If You Don't Understand the Old Testament, You Can Forget Understanding the New

(Baptism! With Ferris State students in west Michigan.)

Imagine there was a play, about which you knew nothing.

This imaginary play has five acts.

You go to see the play enacted, but arrive late. You miss the first three acts. As you watch Act 4, you understand little. Or, you misunderstand and misinterpret what is happening.

It's the same with the Bible. If you jump into the four Gospels without an understand of the first three acts (the Old Testament: creation, evil enters the world, God calls out a people for his purposes), you will misinterpret the Jesus story.

This is N.T. Wright's thesis. In an interview, Wright says:

"If one doesn’t know the Old Testament, one doesn’t have a chance of understanding the New, because again and again, and you see this in the Gospels, the way they told a story is not just with the odd glance over their shoulder – that something interesting happened back there and this is an odd reference. Like I might drop a reference to a Shakespeare play into a speech or a book I was writing or something that is just for decoration. Some people think the Old Testament is just a back decoration. It’s much, much more than that."
(In Trinitarian Conversations  Volume 2: Interviews With More Theologians. Emphasis mine.) 

Thomas Merton on Writing

(Rockford East High School, Rockford, Illinois, where I graduated from high school in... 1967!)

Thomas Merton wrote:

"If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people, you have to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn." (New Seeds of Contemplation)

It's the same with preaching. The point is not to deliberately write or preach things that are controversial. That's artificial and weird. Just preach the text, within the cultural context the text was heard. This will be enough to upset some people, because it derails their confirmation bias. 

The biblical text is not a Rorschach Test asking what you "feel" the text is saying. It's about what the text says, within its original context. A text without a context is just a pretext for what you want it to say.

The original biblical text - as it was heard in context - that's the revolutionary, paradigm-changing Word of God. 

Needed: Warm Bread from the Oven of Our Intimacy with God

(Jerusalem)

I expect our church's staff to spend solitary time, each week, in the presence of God. Without that, we will be irrelevant and inauthentic.

Sometimes Linda and I reminisce about great restaurants we have eaten at. We've had many sumptuous meals together! As awesome as that is, I didn't have breakfast this morning, and need fresh food soon. The memory of a wonderful dinner is no help to me today.

The same is true spiritually. Pastoral leaders need fresh-baked spiritual manna for their souls. We can't live off meals from our past. Maybe you had an awesome encounter with God years ago. That's great. But it's not helpful today. If we aren't feasting on new spiritual food, we're limited in what we can give our people. And, some of our people will suspect we're living with God in the past, not in the present.

Ruth Haley Barton writes:

"The market is glutted with books on leadership, and many contain contradictory messages. I’m not sure anyone has the full perspective— really. But one of the things I know for sure is that those who are looking to us for spiritual sustenance need us first and foremost to be spiritual seekers ourselves. They need us to keep searching for the bread of life that feeds our own souls so that we can guide them to places of sustenance for their own souls. Then, rather than offering the cold stone of past devotionals, regurgitated apologetics or someone else’s musings about the spiritual life, we will have bread to offer that is warm from the oven of our intimacy with God."
- Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, p. 29

Letter to Parents of Our Church's Youth

(I sent this letter to parents of our church's youth.)

Hello Parents of Redeemer Youth:

 

I spoke to our Youth Group Thursday night.

 

I asked them to seek God for a vision about what God is doing.

 

I told them I'm going to preach on Acts 2:17-18.

 

On Sunday morning I am going to ask if there is one of our youth who received a vision from God. And, would they come forward to share this with us all.

 

Here's the verses. So, we should expect this, right?

 

Blessings!

 

PJ

 

Acts 2:17-21 The Passion Translation (TPT)

¹⁷ ‘This is what I will do in the last days—I will pour out my Spirit on everybody and cause your sons and daughters to prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will experience dreams from God. ¹⁸ The Holy Spirit will come upon all my servants, men and women alike, and they will prophesy.

Our Dinner with Chaim Potok

(Linda, in Jerusalem)

Morality is learned more by contact with 

a living embodiment of virtue 

than by a moral treatise.

