48 Sermon Illustrations on Retaliation

The Bible has plenty to say about forgiveness. Where the Old Testament focuses mainly on God’s forgiveness of individuals or groups, the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels also address how human beings can and should forgive each other.

Those teachings, however, are a precarious guide for 21st-century human relations. While Jesus mentions forgiveness several times, he never defines the term, leaving contemporary listeners to fill in the blanks. Is forgiveness something a person does, i.e., does it indicate an action, such as reconciliation or amnesty? Does forgiveness require action on the part of the offender? Is forgiveness something a person feels?

While modern conceptions of forgiveness focus mainly on its emotional dimensions, in Jesus’ first-century context, forgiveness had more concrete implications. The Greek word translated as “forgive” in the New Testament, aphiēmi, carried a wide range of meanings, including to remit (a debt), to leave (something or someone) alone, to allow (an action), to leave, to send away, to desert or abandon, and even to divorce.

In fact, the Greek word appears 146 times in the New Testament, but it is translated in most English versions as “forgive” only 38 of those times. Considering the entire range of meanings of this word gives us some indication of what “forgiveness” might have meant to listeners in Jesus’ first-century context. Most of all, forgiveness was an action rather than a feeling, and so our contemporary ideas about forgiveness as an emotional state must come from sources other than the biblical text.

Here I submit five prevailing “myths” about forgiveness that have come into Christian belief and practice. I call them myths not because they are not worthwhile guides for moral behavior, but because they do not actually have their roots in the New Testament. Separating what Jesus taught about forgiveness from what we have assumed and inferred puts a fine point on how Christians can define and practice forgiveness today.

1. Jesus teaches unconditional forgiveness.

Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus teach that forgiveness should be offered unconditionally. In Matthew, Jesus says that church members should forgive each other “seventy times seven times” (18:22), a number that symbolizes boundlessness. However, even though he preaches boundless forgiveness, he does not indicate whether that forgiveness has conditions. “The author of the Gospel of Luke repeats the same story, but adds a condition to forgiveness, stating that church members must forgive boundlessly “if there is repentance” (17:3).

Further, in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus warns his disciples that there is a sin that will not be forgiven: “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 12:31-32; Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10). Blasphemy (Greek: blasphemēo) means to speak against or slander. The meaning of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is open to interpretation, but it is clear that there is a sin that God will not forgive under any circumstances. If Jesus teaches unconditional forgiveness, then God must be exempt from that teaching.

2. Jesus forgives the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).

Perhaps one of the best-known stories about Jesus comes from the Gospel of John, when Jesus confronts a crowd about to stone a woman who was caught in the crime of adultery. Jesus interrupts the melee, saying, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). When no one moves to attack the woman, Jesus says to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again” (8:11).

This story is often cited as an example of Christian forgiveness. However, the Greek term most commonly translated as “forgive,” aphiēmi, does not appear in this story. Jesus’ refusal to condemn the woman is not the same as an offer of forgiveness. Further, Jewish wisdom teaches that only a victim may forgive an offender. Since the woman has not done anything to Jesus, he has nothing to forgive her for. His refusal to condemn her is more a lesson to the crowd about judgment than it is an expression of forgiveness.

3. Jesus forgives his attackers from the cross.

Luke’s depiction of Jesus on the cross is often cited as the quintessential example of unconditional forgiveness. As he is being crucified, Jesus cries out, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Readers often take this to mean that Jesus forgives those who are attacking him. However, a closer look at the syntax reveals that Jesus is not, in fact, forgiving his attackers; rather, he is praying that God might do so.

It is possible that the lack of repentance from his attackers prevents Jesus from forgiving the men directly, since he has taught his followers that repentance is a requirement for forgiveness. Also, earlier in the Gospel of Luke Jesus instructs his disciples to “pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28). While his prayer from the cross is a perfect model of this teaching, it is not an explicit act of forgiveness.

4. “Turn the other cheek” refers to forgiveness.

Just after he gives the instruction to pray for one’s enemies, Jesus tells his followers, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:29; the identical teaching appears in Matthew 5:39). Some interpret this instruction -- given by Jesus as antithetical to “an eye for an eye” -- to mean that the proper response to violence or aggression is to ignore it. However, in the time of Jesus the act of turning one’s cheek when slapped was not a sign of acquiescence. Turning the cheek would force the aggressor to strike with the left hand, which was seen as unclean, or the open right hand, which would signal equality. Thus, turning the other cheek would have been seen as an act of rebellion.

