Forgiveness – A Powerful Defense Against Violence

The following thoughts were first published on KSL.com.

What do a brief video about a victim of an elementary school bully and a feature film about two Americans kidnapped in Russia have in common? Both are based on real-life experiences that highlight the remarkable power of forgiveness to resist and even thwart violence.

The first film — an animated short entitled “Bullied – Let Us Be Kind” — is aimed at elementary-aged children and focuses on the choices and behavior of victims. The story is simple but the lesson is extraordinary, showing that loving and creative responses have the potential to overcome aggression and foster more healthy relationships.

As described by 6-year-old Canyon, in an article that became the basis for the animated short, a boy in his school class began to bully and hit him. But instead of either retaliating or surrendering to these psychological and physical assaults, Canyon decided to take another path.

“I was sad,” Canyon said, “but I forgave him. When I was chosen to be a class helper, I could choose a friend to work with me. I picked this boy because he never gets chosen by others. I wanted to make him feel good. He thanked me for choosing him and was nice to me.”

Looking beyond his own pain and the immediate dynamic of the other boy's behavior, Canyon intuitively responded with remarkably maturity, sensitivity and compassion.

In his hands, forgiveness and assertive love became effective tools that not only protected him from the harm of the other boy, but also had the capacity to reach his adversary’s heart and ultimately help heal some of the pain and insecurity that may have been sources of the young boy’s bullying behavior.

Fortunately, the classmate responded to Canyon’s generosity with increased kindness. Wielding a weapon of love, Canyon vanquished his foe by transforming him into a friend. However, even if he hadn’t, Canyon’s forgiveness and love would still have provided a bulwark against his schoolmate’s cruelty.

Forgiveness is a defense and a formidable one at that because when we strike our attackers, or harbor resentments, or nurse our pain, or simply feel anger or hate or fear, we are allowing the actions of someone else to affect our peace, our happiness and our actions.

But when we forgive, we refuse to let others control our responses, and we erect an effective defense against their destructive influence in our lives.

Another example of the power of forgiveness was illustrated by a more extreme example of violence, depicted in another film, “The Saratov Approach” and the true-life story that inspired it.

After U.S. citizens, Andrew Probst and Travis Tuttle were kidnapped and beaten in Saratov, Russia in 1998, their kidnappers continued to physically and emotionally abused both young men. As described in an interview with Utah Valley 360, one of the kidnappers took the bullets out of his gun, had the young men count the bullets, then reloaded the gun and cocked it.

“What made it easy for us,” Andrew Probst said, “is we forgave them before we were free.”

Their forgiveness protected them in the midst of their ordeal and freed them from the debilitating effects of fear or the destructive effects of a cycle of violence. Liberated from both fear or anger, the young men felt another emotion for their captors — compassion.

The young men learned that both of their kidnappers were in tough financial spots, and that their violent scheme was in part born out of desperation. That connection is probably what saved them. When it became obvious that a ransom wasn’t going to be paid, the kidnappers chose to set the young men free.

“When you truly come to that point,” Tuttle said, “and you realize 'I could really die in the next 5 minutes' and you are OK with it. I don’t want to say it is cool, but it is a really surreal feeling.”

Their forgiveness shaped their traumatic experience. Unlike many people who go through intensely traumatic experiences and feel the effects of the violence in their lives for years to come, these young men, now husbands and fathers, are not haunted by troubling memories.

“I’ve never held a grudge,” Probst said 14 years later. “I’ve never had a nightmare.”

We all face aggression — verbal, physical or emotional — in our lives, although individual experiences vary considerably. Some of us experience significant aggression from others, while others of us face relatively mild forms.

But no matter what level of aggression we face, our choices are the same. We can surrender in fear to the violence or strike back with anger — both of which allows the aggressor to exert significant influence in our lives. Or we can choose a more efftective option — forgiveness — and the the process both protects us in the midst of our ordeal and can free us for a more peaceful and hopeful future.

Stand Your Ground By Turning Your Cheek

Toni Morrison, 1953
Howard University
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Over fifty years ago, a future Nobel Prize winner thwarted a potential attack by simply standing her ground. In a recent essay in Reader’s Digest, internationally acclaimed author Toni Morrison described the harrowing incident, which occurred when she was in college.