Scot McKnight

Linda and I once treated the great Jewish novelist Chaim Potok to dinner. One moment I will never forget. Linda shared with Dr. Potok that her mother was Jewish. Upon hearing this Potok leaned forward, raised his hand, pointed it towards Linda, and said, "You are a Jew!" 

I was part of a team that brought Potok to Michigan State University to speak on writing religious fiction. We hosted him for dinner, and followed him to the various venues we had set up for him to speak.

One of these venues was East Lansing High School. The students prepped for Potok by reading one of his many novels. Potok's novels are about the clash of ancient Jewish culture with modernity, and the moral implications arising in that clash.

On that day, in the high school auditorium, Potok was emphasizing the importance of a moral foundation. When he ended his presentation he asked the students if they had questions. One girl stood up, and said, "Dr. Potok, I don't have a moral foundation. Where can I get one?"

Potok's response was brilliant. He replied, "Find a family that has a moral foundation and hang around them."

Can People Change? My Fall Class @ Redeemer

(Sterling State Park, Lake Erie, Monroe)

Can people change? My fourth book, which I am now working on, says "Yes!" I am calling it How God Changes the Human Heart. This fall at Redeemer I am teaching a class on my book. I invite you to study with me! This is foundational material for the Christian life. It will equip you in many areas, including the importance of understanding your identity. 

I will take you deep into the process of change; how it happens, what it does, the difference it makes.

Session 5 is Thursday, Nov. 7 - THE CONNECTION (With an explanation of the Trinity) 

CLASS SESSIONS - Thursday nights, 6:30 - 8 PM.

• Nov 7
• Nov 14
• Dec 5
• Dec 12

COST - free

Let me know if you are interested. johnpiippo@msn.com.

Speaking at the Power and Presence Renewal Conference in New Jersey - Nov. 8-9-10

Join HSRM leaders in New Jersey for a renewal conference in conjunction with local NJ pastors that will revive, refresh and empower you! “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Eph. 4:23

REGISTER HERE FOR NEW JERSEY EVENT - FREE EVENT

Schedule

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8

Location: Tabernacle Baptist Church, Burlington , NJ 50 E 2nd St, Burlington, NJ 08016

6:30 PM Doors Open

7 PM Power and Presence Renewal Conference begins

Guest Speaker: Dr. John Piippo, HSRM Co-Director

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9

Location: First Baptist Church Mt. Holly, 1341 Woodlane Road, Eastampton, NJ

8:30 AM Doors Open

9:00 AM Guest Speaker: Dr. Clayton Ford, HSRM Co-Director

10:00 AM Workshops Session I

11:15 AM Workshops Session II

12:30 All-conference lunch provided

Saturday afternoon: No scheduled sessions

6:30 PM Doors Open

7 PM Guest Speaker: Dr. Clayton Ford, HSRM Co-Director

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10 Locations: Various Participating Churches TBA

SUNDAY MORNING SERVICES: Various AM start times per participating churches

HSRM leadership and local pastors speaking at participating churches

7 PM Location: Columbus Baptist Church, 24260 West Main St., Columbus, NJ 08022

Guest Speaker: Dr. John Piippo, HSRM Co-Director

Love Has No "If"

I bought this card in a bookstore.

I was talking with someone who has lived all his life under the oppression of conditional love. Conditional love is love that has "conditions" that must be met if "love" is extended.

In logic, a "conditional statement" (also called a "hypothetical statement") is an "If... then" statement. Like: "If it rains, then the ground gets wet." Which means: on the condition that it is raining, the ground will get wet.

Conditional love is "If... then" love. This disqualifies it as the kind of love Jesus exemplifies. It is hypothetical, while the love of Christ (and 1 Corinthians 13) is actual. Like: "If you have sex with me, then I will love you." Or: "If you give me that money I asked for, then I will act lovingly towards you." Or: "If you do not have sex with me, then I will not love you." It's all the same thing. It's all hypothetical, not real, love.

My friend grew up in a world of hypothetical love, with a father who said this: "Son, if you perform for me, if you do just what I want you to do, if you measure up to my expectations, if... if... if..., then I sure am proud of you and I sure do love you."

Hypothetical-conditional love treats others like trained seals in a circus act. "If you jump through the ring of fire, then I'll give you a fish." But only "if." 