Further, just as the “eye for an eye” teaching served as a check for vengeance, Jesus’ instruction to turn the other cheek applies to a person who is slapped and does not apply to more severe acts of violence. Nowhere does Jesus suggest that turning the other cheek is an act of forgiveness.

5. Forgiveness sets you free.

Theologian Lewis Smedes writes, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Much of Christian self-help literature touts the emotional and physical benefits of forgiveness. And while contemporary understandings of forgiveness may very well have positive psychological outcomes for those suffering in the aftermath of mistreatment and abuse, the idea that forgiveness is good for the forgiver, that it “sets you free,” does not come from the Bible.

The closest parallel comes after the parable in which Jesus describes an unforgiving servant being condemned to prison and torture. Then he warns, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Matthew 18:35). In this case, forgiving is in the best interest of the one forgiving in order to avoid an afterlife of torture and abuse. However, the concern here is not a psychological one, but rather a concern for salvation.

Again, it may well be true that “Forgiveness sets you free.” However, the idea of forgiveness as a psychological or emotional condition traces to 18th-century moral philosophy, not first-century Christian writings. Forgiveness in the time of Jesus was an action verb, and Jesus’ instructions served as checks for the health of the community, both on earth and in the world to come. There is nothing in the Bible that says that forgiveness is good for the physical or mental health of the forgiver. It is anachronistic to suggest otherwise.

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Sermon on Revenge.

1. What revenge is.

2. Effects of revenge.

3. God's alternative.

a. Results.

b. Dangers.

4. Reveals our trust in God.

Illustrations used: 00052, 00383+, 00567+

Parallels between Hammurabi and the Bible's principle of "an eye for an eye":

"If a man has shattered a rich person's leg, you shall shatter

his leg. If he has caused a poor man to lose an eye, or

shattered a poor man's leg, he shall pay one pound of silver."

Apparently some legs are worth more than others!

Actor and marital arts expert Chuck Norris knows might doesn't always make right.

Not long ago, after a day of filming his television series, Norris went alone to a small Texas bar for a cold beer. As he sat in a corner booth, savoring his drink, a large man towered over him and said with an edge in his voice that Norris was sitting in his booth. Norris didn't like his tone or his implicit threat, but he said nothing and moved to another booth. A few minutes later, though, the big fellow headed back in Norris' direction. "Here it comes," he thought, "a local tough out to make a name for himself by taking on Chuck Norris in a fight."

When he arrived at Norris' new booth, he looked directly at the actor. "You're Chuck Norris," he said.

He nodded.

"You could have whipped my butt back there a few minutes ago," he said. "Why didn't you?"

"What would it have proved?" Norris asked.

He thought that over for a moment and then offered Norris his hand. "No hard feelings?" he said.

"None," Norris answered, and shook his hand. He had avoided a confrontation and made a friend. He won by losing.

[modified from first person to third.]

Anybody who thinks hard about forgiveness will start a lot more rabbits than he can catch. The topic raises a whole nest of questions, and the good answers will seldom be the easy ones.

Take a case. Suppose that you are a lonesome, middle-aged woman who has finally met a suitable man. He speaks gently, laughs musically, and reads widely. He walks you slowly through spring air that is laden with the scent of lilacs and points out the nesting habits of finches, particularly of the yellow ones. He relishes a good Sunday sermon and can later recall whole swatches of it while he cooks your dinner. He is almost unimaginably attentive. This charming man fills you with such a sense of promise, with so much trust and love and longing, that you never do ask why he wants to arrange a joint banking account while the two of you are still on your honeymoon. After he cleans you out, disappears immaculately, and then shows up on a most-wanted list (six aliases, two previous convictions for similar offenses), you face a terrible truth. You have been betrayed, and you never saw it coming.

Now some questions. What would have to happen before you could forgive this louse? Would he have to repent? Suppose you never see him again. Could you forgive him anyway? As a Christian, must you forgive him? How soon? For his sake or for yours? What if you try to forgive him, but can't? May your pastor, sedate in his wisdom and serene in his marriage, urge you to forgive? Doesn't that just add a load of guilt to your trauma?

Anyhow, isn't forgiveness too good for traitors? Isn't there something almost unjust about it -- something that trivializes the offense and encourages the offender to repeat it? May people just go around hurting other people, changing their lives forever, and then nonchalantly accept forgiveness for all the litter they leave behind?

