Repentance and Forgiveness

Reconciliation is at the heart of the Christian faith. It is what God accomplishes by the incarnation of his Son, by Jesus' cross, resurrection, and exaltation: that all people be drawn to God in Christ, and, in being so drawn, drawn into fellowship with one another. The good news of reconciliation is, therefore, also a call to repent and to receive forgiveness, and then, concomitantly, to forgive. The present volume endeavors to reexamine these most fundamental Christian claims. These essays, which were first presented at the 2017 annual Pro Ecclesia conference, return to the biblical sources to help us understand reconciliation afresh. The authors raise questions about repentance and forgiveness from various perspectives: Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. They also consider our present-day context, what has been called the "technoculture," as well as the practice of repentance and forgiveness.