Hypothetical-conditional love asks the beloved to make a sacrifice for one's own pleasure. Loving others depends on their performance, or appearance, or possessions.

My friend has a hard time thinking that love means anything other than this. He inwardly punishes himself daily, interpreting true selfless love as self-serving "If... then" love.

The New Testament word for love, agape, takes the "if" out. Agape love is non-hypothetical, therefore actual. Which means: no conditions need be satisfied in order to receive love.

Agape love as non-hypothetical is propositional love. In logic a "proposition" is a technical term referring to a statement that is either true or false, describing a state of affairs that obtains. Agape love does not say "If...  then," but simply "I love you," and acts accordingly. Propositional-agape love sacrifices selflessly for the beloved. That is God-love.

This is God-love, because God, whose essence is love, cannot not-love. One cannot say, "If God loves me," but stands in awe before the state of affairs "That God loves me." God's love doesn't wait for conditions to be fulfilled.

Hypothetical-conditional love is abusive, dangling a fish before a hungry animal, saying "Perform for me." Propositional-agape love says, "Forget the performance, take off the costume and makeup, and get used to the truth that God loves you."

When God-love dwells in us we love others unconditionally.

Our love for them is not hypothetical, 
but true, 
constant, 
abiding, 
selfless, 
sacrificial, 
and never-failing.

***

My two books are:

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Gloria Steinem's Abortionist Logic

(River Raisin, Monroe)

After Governor Cuomo celebrated abortionism, Gloria Steinem stated:

"I'm thankful to Governor Cuomo and the New York State legislature for passing the Reproductive Health Act. It will codify Roe v. Wade in New York State law, guarantee women's right to make decisions about our own bodies, and help create a future in which every child has the right to be born loved and wanted."

Note Steinem's careful phrasing:

"Every child has the right to be born loved and wanted."

This is different from:

"Every child has the right to be born."

So, if the inborn child is not loved and wanted, then it does not have a right to be born, and may be killed.

Steinem's abortionist logic looks like this.

1. Every child has the right to be born loved and wanted.
2. This particular child will not be loved and is not wanted.
3. Therefore, this particular child does not have a right to life.
4. Therefore, not every child has a right to life.

This abortionist reasoning becomes clear as Steinem says:

"A woman's power to decide whether she will give birth or not is the single greatest determinant of whether she is healthy or not, educated or not, works outside the home or not, and how long she will live."

For Steinem, and the abortionist, a *person who is not loved and not wanted (by anyone, presumably) may be killed. 

***
*What, according to the Reproductive Health Act, is a "person?" (Lines 44-45)

Homicide[, abortion] and related offenses; [definitions of terms] DEFINITION. 

The following DEFINITION IS applicable 

to this article: 

[1.] "Person," when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being 

who has been born and is alive. 

What is "homicide?" (Lines 31-37)

Homicide defined. 

Homicide means conduct which causes the death of a person [or an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than twenty-four weeks] under circumstances constituting murder, manslaughter in the first degree, manslaughter in the second degree, OR criminally negligent homicide[, abortion in the first degree or self-abortion in the first degree].

So, is, or is not, the unborn child a "person?" According to this definition of "person," the answer seems to be no. But according to the definition of "homicide," an unborn child more than twenty-four weeks old (see lines 17-19) seems to be something like a person because they are the victim of a homicide.

If: 1) this doesn't make sense to you, and 2) this feels like genocide, then 1a) it doesn't make sense; and 2a) it is genocide (feticide). 

The God Problem?

(River Raisin, Monroe)

Philosopher Peter Atterton, in his New York Times article "A God Problem," writes:

"Let’s first consider the attribute of omnipotence.

You’ve probably heard the paradox of the stone before: Can God create a stone that cannot be lifted? If God can create such a stone, then He is not all powerful, since He Himself cannot lift it. On the other hand, if He cannot create a stone that cannot be lifted, then He is not all powerful, since He cannot create the unliftable stone. Either way, God is not all powerful.