Suppose you eventually do succeed in forgiving the litterer. Does this mean you must take him back into your life somehow? Does it mean you would not testify against him at his bigamy trial or acquiesce in his imprisonment? Does it mean you like him better than you used to?

CITIES OF REFUGE

In his thoughtful and wide-ranging book, L. Gregory Jones does not fully answer all such questions, but he does raise and address many of them. Mainly, he teaches us how to think about the topic that generates them. Perhaps the one-sentence message of this book is that we need to ponder and practice forgiveness in proper context. Hence the book's title. Describing forgiveness as "not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life," and, drawing upon a wide range of resources, including film and fiction, Jones keeps showing us the settings or "narratives" in which forgiveness belongs.

It naturally belongs in our churches, for example. Our church communities ought to be cities of refuge for sinners, busy with the traffic of forgiveness, busy with people learning the "craft" of forgiveness -- ordinarily by getting apprenticed to a master forgiver or two. The idea is that saints ought to teach forgiveness to saints-in-training. In the holy catholic church (the communion of saints), we should be rehearsing the forgiveness of sins like pianists, practicing the hard parts over and over till we get them right.

Why? Because forgiveness of sins leads to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Because forgiveness of sins expresses the deepest rhythm of the Christian life, namely, dying and rising with Jesus Christ. True, we die and rise with Christ in our baptism, but then we also keep the rhythm going throughout our whole careers as believers. Every time we kill resentment and raise up kindness, every time we mortify pride and vivify humility, every time we put off hatred and put on mercy, we die and rise with Jesus Christ. Of course, the grace of the vivifying Holy Spirit must be at work in us, but the basic rhythm is also something we have to work out ourselves. And the assignment is pretty urgent. If we don't learn how to die and rise now, how will we manage at the end of our lives?

According to Jones, forgiveness of others is a gracious self-sacrifice. In imitation of the self-giving love among the persons of the Holy Trinity and in union with the self-giving Christ, Christians painfully unlearn sin by undertaking to confess and forgive it. Each time we forgive we make the sign of the cross and then rejoice in the empty tomb. Each time we forgive we put out a contract on our old self -- the timidly self-righteous self or the proud grudge-bearing self -- and then pull the trigger ourselves. Each time we forgive we absorb evil without passing it on, and then rise, like Christ, with healing in our wings.

FORGIVENESS LITE

This is Jones's main line, and he draws it straight and true. But at the same time, he also sketches a lot of intriguing subplots. For example, he rejects excessively "light" views of life that trivialize sin and underestimate God's costly remedy for it, and also excessively "dark" views that propose violence as the only effective answer to violence. Describing forgiveness as an "innovative gesture" that can cut the loop of retaliation, Jones nonetheless insists that forgiveness implies accountability. Forgiveness is aimed at sin, after all, and sin is the kind of evil for which somebody is to blame.

One of the notable strengths of this book is that it never underestimates the difficulties involved in the discipline of forgiveness. For one thing, we human beings often find it just as hard to accept forgiveness as to offer it. "Forgivenness" is as hard a piece of the project of holiness as "forgivingness." For another, some persons seem to place themselves beyond the reach of forgiveness, even by God, so that the meaning of "the unforgivable sin" rises above a biblical trivia debate into an agonizing question for victims who have been beaten into numbness. Accordingly, Jones recognizes that full and free forgiveness, on the one hand, and bitter hatred of the offender, on the other, are not the only options. Perhaps we can adopt a benign posture toward an enemy even while, at least for a time, withholding forgiveness. Perhaps we can put some sins into suspension, neither forgiving them nor retaining them, but just bracketing them for a while till we gather ourselves for a new push toward forgiveness.

JUST WHAT IS IT?

Altogether, this is a highly intelligent, theologically instructive, and deeply reflective piece of work. I have assigned it to my students, and I hope that its kind increases.

But not its two failings. First, Jones is plainly uneasy with the task of trying to define forgiveness. Throughout the book he describes the contexts of forgiveness, and he does this beautifully. He says that forgiveness is not so much a thought or an action as an embodied way of life, and he says this repeatedly. But here is my question: If forgiveness isn't a thought or action, then just what is it that makes up the way of life we embody when we embody forgiveness? Isn't a way of life a pattern of thoughts, words, and actions?

