A Humanist's Lament

Not long before she died in 1988, in a moment of surprising candour on television, Marghanita Laski, one of our best-known secular humanists and novelists, ...

Love a Sinner?

I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the ...

Forgiven and Forgotten

A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret ...

Returning to "Go"

The oft-enjoyed game of "Monopoly" has one card that is discovered occasionally when someone lands on "Chance": "Return to 'Go'-collect ...

Shutting the Door to the Past

The most vivid experience of that anguished prayer and its answer that I can recall came in the life of a young couple. ... They were a bright young couple, ...

Come as You Are

A friend of mine named John Rogers used to teach at the Virginia Episcopal Seminary, and late one cold night he got a call from the bus station in Washington. ...

As We Forgive Our Debtors

A man in conversation with John Wesley once made the comment, "I never forgive." Wesley wisely replied, "Then, sir, I hope that you never ...

Watch that Second Step

In matters of forgiveness, as in all other virtues, the first step (forgiving) is comparatively simple compared to the second (reconciling). Hell is always ...

The Grace to Forgive

"Daddy, come quick," shouted my four-year-old daughter. "Someone stole the presents from under the Christmas tree."

At first I thought ...

Cleaning the Dirt and Not the Daughter

Have you ever watched a little girl get her new dress dirty just before church? Little girls get their dresses dirty sometimes when they really don't ...