The way out of this dilemma is usually to argue, as Saint Thomas Aquinas did, that God cannot do self-contradictory things. Thus, God cannot lift what is by definition “unliftable,” just as He cannot “create a square circle” or get divorced (since He is not married). God can only do that which is logically possible...

[C]an God create a world in which evil does not exist? This does appear to be logically possible. Presumably God could have created such a world without contradiction. It evidently would be a world very different from the one we currently inhabit, but a possible world all the same. Indeed, if God is morally perfect, it is difficult to see why he wouldn’t have created such a world. So why didn’t He?

The standard defense is that evil is necessary for free will. According to the well-known Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, “To create creatures capable of moral good, [God] must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so.” However, this does not explain so-called physical evil (suffering) caused by nonhuman causes (famines, earthquakes, etc.). Nor does it explain, as Charles Darwin noticed, why there should be so much pain and suffering among the animal kingdom: “A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time?”"

Here Atterton conflates the idea of moral evil and natural evil. 

It is possible (I think, probable) that the existence of moral evil implies moral agents who have libertarian free will; which is, the ability to make a choice that is not fully reducible to antecedent causal conditions.

It is therefore possible (I think, probable) that at least one moral agent in this world will choose what God is opposed too; hence, evil.

Thus, a world with free moral agents and the nonexistence of evil seems unreasonable. William Lane Craig says a world with free moral agents who never choose evil may be logically possible, but it may not be feasible. This is because "creatures, through their own free choices, are co-actualizers of the world. They determine what world will be actual, by their own choices. And it may be that, though logically possible, a world in which there is as much moral good as this world, though with less moral evil, may not be feasible for God." (See here.)

If "evil" is understood as something that only makes sense on the existence of free moral agents, then "natural" evil is incoherent. The tree branch that falls on my head is not choosing to do so; hence, in this case, no evil.

But there is human suffering. Note that Atterton has "changed the goal posts" here. Instead of the original question (Can God create a world where evil does not exist?) Atterton now asks a different question (Why would God create a world where suffering exists?).

Craig says:

"On this the atheist would have to prove that it is either impossible or highly improbable that God could have morally sufficient reasons for permitting the natural evil and suffering in the world, and those kind of probability judgments are simply beyond the scope of our abilities. So this argument lays a burden of proof on the atheist's shoulders that is so heavy that no atheist has ever been able to sustain it."

The Entertainment Church, the Invisible Church, or the Discipling Church?

(Water dripping on my front porch)

Gerald Sittser writes:

"As long as Christians assume we are still living in Christendom, the church will continue to decline in the West, no matter how ferociously Christians fight to maintain power and privilege. If anything, the harder Christians fight, the more precipitous the decline will be, for cultural power and privilege will come at an increasingly high price. Christians will either accommodate until the faith becomes almost unrecognizable, or they will isolate until their faith becomes virtually invisible.

Nothing short of a change of church culture will suffice—from a culture of entertainment, politics, personality, and program to a culture of discipleship. Such a radical change will require patience, steadiness, and purposefulness."

The options are:

1) The Entertainment Church (acquiescence to culture; resulting in the unrecognizability of the Church)

2) The Isolated Church (escape from culture; the Church becomes invisible; the Benedict Option?)

3) The Culture of Discipleship Church (the Radical Church; the Biblical Church)

Declarations on Peace

(My back yard)

Declarations on PEACE

THE SCRIPTURE

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you...” (John 14:27).

“You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

THE DECLARATIONS

• I speak to any worry, stress, or anxiety, and I say you cannot stay. Peace reigns in this temple.
• Because I trust in God, I am kept in perfect peace.
• I am known as a peace carrier at home, in the work place, and in all areas of my life.
• I have a unique ability to remain peaceful, even as responsibilities increase.
• I do not have to strive for peace, as God has already given it to me.
• I bring peace to extremely intense situations.
• Those who experience anxiety claim it leaves when they come in contact with me.
• My home is filled with a tangible peace. When I walk in, I immediately feel at ease and calm.
• My heart and mind are guarded and protected by God’s peace.
• My family is blessed with peace.
• 
  
• 
  
• From Steve Backlund

I Had a Religious Experience (A Few Thoughts)

(Linda, in Glen Arbor, Michigan)

Experience,

not theory, 

breeds conviction.