Further, if forgiveness isn't an action, or not much of one, then just which action isn't it? Jones waits until page 229 before really raising the question of how forgiveness differs from excusing, condoning, or pardoning. He explains that such distinctions are best left to analytic philosophers, and that theologians and their kin may better learn the nature of forgiveness by working on-site, by "engaging in the ongoing craft of forgiveness." But then why write books about forgiveness? Moreover, if we hesitate to define forgiveness and to distinguish it from its near neighbors, how will we know when we have actually learned the craft of forgiveness rather than absent- mindedly learning the craft of, say, tolerance instead?

I think forgiveness of sins is both an action and an embodied way of life, and that Jones sidesteps some acute questions having to do with the action. When you forgive a person, what is it that you actually do? Do you make a move against one of your emotions? Which one? Do you shut a file in your memory? How so? Do you give up the right to revenge? (As a believer, did you ever have that right in the first place?) Do you take a vow of some kind? Out loud and in the presence of the traitor?

Jones is too good a theologian not to touch on such questions, but he is vague about the answers, suggesting that the nature of forgiveness will depend on the context. Maybe so, but what is elementary forgiveness? What is the basic machinery? If your nine-year-old asks what she must do to forgive somebody who humiliated her at school, what do you say? What do you say about forgiveness to somebody who is not up to speed on cruciform contexts and embodied ways of life?

Second, this book treats Lewis Smedes unjustly. Smedes's enormously popular (and wonderfully helpful) "Forgive and Forget" becomes in Jones's hands the epitome of what is wrong with therapeutic approaches to forgiveness -- ones in which the healing effect of forgiveness on the forgiver assumes a high profile. According to Jones, Smedes thins forgiveness down into a handy four-step technique, ignores the ambiguities of the settings in which broken people forgive other broken people, and generally separates "forgiveness from any sense of sin." Indeed, despite "intermittent insights" and "good intentions," Smedes finally offers us little more than a "frighteningly shallow perspective that trivializes and undermines central Christian practices and understandings of forgiveness."

Not so. Remarkably not so; and if this were the place to do it, I think I could show exactly where Jones has misread Smedes. The wonderful truth is that Smedes and Jones actually complement each other very nicely: Jones gives us the theological narratives, the communal embeddedness, the broad contexts of forgiveness. Smedes tells us popularly, but very toughmindedly, what actual moves we make when we forgive in those contexts. As far as I can tell, the combination is what we need, and that is why it is just fine to have more than one Christian writing more than one kind of book on this very difficult topic of forgiveness of sins.

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"Rehearsing forgiveness: practicing the hard parts till we get them right." by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

"Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis," by L. Gregory Jones (Eerdmans, 332 pp.; $28, hardcover; $18, paper).

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Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., is professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary and author of "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin" (Eerdmans).

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine, April 29, 1996, Vol. 40, No. 5, Page 31

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Obituary Of Louis Woudhuysen:

Graveside services for Louis Woudhuysen, 87, of Montclair, a Holocaust survivor, will be held tomorrow in East Hanover.

Interned in a Nazi concentration camp in Mechelen, Belgium, during World War II, Mr. Woudhuysen had been a member of the Witte Brigade, the Belgian underground resistance movement. At the end of the war, the Brigade members gave him a gun and permission to kill ex-Nazis, who had been rounded up and put in cages in the Antwerp Zoo. He refused to do so, saying that in spite of the cruelties he suffered and witnessed, he could not bring himself to descend to the level of the Nazis.

A self-employed professional diamond cutter for many years before retiring 20 years ago, Mr. Woudhuysen was respected for his artistry by members of the jewelry industry in Antwerp, Belgium, and New York City. He was the first to design and cut a Star of David into a diamond's facets, which was made for an attorney in Perth Amboy.

In the weeks and months following September 11, not every American supported retaliation against the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks. The minority of Americans who have opposed military actions included some radical activists and some people who, while they condemned the attacks, believed violence only begets more violence.

The latter group are pacifists, and I respect their sincerity. Many of them believe they are acting out obedience to the Gospel. The best-known Christian pacifists are Quakers and Anabaptists like the Mennonites and United Brethren, but there are pacifist strains within all Christian traditions.

One pacifist response to September 11 was that of Rev. Joseph Kotva of the First Mennonite Church of Allentown, Pennsylvania. He told the city's newspaper, "We believe all [retaliation] does is escalate the violence. Someone has to have the courage to say that [the violence] stops here."

