Time:
3:00pm Central Europe / Western Africa (4:00pm Central Africa Time / Jerusalem / Eastern Europe, 5:00pm East Africa, 2:00pm UK, 9:00am USA Eastern, 7:30pm India Time)
Meeting Theme:
Forgiveness has often been shaped by power-aligned Christian traditions into a practice that protects those who cause harm—urging the wounded to “forgive and forget” so the powerful can remain unchallenged. Decolonized forgiveness refuses this distortion. With Mirela Popaja-Hadžić, we will explore forgiveness not as pardon for perpetrators but as liberation for those who have been crushed, a trauma-informed process that involves honoring anger, experiencing grief, reclaiming agency, and choosing to break the cycles of harm, all without minimizing truth or the need for safety and justice. Forgiveness becomes inner healing and resistance, not a performance that restores oppressive status quos.
Together we will ask how we might reclaim forgiveness (at least in practice), challenge systems that weaponize forgiveness, and cultivate practices that make space for safety, repair, and the possibility of restored relationships.
Guiding questions:
How have dominant Christian narratives distorted forgiveness in ways that protect the powerful?
How might strong emotions—such as grief, anger, or rage—serve as important parts of the healing journey rather than barriers to forgiveness?
What changes when we recognize that the primary work of forgiveness is internal, and that outward expressions of forgiveness are optional, contextual, and never required of those who’ve been harmed?
Facilitators:
