Tagged: “Forgiveness Education”

UPDATE – 2nd International Conference on Forgiveness in Israel Postponed

We had posted in September 2023 about the 2nd International Conference on Forgiveness occurring this coming July 2024 at Zefat Academic College in Israel. With the ongoing conflict in Israel the forgiveness conference has had to be postponed indefinitely, although the conference team hopes to reschedule for some time in 2025. Please click this link for the full announcement from The Forgiveness Conference Team at Zefat Academic College and read below for the original announcement about the conference.  

Zefat Academic College in Israel will be hosting the 2nd International Conference on Forgiveness next summer, July 9-11, 2024. The conference website describes the conference as an event where ‘scholars, experts, and practitioners in relevant fields’ will present and discuss the following themes:

• Forgiveness as a human experience
• Forgiving within an intra/intercultural context
• The forgiver and the forgiven relationship
• Being forgiven
• Forgiveness, justice, and the law
• Forgiveness – values, virtues, and ethics
• Forgiveness in religious, social, and political conflicts
• Religious and spiritual perspectives on forgiveness

One of the keynote speakers is Dr. Suzanne Freedman, longtime member of the International Forgiveness Institute team! She will be giving a presentation entitled ‘Guidelines for Forgiveness Therapy: What Therapists Need to Know to Help Their Clients Forgive.’

If you are interested in contributing to the 2nd International Conference on Forgiveness yourself, you are invited to submit your application to present a lecture at the upcoming conference. You may choose to submit one or more types of presentation:

1. Individual presentations
2. Workshops
3. Pre-arranged panels

The Conference Organizing Committee is unable to process email submissions so please ensure that all applications are submitted between September 1, 2023 and January 1, 2024 via this Google Form link.

All submissions will undergo peer review. Notifications of acceptance or rejection will be sent by February 1, 2024.

For more information about the conference and the types of submissions, please visit the conference website.

For further information, you may also contact the conference organizers at: forgivenessconferences@gmail.com

In your Discovery Phase of the forgiveness process, you discuss meaning and purpose in a person’s life upon forgiving others.  What is the difference between finding meaning and finding purpose?

Meaning is the cognitive activity of answering the “why question” in a positive way regarding what was suffered. A likely insight gained is that I am stronger and more aware of others’ suffering, now that I have walked the forgiveness path.  Thus, to find meaning is primarily a cognitive activity.  Purpose concerns the actions that now flow from the meaning.  If a person begins to see that forgiving has been a positive journey in making one stronger, more merciful, then one purpose that might flow from this insight is this: I now will commit to aiding others in their suffering, in helping them to forgive.

In my observing people who have been hurt by others, there seems to be a certain closed-mindedness that makes forgiveness difficult.  Here is what I mean: People kind of close down to listening and discussing civilly with others once they have been hurt.  Wouldn’t this closed-mindedness to open communication hinder forgiving?

I think you are conflating forgiving and reconciling.  You can forgive a person starting within your own heart by committing to do no harm to the other, with a commitment to offering respect and eventually even love (in the sense of agape) toward that other person.  This occurs even without communicating with the other person.  Reconciliation, in contrast, does require listening and having open communication.  So, when this listening and discussing civilly are closed down, this likely will hinder the reconciliation process, but not the process of forgiving.

I think that people should be held accountable. Without contrition, not even God is willing to forgive.

We would like to ask you this: Must you decide between being forgiven and taking responsibility? Do you think they are exclusive of one another? We ought to keep in mind Aristotle’s advice. None of the virtues should be practiced in isolation. Justice takes the form of accountability. Forgiveness and justice coexist in harmony. It is important to keep in mind that God forgives sins. Sins are not forgiven by people. if you base your understanding of forgiveness on the Bible, please keep in mind that the biblical account of Joseph forgiving his brothers in Genesis is an example of unconditional forgiveness. Joseph did not forgive the brothers until they had shown him repentance. It is comparable in the New Testament, in the story of the Prodigal Son, whose father forgave him unconditionally, prior to the son’s repentance.

If I begin to forgive, what does that mean? This is scary to me because I’m new to it.

You are not absolving someone of their wrongdoing when you extend forgiveness. Rather, when the time comes, you will be offering him or her a cessation of resentment and, to the extent that you are able at this moment, goodness of some kind. Reconciliation is possible, but this depends on the situation. For example, you don’t make amends, with someone who has the potential to harm you physically, until you are confident that the person has turned his life around. The main idea is that you will be attempting to show mercy to the person who has wronged you. You are free to go at your own speed and take your time so that the forgiveness path is not too much of a challenge for you.