Rev. Kotva's words illustrate the basic pacifist argument against the use of force. In their worldview, the use of force is antithetical to loving your neighbor as yourself. Love and war are never compatible. And while I respect the conviction of honest pacifists, I believe they're missing an important part of the picture.

A critical principle of just war is "right intentions." Wars that are fought to take what doesn't belong to us or expand our borders or for revenge are unjust wars. But war can be fought with good intentions.

As Darrell Cole, a professor at William & Mary, argued in a recent issue of FIRST THINGS, the failure to fight a just war may be a failure to love. He wrote: "We ... fight just wars because they're acts of charity. [Fighting just wars] ... is something Christians ought to do out of love for God and neighbor ..."

What makes a just war an act of love? It brings justice, restrains evildoers, and promotes the peace and well-being of the community. In the case of the War on Terrorism, our soldiers fight to promote the peace and well-being of the entire world. Ridding the world of terror -- by just means -- is a good and loving act.

This has always been the understanding behind Just War. Thomas Aquinas in the SUMMA THEOLOGICA puts his discussion of just war in his chapter on charity, the love of God and neighbor. Aquinas applauded those who wielded the sword in protection of the community. And, regarding retaliation, Aquinas wrote that "retaliation should be sought out of the love of justice."

John Calvin agreed with Aquinas. He called the soldier an "agent of God's love," and he called soldiering justly a "God-like act." Why? Because "restraining evil out of love for neighbor" is an imitation of God's restraining evil out of love for His creatures.

A world where Christians refused to fight just wars wouldn't be peaceful, and it certainly wouldn't be a more just world. It would be a world where evil would be unchecked by justice and where the strong would be free to prey on the weak.

Fighting just wars when necessary, like the present war on terrorism, takes sin seriously and provides -- strange as it may sound -- a loving response. Remember that when you watch our service men and women on television as they're fighting in Afghanistan in harm's way out of love for neighbor.

For further reading:

"The Theory of Just War -- A Summary," 3 December 2001.

Darrell Cole, "Good Wars," FIRST THINGS, October 2001.

Dana Priest, "In War, Mud Huts and Hard Calls," WASHINGTON POST, 20 February 2002, A1.

"Predator Morality," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 20 February 2002.

Thomas Aquinas, AQUINAS'S SHORTER SUMMA: ST. THOMAS AQUINAS'S OWN CONCISE VERSION OF HIS SUMMA THEOLOGICA (Sophia Inst. PR, 2002).

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Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. 'BreakPoint with Chuck Colson' is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Sir Walter Scott had difficulty with the idea of “turning the other cheek.” But Jesus' words took on special meaning one day when Scott threw a rock at a stray dog to chase it away. His aim was straighter and his delivery stronger than he had intended, for he hit the animal and broke its leg. Instead of running off, the dog limped over to him and licked his hand. Sir Walter never forgot that touching response. He said, “That dog preached the Sermon on the Mount to me as few ministers have ever presented it.” Scott said he had not found human beings so ready to forgive their enemies.

Few creatures in all of God’s vast creation inspire the awe, and even fear, that is generated by the mighty grizzly bear. This huge carnivore, with its long, razor-sharp claws, can rise to a towering height of 9 feet and may weigh as much as 1500 pounds! It has a fiercely aggressive nature, and will rarely tolerate the presence of other creatures...especially man. Many men have paid with their lives for venturing too close to the grizzly.

Nevertheless, there is one creature who seemingly has absolutely no fear of the grizzly. When Dale Carnegie was visiting Yellowstone National Park he had the opportunity to observe a grizzly bear for a time. As he and the other tourists watched from a safe distance, they saw the bear emerge from the woods to eat. What amazed Carnegie, however, was that foraging alongside of the bear, seemingly oblivious to its presence, was a skunk. Even more amazing was the fact that the bear made no move to discourage the little striped creature from sharing the same eating space.

Even a smaller, younger grizzly could easily have killed the skunk with a single swipe of its deadly paw. And yet this large bear never reacted to its presence. Why? Perhaps it is because of what Dr. S.I. McMillen (in his book None of These Diseases) calls, “The high cost of getting even.” A grizzly bear can easily destroy a skunk, but he will pay a very high price for doing so.