Forty-nine years ago I had a religious experience. Someone said "God loves you" to me, and it set off an inner revolution.

I had heard those words a bazillion times before. They meant nothing to me, functioning at most as a kind of greeting, like "Have a nice day." I awarded them no intellectual assent. But on that day, in that moment, three beautiful words kick-started a movement in me that has not stilled. God loves me.

This was my beginning with Jesus. It was not phenomenally the same as what happened to C.S. Lewis, but qualitatively similar. Lewis wrote:

"As the dry bones shook and came together in that dreadful valley of Ezekiel's, so now a philosophical theorem, cerebrally entertained, began to stir and heave and throw off its grave cloths, and stood upright and became a living presence. I was to be allowed to play at philosophy no longer. It might, as I say, still be true that my "Spirit" differed in some way from "the God of popular religion." My Adversary waived the point. It sank into utter unimportance. He would not argue about it. He only said, "I am the Lord"; "I am that I am"; "I am." People who are naturally religious find difficulty in understanding the horror of such a revelation. Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat." (From Surprised By Joy)

God found C.S. Lewis, and God found me. I was receptive. I was a new wineskin, ready to hear that he existed, and he loved me. 

This did not happen in a vacuum. The soil of my heart had been softening for some time. I had started to hope for God. Then it happened. What shall I make of this?

• If this event had not happened, I cannot be sure I would have become a Jesus-follower. It was that important to me. I needed something palpable, tangible, experiential. I don't know if everyone needs such a thing. But I, and Lewis, did.
• The Day of Experience was not only the day God came to me, but it marked the last day of three years of constant drug and alcohol abuse. My pursuit of girls for sex came to a halt, except for one time in the first year as a Jesus-follower, where I went back to Egypt and blew it. That failure hit me hard, raising deep questions about who I had become, and what God wanted for me.
• The fact that others in the world religions have religious experiences does not diminish the value of my own. I know, in my study and teaching of comparative religions, that persons in other religions claim religious experiences. I have lines of books on my shelves of comparative religion literature containing testimonies of people of other faiths. I've visited and taught in countries that are predominantly other-religious. But this does nothing to refute the experience I had and, BTW, still have, to the present day. I agree with William James who, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, writes: "A mystical experience is authoritative for the one who experiences it. But a mystical experience that happens to one person need not be authoritative for other people." I'm good with that. (With this exception: the mystical-religious experiences of certain other persons have carried authority with me because of their credibility. For example, my wife Linda has experienced many things, from God, that amaze me.)
• The initial religious experience ripped me out of non-reflective deism, weak agnosticism, and practical atheism into full-blown Christian theism. Historically, this is undoubtable. This happened. I now believed in God, and in Jesus. I changed my undergraduate major from music theory to philosophy (fortunately for me the philosophy department at Northern Illinois University was excellent!). I viewed philosophy as the intellectual agora for addressing and discussing life's Big Questions. I now believed. This experiential belief had an evidential quality, propelling me to go after an understanding of what had happened. Now, years later, this has not stopped. I am a deeper believer in God and Jesus than ever.
• I believe true religion (not the jeans - they are way too expensive) necessarily includes experience. In my studies of world religions, experience is paramount. Hebrew-Christianity, for example, is essentially about a relationship with God, a mutual, indwelling, experiential reality. This includes praying-as-dialogue with God, the sense of God's presence, being-led by God, and so on. And then there is worship. Worship is experiential and logical in the sense that: If God is love, and God is real, and love is about relationship (love has an "other"), then it follows that one will know and be known by God. How I love to worship! ("Know," in Hebrew, means experiential intimacy, not the Cartesian epistemological abyss between subject and object.) 
• I realize certain atheists claim to have no religious experience at all. John Allen Paulos, for example, in his Irreligion, claims to not have a religious bone in his body. I don't doubt this. This fact does not rationally deter me, just as I am certain C.S. Lewis's religious experiences don't move Paulos from his atheism. (I'm now thinking of Antony Flew's recent conversion from atheism to deism. Flew was moved by the logic of the fine-tuning argument for God's existence. And the case of the famous and brilliant British atheist A.J. Ayer who had a vision and began to be interested in God.)
• I am often taken back to my initial God-encounter. It functions, for me, my raison d-etre. Philosophically, it's one of a number of "properly basic" experiences I've had, and still have, and may quite well have today. See here philosophers like William P. Alston.
• Since that original encounter I've supplemented it with ongoing biblical, theological, and philosophical studies. These are important to me. For example, if I thought that Jesus did not actually exist, I would abandon Christianity. (About ten years ago a teacher at one of our local high schools told his students that Jesus did not actually exist. One of our church kids was in his class. She called me, crying. "The teacher told me that he would consider evidence to the contrary if I could come up with some and bring it to class." I told her: "Why not bring me in?" It happened. I spoke in the high school auditorium to 170 students. The word had spread, and some other teachers allowed me to make my presentation. I spoke for 90 minutes on the actual, historical existence of Jesus. I had students come to me saying things like, "I saw someone on the internet claim that Jesus never existed, but now I see that their reasoning was wrong." For some stuff I've posted on this go here.)

