman Catholic priest Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete.

Muslims pray five times a day asking for forgiveness. During the month of Ramadan there is a ceremony called the Night of Power, when they stay awake praying for forgiveness so that the scroll of their actions is cleansed of their sins.

The Day of Atonement, the most important Jewish holiday, is centered on forgiveness and repentance. Judaism teaches that if one causes harm to another but then genuinely apologizes and attempts to right that harm, then the wronged person should offer forgiveness. “We believe that just as only God can forgive sins against God,” explains Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “so only human beings can forgive sins against human beings.”

By its long attachment to the Catholic sacrament of penance, forgiveness has become synonymous with a hushed and privately whispered exchange between priest and sinner. “With all its faults, you go into a secret little room with a curtain and a screen that separates you from the confessor,” says Monsignor Albacete, who explains that we may or may not know who the confessor is. But that really doesn’t matter. “The confessor is just there as a representative, an envoy of the transcendent presence from whom you want the possibility or experience of forgiveness.”

For Christians, Christ’s final words on the cross asking God to forgive those who crucified him, are the defining text. In God’s eyes, nothing is beyond forgiveness and it is available to all without limitation. In that same light, while recognizing that forgiveness is not always easy, it is something that each Christian strives for.

“God says, behold, I make all things new—not patched, not repaired, but new. And I think that’s what forgiveness does.” Kathy Power was a sixties anti-war activist who lived undercover for twenty years while being on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for the murder of a policeman. Eventually she turned herself in, knowing that she would have to atone for her actions. During her time in jail she had an epiphany. “I was sitting in my cell when suddenly these words came to me: ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ I realized I could never forgive myself until I was also able to forgive the people I opposed.”

For the Amish community, who immediately and absolutely forgave the man who shot ten of their children, killing five of them, forgiveness is uncompromising, complete, and unconditional. Such unquestioning forgiveness reflects their ability to, “forgive the perpetrator without having to forgive the act,” as one Amish woman explains. “When I saw the bodies of the little girls it just made me real mad, but mad at the evil, not at the shooter.” For the Amish, forgiveness comes from God. It is an order, a commandment, and unambiguous. It is absolute and not of this world.

What has changed is that forgiveness is no longer the confine of religion but is in the air as never before. It is ubiquitous: it has left the church confessional and the pulpit, it is in the fractious streets and on the psychoanalyst’s couch, it drives the restorative justice movement, it is the subject of scholarly conferences, and it fills the self-help bookshelves. Forgiveness-is-good-for-your health has become the new mantra for a burgeoning field of research, while twelve-step programs around the world incorporate forgiveness as an essential guiding principle for recovery.

Reconciliation, a close relative of forgiveness, is at the heart of truth commissions across Latin America and Africa. It is part of an emotional dialogue between blacks and whites, rich and poor, amputees and their assailants. Far-flung tribal cultures are turning to forgiveness rites and rituals to heal their communities. In Eastern Europe, forgiveness has provoked intense debate among those who collaborated and those who resisted, among those who informed and those who felt betrayed. It has entered the human rights debate about torture, atrocities and genocide.

These contemporary settings for forgiveness present startlingly new realms for transformation and reconciliation, but at the same time, inescapably, they present complexities and problems. As we broaden the range of forgiveness do we deepen or cheapen its power? What does its ubiquity say about us, and the times we live in? Questions are now being asked not only about the power of forgiveness but also its limitations and, in rare instances, its danger.

Traditionally, one of the therapist’s roles was to relieve the patient of his neurotic guilt. But in this new forgiving environment is there a risk of robbing the patient of an appropriate sense of sin and authentic existential guilt? Are there times when forgiveness might be in conflict with other values, such as self-respect, self-defense, or allegiance to the moral order? Are there special classes of victims, like abused children or battered wives, where forgiveness could be harmful? Are women so socialized to forgive that they can be considered a danger to themselves? Are victims of atrocities being asked to forgive prematurely, fostering a culture of impunity within their nations?

In the last decade, millions of dollars have been spent on forgiveness research. Provocative new studies suggest it could be good for our health. Fascinating questions are being asked about whether forgiveness is an imperative of biology or even of evolutionary survival. Are we hardwired for forgiveness—and revenge—as some scientists suggest?

And yet, with all this attention on forgiveness as it enters the mainstream, it appears there is little agreement about what it is. For instance, there are profound differences within the religious traditions: Many Christians believe that forgiveness should be bestowed as a free gift without any pre-conditions, while Jews believe that it should be contingent on sincere repentance and, if possible, restitution and reparation. And outside of religious differences, individual experiences of forgiveness are varied, frequently contradictory, and often fiercely contested.

For some, forgiveness means being healed of the hurt and emotional burdens of their past. “Forgiveness means I don’t have to carry around this huge weight, this concrete ball of painful, awful suffering and rage,” believes Deb Long, who has forgiven her husband for having multiple affairs throughout their long marriage, something many people would find indefensible.

For Judith Shaw-McKnight, forgiveness was a matter of life and death. Without a moment of hesitation she is convinced that forgiving the man who infected her with AIDS saved her life: “When I hold on to unforgiveness it just makes me bitter. If I hadn’t forgiven him then I’d still be out there on the streets abusing myself. I would probably have died by now.”