Our world is filled with skunks–not just the animal variety, but the people variety as well. There may be times when we might like nothing better than to take a swipe at these foul, offensive critters who feed fearlessly among us. However, when you tangle with a skunk the skunk always wins! Perhaps we need to learn a valuable lesson from the grizzly bear: Some critters are best left completely alone, even if you possess the power to utterly destroy them!

Al Maxey

The Aloha Spirit

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Another version collected by Gerald Rodgers:

Dale Carnegie tells of a visit to Yellowstone Park in earlier days when tourists could watch the rangers feed the grizzly bears. One night the ranger brought garbage to attract the huge creatures, which, it is said, can whip any animal in the West except perhaps the buffalo and the Kodiak bear. But Carnegie noticed that while eating, the bears would growl and send other little animals scurrying, but they would allow one little creature to eat with them-the skunk! Though it was obvious that the grizzlies resented the skunk for its brazen impudence and would have loved to have their revenge, they didn't. And you can guess why. The cost of getting even was just too high!

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent."

-- Mohandes Gandhi

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

-- Martin Luther King Jr.:

Only two days after the World Trade Center crumbled and the Pentagon burned, Paige Patterson opened the Scriptures and detailed for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary students seven principles for a godly response. With many from the Wake Forest, N.C., community in attendance at the chapel service, Patterson charged the congregation that the Christian man "must have the heart of a pacifist guided by a just mind informing a strong arm."

Patterson, the seminary's president, described the heart of a pacifist as "loving and seeking peace always in every way he possibly can, guided by a just mind so that he knows when that rare occasion comes when there is no other choice except to act with force."

"And then that just mind guides the use of a strong arm, which in its strength may attack, but also which sometimes, and usually in its greater strength, may exhibit that strength by withholding its attack."

Patterson said such a heart and mind is founded on the following principles:

1. Human iniquity is such that sometimes a violent response, even a lethal response is absolutely necessary.

2. Whenever violence is necessary, Christians must valiantly attempt to exact no more suffering or death than is absolutely essential to accomplish and maintain the peace.

3. Motives of revenge, brooding anger and fury are unworthy of Christian men.

4. Christians must seek to protect those who are uninvolved.

5. Except in the rarest of cases, a social order or a constituted national entity should be the vehicle of retributive justice.

6. When the enemy fails and falls, godly men must not rejoice in that calamity.

7. The aftermath of the confrontation yields one of three things: bitterness, hatred or forgiveness.

Patterson began by noting the intent of his message (the full text of which is on the seminary's www.sebts.edu website) was not "to formulate a theory of just war, although, you will doubtless hear some of that in it."

Patterson said his effort was to attempt to point to the Scriptures and give some guidance in thinking.

"And now I will tell you an additional reason why I am bringing a message of this kind this morning. The message is addressed primarily to [myself]," Patterson said. "And secondarily to you, because I want to go on record publicly as saying the things I'm going to say in order to hold myself accountable before God to be sure these attitudes are in fact my own." Patterson began his message in Romans 13 and turned to several other passages to lay the foundation for these principles.

Romans 13 contained the first principle, that human iniquity is such that sometimes a violent response, even a lethal response is absolutely necessary.

"I want you to notice two things in the text," Patterson said. "First, rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil, and the magistrate does not bare the sword in vain. One cannot read this passage of Scripture and come to the conclusion that some well-meaning souls have, that pacifism is an acceptable way. There is a time and appropriate way for the use of sword. But in the final analysis for the individual believer, it is the way of love that prevails."

Patterson noted three cases in which the sword might be necessary. "First, there is defense. There comes a time when concern for the innocent and protection of those that cannot protect themselves demand that we be able to do this. A second area is deterrence. If one knows that he is going to pay a fearfully high price, maybe even his life if he does something, he is hesitant to do it. Then finally, there is the area of justice. Sometimes, there must be a lethal response in order for justice to be done."

Patterson warned his students and staff not to be deluded by those who contend that there is no need to be armed in this country.

"And when good people do not have arms, you know who will [be armed] every single time," he stated, referring to those who would commit evil.

The second principle, that whenever violence is necessary, Christians must valiantly attempt to exact no more suffering or death than is absolutely essential to accomplish and maintain the peace, also is rooted in Romans 13.

"I cannot tell you how important that is. The natural tendency of man is to take more than is necessary in order to get revenge," Patterson said. He continued by saying that love conquers the sword ultimately, and "so it is to love that we must hasten, and that as an understanding of all that is embodied in the commandments."

