Forgiveness Preparedness

On October 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV carried his guns and his rage into an Amish schoolhouse near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Five schoolgirls died that day, and five others were seriously wounded. These facts are stated in the preface to Amish Grace, an inspiring attempt to explain the Amish response to the killings. Within hours after Carl Roberts shot the girls and turned his gun on himself, Amish community leaders were visiting his widow, his father, and his grandfather to tell them, “We want you to know that we will not hold a grudge against you.” Then parents of two of the little girls who were killed invited Roberts’s family to attend their funerals, and many Amish people attended the funeral of Carl Roberts. Out of their compassion for Roberts’s wife and children, the Amish brought meals to them and gave them funds to help with their expenses.

The media began to focus on Amish forgiveness more than on the horror of the event. Donald Kraybill, one of the authors of Amish Grace writes, “When forgiveness arrived at the killer’s home within hours of his crime, it did not appear out of nowhere. Rather, forgiveness is woven into the very fabric of Amish life, its sturdy threads having been spun from faith in God, scriptural mandates, and a history of persecution.”

If we members of New Hope Baptist Church are going to be found faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ when the worst happens to us, we must develop a process that promotes spiritual growth. We are going to have to become fully devoted followers of Christ who are radically different from the nobody-tells-me-what-to-do, pleasure-seeking world that surrounds us. We are going to have to become a community with traditions, rituals, discipline, and ways of teaching that will produce more than casual, unconcerned Christians.

The grace extended by the Amish was in their hearts and minds before this terrible event ever happened. Their way of life did not make much of emergency preparedness, says Kraybill. It gave them “forgiveness preparedness.” Their story raises questions for us. Are we members of New Hope being shaped by our faith in God, by what the Bible demands of us, and by our life together? Are we preparing for the uncertainties of tomorrow? Are we allowing the Spirit and teachings of Jesus to be so woven into the fabric of our life together that we are being prepared to forgive and show compassion when our time of suffering comes? How do we promote forgiveness preparedness in our church like that of our Amish bothers and sisters in Christ?