This also applied to Abraham Eiboszycz, a Holocaust survivor, who faced an extreme choice when he returned to his hometown in Germany after the war. He was surrounded by people who had looked away as he was being transported to the nearby camp and continued to make the same hate-filled, hurtful remarks about Jews. Decades had passed before he accepted that he could not change them and made a decision: “Either I was going to kill myself and let the neighbors finish off what the Nazis could not do or I was going to forgive them.” Forgiveness, he realized, “was not granted out of graciousness, or altruism, but to retain my sanity.”

But some wonder whether it might be better to retain our anger and rage as a source of inner strength. Father Michael Lapsley, who was a bombing victim of the apartheid regime when he lost both his hands and an eye, admits that sometimes he feels angry towards the political leaders of the apartheid state and their denial of responsibility for what they did. “And that anger is appropriate. But I am too well aware of the danger of preferring unforgiveness and the negative power this gives us over another human being.”

This holds true for Terri Jentz, the victim of an unprovoked and savage axe attack, who refuses to forgive the man for what he did to her. “Unconditional forgiveness,” she asks. “No, there are conditions: repentance, contrition, reparations, and ultimately justice.” For Terri, forgiveness is inseparable from the reality of evil. “I think we can only talk about forgiveness if we also talk about the existence of evil.” She believes that to forgive her perpetrator, who has neither admitted nor atoned for his crime, would just be continuing the violence against herself.

Forgiveness can be an urgent question for those who have already suffered greatly. In South Africa, for instance, years of apartheid have left wounds that may never heal. Gideon Nieuwoudt was a member of South Africa’s security forces during that time and established a horrific record of abductions, killings, and torture of activists. While in prison he applied to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for amnesty in exchange for telling the truth about his killings. He claimed to have had a religious conversion and was experiencing remorse. Nieuwoudt then asked to meet the family of one of the young men he had murdered. For more than fifteen years he had rebuffed attempts by them to learn of their son’s fate. He had tormented the mother, calling her in for questioning and claiming she was hiding her son, knowing all the while that the young man was dead. Now he was seeking their forgiveness.

For the family it was fifteen years too late. During a strained and awkward meeting they rejected his apology and even doubted his conversion to Christianity. Their other son erupted with anger at the audacity to ask for forgiveness and hit Nieuwoudt over the head with a vase, splattering him with blood. This incident illustrates how, if the request for forgiveness comes too late, if it is felt to be false or violates our sense of justice then it can provoke outrage and even violence.

These differences can be raw and unsettling and never more so than when we struggle with the unforgivable. Gary Ridgway admitted killing more than ninety women over a period of twenty years. He pled guilty and received life imprisonment without parole. At the sentence hearing, in a courtroom crowded with the dead women’s families who individually rose to speak, he listened to their heart-broken rage and enduring loss and, in rare instances, to their reluctant forgiveness. “I don’t know how to describe the pain,” said the relative of one of the dead women. “It’s inside, there are no words for it, there is no closure, it goes on forever. I can’t forgive this man. It is not within my power, that I have to leave up to God.”

In contrast, another relative spoke directly to Ridgway: “There are people here who hate you. I’m not one of them. I forgive you for what you’ve done. God says to forgive you, and so you are forgiven.” Ridgway had remained impassive throughout the day’s hearing as one bereaved relative after another had confronted him. But at that moment of kindness he broke down and wept. Forgiveness can penetrate the darkest souls, if only for a moment.

There are those who believe that the most important forgiveness has to be for oneself first, before it can be offered to anyone else. This is true for Liesbeth Gerritsen, who left her two young children with their father to create a separate life for herself: “If I can’t forgive or atone for the things I’ve done that were wrong, then how can I expect anybody else in the world to do that for me? I know that the moment I can completely forgive myself is when I will be able to truly ask for their forgiveness.”

For others, forgiveness primarily means making amends and repairing relationships, essential for our well-being. “We are made for relationships. The search for forgiveness is the search for the healing of an ache of the human heart,” believes Monsignor Albacete. “What is the religious notion of Hell? It is absolute loneliness. It means the incapacity to establish a relationship, or to have anyone establish a relationship with you. So the search for forgiveness is that fundamental, it is an expression of the fear of nothingness.” Now in his seventies, his voice is deep and thoughtful as he ponders, “this primordial ache, an ache that precedes religion, is what makes us human and forgiveness is our attempt to be fully human.”

But relationships consist of two people and often the other is not always so ready to participate. For Don Robeson, whose honor and pride were destroyed when he was fired from his job, forgiveness, whether for those who fired him or for himself has proven elusive and impossible, particularly as the other party has yet to acknowledge any wrongdoing. “Do I go to the person who fired me and tell him I’m sorry, you fired me and I’m very happy over the mess you put my life in? Do I get down on my knees to God and say I’ve had all the crap I can take?”

For Dan Glick, when his wife showed little remorse after leaving him to raise their two children alone, forgiveness appeared to lie somewhere in the future. “If I’m waiting for my wife to apologize, I actually think I would be waiting the rest of my life.” But Dan found a measure of reconciliation by recognizing his own part in what happened, and by understanding that forgiveness is not an instant cure but something that grows over time. “I’m as flawed as the next person. Relationships don’t happen in a vacuum, I had a role in this. I believe forgiveness is not something one achieves and then that’s it, but is continually changing and unfolding.”