An Ethic for Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics

Written by Donald W. Shriver Reviewed By Michael L. Westmoreland-White

Donald Shriver, President and Professor of Applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New York, has written one of the most profound and challenging works in political ethics to appear in many years. Shriver is one of those rare scholars trained in both theological ethics and sociology of religion and this work utilises a cross-disciplinary approach with the skill of one who knows several fields intimately.

Although forgiveness is a moral and theological concept often relegated to private and interpersonal spheres, Shriver’s thesis is that forgiveness is both possible and necessary in politics. He uses a careful socio-historical reading of ancient histories, biblical traditions from both Testaments, the history of Christian thought, and major events in twentieth-century history to support this audacious claim. He demonstrates that the failure to practise political forgiveness (even in cases of war and/or great crimes against another people) leads to a perpetual cycle of revenge, either in an ongoing cycle of escalating violence or smouldering resentments held for centuries that later erupts horribly. Revenge, Shriver contends, is the end of politics, while justice, including restitutive justice, makes politics possible. Shriver knows that a facile mentality of ‘forgive and forget’ is neither possible nor desirable, but works instead to elaborate political ethics as ‘moral remembering’, that demands that crimes be acknowledged and repented of, but allows political enemies, including those that have been at war, begin their relationship from a new place.

Although Shriver is a ‘mainline liberal’ Christian, evangelicals should find this book equally profitable. While some more conservatives evangelicals may be uncomfortable with Shriver’s apparently complete acceptance of standard liberal approaches to historical-critical matters, this actually has little effect on his overall reading of the biblical materials. For example, Shriver’s treatment of the Cain and Abel story under the category of ‘cultural myth’ (p. 22) should not lead any conservative reader to disagree with his actual reading of the narrative. All of the biblical materials are handled with respect and a close and careful reading that should not be obscured by differences over dating, authorships, or amount of historical reliability.

Shriver’s twentieth-century studies of the successes and failures of political forgiveness are drawn from the experience of the United States. Nevertheless, those in other contexts should quickly be able to find analogues in their own history, and Shriver writes with a global audience in mind. Readers from many other contexts should find his warnings to the American political culture in the concluding chapter resonating with the hopes and fears they also confront. Likewise, although this is an openly Christian essay in political ethics, it is non-sectarian in the sense that Shriver makes connections for readers from other faiths or no faith. ‘Political forgiveness’ is a practice that Christians may have special reasons to cultivate, but Shriver clearly expects it to be a possibility for all humans.

I highly recommend this book for all those who seek a realistically moral approach to politics. By describing the complex and difficult practices of repentance and forgiveness within and between nations, Shriver neither ignores the realities of sin nor abandons politics to clashes of raw power. This is a challenging and hopeful work.


Michael L. Westmoreland-White

Spalding University Louisville, KY