My initial, life-changing encounter with God has led to a lifetime of Jesus-following, and God-knowing and seeking. I remain forever thankful that God did, and continues to, reveal himself to me. 

And, that it's not sheerly logical and theoretical, but relational and experiential.

*****
For further reading, check out I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship, John Byron and Joel Lohr, eds. 

And, Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists, I'm Still a Christian, by Justin Brierley. 



***
I write about experiencing and encountering God in:

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

Leading the Presence-Driven Church. 

C&F (Confess & Forgive)

Sunrise over Lake Erie, Monroe, Michigan

When Linda and I are asked "What makes for a good marriage?" we respond: confession and forgiveness. C&F. 

C&F is more important, more foundational, than clear communication. When X says to Y, "You are stupid," and Y responds with, "I hate you," they are communicating clearly. But this kind of clear communication does not make for a good marriage. The marriage that clearly communicates this way is going down.

Here's how I confess to Linda (and she to me). I say the words, "I was wrong to (do or say this specific thing)." 

Then I request, "Would you forgive me for doing/saying this?"

Finally, she responds with, "I forgive you."

C&F is more powerful than apologizing. Apologizing is a one-way street; C&F cuts both ways. Every confessor needs a forgiver. A certain kind of loving response is needed.

To confess requires humility. In confessing, I take responsibility for my hurtful actions and do not blame the other for "pushing my buttons." After all, those buttons are mine, and if I didn't have them I wouldn't have reacted the way I did. 

The confessor admits their own culpability in wrongdoing. This requires humility, accompanied by regret ("I am sorry I did that to you. Would you forgive me? I never want to treat someone I love that way.") Don't let pride keep you from doing this.

To forgive means: to cancel a debt. When Linda and I forgive one another (which we have done many times over 46 1/2 years), we release the other from any indebtedness. 

Forgiveness cancels indebtedness. If the Federal Government forgave your student loan, you would not have to make any more payments. When X forgives Y, X will not in the future "make Y pay" for whatever Y did. 

To forgive is not to forget. Yet our experience is that, when C&F are practiced as needed (and this is needed in every deep relationship), a lot of forgetting happens. C&F cuts loose the heavy anchor that had us stuck in a bad place, and now we're moving free from it. We no longer spend our hearts and minds brooding over the details of the struggle, because the matter has been settled and healed.

Why practice C&F? Because we are like the sinful woman who kissed and poured perfume on  Jesus' feet. She had been forgiven much. Therefore, she loved much.

(Note: If you repeatedly keep hurting your loved ones then get help. If a loved one keeps hurting you with their words or actions then: 1) forgive them; and 2) assist them in getting help for their repetitive harmful behavior. If you live in our Southeast Michigan area make an appointment to get help here.)

For scholarly, empirical data on C&F see University of Wisconsin scholar Robert Enright's The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love.

Check out Enright's International Forgiveness Institute.

The best practical guide to C&F is David Augsburger's Caring Enough to Forgive. 

Arguably, the best book ever written on forgiveness is Lewis Smedes's Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve. 

And the best book on self-forgiveness is Everett Worthington's Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself and Breaking Free From the Past.