The year was 1953, a time when African-Americans such as Morrison lived in constant fear of violence from the white majority. As she walked home late one night through a dark neighborhood, a lone car drove slowly past and she glimpsed a blond man behind the wheel.

She heard the car slow behind her. Then it stopped. A car door slammed. Footsteps approached.

Vividly imagining all of the terrible things that might happen next, and feeling exhausted, she decided she wasn’t willing to experience such trauma.

So she calmly turned and waited.

When the man was close enough to see his eyes, she spoke to him in a low and conversational tone: “Will you please leave me alone.”

The man paused.

“I’m not going to bother you,” he whispered, then returned to his car and drove away.

Thus Morrison learned the power of standing your ground – gently but firmly refusing to be intimidated.

The notion of “stand your ground” has received a lot of attention because many states have passed self-defense laws that use this phrase. Such statutes allow individuals to use lethal force to defend themselves without requiring them to avoid or retreat from a threatening situation.

While the legal right to “stand your ground” is relatively new, some of its key principles – especially the ones demonstrated by Morrison – are quite ancient.

In fact, one of the most stunning descriptions of “stand your ground” principles was articulated nearly two thousand years ago by a simple Jewish carpenter who taught his followers, “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

If you don’t recognize this as a “stand-your-ground” statement, you’re not alone. Perhaps no biblical precept is more misunderstood.

Over the centuries since it was first expressed, the phrase “turn the other cheek” has come to epitomize meekness, even submission, in the face of violence and aggression.

In the memorable words of biblical scholar Walter Wink, many Christians have come to associate turning the other cheek with being a “doormat” – letting other people simply walk all over them.

But nothing could be further from its original meaning.

While Jesus was certainly counseling his followers to avoid violence, he was also teaching them how to use weapons of love to resist violence – to gently but firmly “stand their ground.”

This may seem counter-intuitive, but the secret lies in the historical context. Consider, for example, a seemingly insignificant and often overlooked detail – “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek.”

In ancient Palestine the distinction between “right” and “left” was important, for both symbolic and practical reasons. The right hand was pure, while the left hand was unclean – both figuratively and literally.

To this day, in many cultures, people eat only with their right hands, because touching food with their left hands is considered unsanitary. Likewise, to strike someone in ancient Palestine, a person would only use his right hand.

But how could someone use his right hand to hit someone else on the right cheek? Only by using the back of his hand.

Of course, using the back of one’s hand was a way of asserting authority and superiority. It was intended to demean or dehumanize the other person, to make him or her submit, or accept a position of inferiority. Even in our modern culture, a backhanded slap carries a similar connotation.

Now consider what would happen if a person who had been struck on the right cheek simply offered the other – the left cheek.

Offering the left cheek would creatively complicate the situation – at least in ancient Palestine – because the only way to hit someone on the left cheek (again, with the right hand) was with an open palm or fist. But in that ancient culture, only people of equal social standing used an open palm or fist with each other.

Let that sink in for a moment.

By turning the other cheek, an intended victim could gently but firmly stand his ground – refusing to cower or submit – and lovingly assert his dignity, equality, and humanity.

His abuser would then face a choice. He might stop his abuse, as he recognizes the equality and humanity of his intended victim (and the injustice of his own behavior). Or he might strike again with a palm or a fist, and likewise acknowledge a shared dignity and equality.

Either way, he would be forced to come to terms with the humanity of his intended victim.

This is similar to what happened with Toni Morrison. She didn’t exactly turn her cheek, because the cultural context was significantly different. But she did apply the basic principle – gently but firmly standing her ground and forcing the attacker to confront her humanity.

Perhaps the man in the car initially saw her as an easy target – someone who was inferior, maybe even less “human” than he was, and thus vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. And if she had chosen to struggle or strike out at him, he might have been able to use her violence to justify his own.

But when she simply turned, looked him in the eye, and calmly asked him to leave her alone, the fallacy of her inferiority dissolved away.

She transformed the situation.

Confronted with her quiet dignity, her humanity, and her equality – perhaps even the greatness of her character – he could no longer justify his attack and he slipped away.

Toni Morrison thus demonstrates that the ancient teachings of Jesus, understood in their full historical context, remain remarkably relevant in our modern world.

Faced with someone who is trying to demean or humiliate us – to aggressively assert his or her superiority and our own inferiority – we can learn to creatively stand our ground by turning a metaphorical cheek.

Weapons of Love: Another Way to Resist Violence

The following article was published at KSL.com.

Last summer a potential mass murder was thwarted by an ordinary woman who was armed only with her love.

You probably remember Antoinette Tuff, the elementary school secretary who gently but firmly talked down a young man who was carrying over 500 rounds of ammunition.

Her story has garnered national attention, and has been compiled in a book, in part because it reveals the sustaining role that faith can play in moments of extreme danger.

But her story also demonstrates another truth that may be even more remarkable. It is the extraordinary power of love to confront, resist and ultimately overcome anger, aggression and violence.

We don't often think of love as an effective weapon. But it is. Even in the face of extreme violence, like a young man with 500 rounds of ammunition and a determination to kill.

We live in a culture that repeatedly teaches us to think in terms of only two options to such aggression — fight or flight.

This message permeates our popular culture. It is prevalent in movies, video games, novels and songs. Cowards flee, we are repeatedly taught. But heroes stand and fight, responding to fire with fire.

Make no mistake, such fighting has been and can be an effective deterrent to violence.

But Antoinette Tuff and other loving warriors show us that there is another way — a third option — with other weapons we can deploy to resist aggression and protect both ourselves and others.

Such weapons of love have several common elements. First, they involve amazing courage. 

Responding to fire with fire takes courage. But responding to fire with love requires even more. In fact, it takes a certain amount of fearlessness.

Of course “fearlessness” doesn’t necessarily mean a complete absence of fear. Rather it means refusing to let fear dictate our response. It is facing danger despite our fear.

What gives people such fearlessness in the face of aggression? Ironically, it is usually brought about through a sense of human connection, a feeling of compassion for the aggressor. This is the second common element to all weapons of love — a recognition of our interdependence and interconnectedness, even with those who seek to hurt us.

Notice how well Tuff’s story follows these two patterns. When the gunman entered the school and began loading his rounds, she admitted: “I was terrified,” she told ABC News. But that fear didn’t control her actions. She didn't try to flee. She didn't give in to his violence or fight back with more violence. Why? Because she began to feel compassion for him.

“He said he didn’t have any reason to live and he knew he was going to die today. I realized at that time that it was bigger than me. He was really a hurting young man,” she said in the ABC Interview.

Her compassion led her to the next common element of weapons of love — forgiveness. “I just started praying for him,” she said then. Remarkably, she felt no ill will towards this person who wanted to hurt her and the school children she loved. She only felt concern for everyone’s safety — including the gunman’s.

At one point, when the gunman tried to go outside, she called him back, because she knew that if he went outside he might start shooting the children. But also — and this is evidence that her concern for him was real — because she was afraid the police officers might kill him.

Her concern then led her to the final common element of weapons of love: doing the unexpected. “I just explained to him that I loved him.”

That declaration must have bewildered her attacker.

He probably thought he knew how the scenario would play out. He would come in with a gun. Some people would cower and submit, and he would kill some of them. Others, including police officers, would shoot at him, and he might kill some of them as well. Eventually he would die.

But Tuff refused to play by that script — to give in, or flee, or shoot back. Instead she found another way to resist him, with her love.

She kept telling him he didn’t have to die, that the story didn’t have to end like so many Hollywood films. He told her he had to die. She kept saying, “No, you don’t.”

The last thing he probably expected was for someone to stand up to him, to resist his aggression by declaring — and demonstrating — love. “I didn’t know his name,” she later recalled. “I didn’t know much about him. But I did love him.”

And that unfeigned love disarmed him. Literally.

Tuff eventually convinced the young man to put down his gun, lay under the office counter — so the police wouldn’t shoot him — and surrender to authorities.

Her love overwhelmed his bullets.

It’s a lesson we might all apply. We probably won’t face many gunmen in our lives. But all of us will face anger and aggression in one form or another. Maybe it will come in the form of an angry neighbor. Or an abusive family member. Or a hostile coworker.

At such times, it may be important to consider that the “fight or flight” impulse gives us a limited set of options. There are other options. There are other weapons that may be more strong, more firm, with a power to protect both us and — paradoxically — our enemies.

So perhaps all of us can train to be a little more fearless, to seek human connection, exert forgiveness and do the unexpected. In short, maybe we too can learn to wield weapons of love.