Patterson turned to 1 Peter 2:13 for the third principle: motives of revenge, brooding anger and fury are unworthy of Christian men: "Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors, (now watch this) as those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. (Now, that's the second time we've read that) and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men -- as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice but as bondservants of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."

"Notice that governors and those in authority are those who are sent by God to punish evildoers and to praise those who do good," Patterson said.

"I do not know how you can be a man and watch the film of the plane crashing into the tower and not feel anger. That's the reason I spoke of 'brooding' anger," Patterson said. "Anger is almost a natural response at the moment, but brooding anger allowed to fester and continue in the heart will invariable produce a fruit of bitterness and an acrimonious spirit and ultimately assault from human perspective."

From James 1:19-20, Patterson stated, "Listen to two thought-provoking verses: 'So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak and slow to wrath; for the wrath of God does not produce the righteousness of God.'"

"There is nothing in that verse that comes naturally," Patterson said. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, and so many times I have to cite it to myself again. 'The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.'"

Next, Patterson turned to Leviticus 20:1-2 for the fourth and fifth principles: Christians must seek to protect those who are uninvolved, and that except in the rarest of cases, a social order or a constituted national entity should be the vehicle of retributive justice.

"First, in the case of capital crime, a parent taking a little baby and placing it in the white, hot arms of Molech, the stone goddess ... when they incinerate that child as a sacrifice to Moses, they have impinged upon the God of life. And, because they have broken the most sacred of all laws regarding life, they shall be put to death. It is a capital crime," Patterson said. "But notice that [justice] is not exacted at the point of a sword by an individual, but the whole congregation of the Lord is to take the responsibility so that it is laid on no one, but it is the social order itself that acts in exacting justice and retribution in this case."

Patterson then turned to Romans 12:18, which states, "as much as is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men."

"We are instructed to seek peace at every hand, on every hand, at every opportunity, and we are to be sure that if peace is taken away, it is not because of an action for which we are responsible but rather as much as possible and as much as it depends on us," Patterson explained. "Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that Paul recognizes there do occur those circumstances in life when we cannot live in peace for whatever reason; where there must be a response of force," he continued.

"Ladies and gentlemen, just because a person happens to be of Arabic ethnicity does not make them a culprit in the deed that has been done. We must be very careful that we not respond in a broad uncontrolled manner, lumping together the guilty and the innocent," he said.

"I do not doubt that there are times when we have to act alone or in a small group, but the desire should be that where retributive justice has to take place -- you saw all Israel stone them, all Israel shall bear part of the responsibility, so it's no individual's responsibility as such," Patterson said.

Principle number six: When the enemy fails and falls, Godly men must not rejoice in that calamity. In Matthew 6:12, Patterson pointed out that in this "model prayer," Christians are ask for forgiveness as they also should forgive their debtors.

Then, Patterson continued with Matthew 5:43-48, from the Sermon on the Mount, which states, "You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. You are to love your enemies, bless those that curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. And in this way you will demonstrate you are the sons of your Father in heaven ... for if you love those who love you, where is the reward in that? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Therefore, you shall be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect."

"All of us were made sick by the signs of the Palestinians rejoicing over the deaths of those [who] passed away in the tragic strike," Patterson said. "I want to tell you that we need to be very careful as we watch that, that it primarily invokes within us the determination never to be guilty of the same.

"Dear precious Christian friend, there is a fine line between rejoicing because good has prevailed and rejoicing at the fall of the enemy. We are permitted and even encouraged to rejoice over good that triumphs, but, do not make the next fatal step which would be to rejoice in the fall of the enemy," Patterson warned.

He pointed to Proverbs 24:17,18, which states, "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls and do not let your heart be glad when the he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and it displeases him and he turn away his wrath from him and implied have it come to you."

Principle number seven: The aftermath of the confrontation yields one of three things: bitterness, hatred or forgiveness. Patterson read Matthew 18:21-22. "Then Peter came to [Jesus] and said, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'"

"The principle here is as plain as it can be," Patterson said. "There is nothing ever done to you, nothing ever done to me that anywhere even approximates the staggering cost of our rebellion against God individually. You just need to understand that you will never have to forgive each other anything like what God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

"For the godly man, it must ultimately result in forgiveness because forgiven men have no choice in this matter," Patterson said.

*

Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives

of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a

young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then

Lamech seventy-seven times.” (Genesis 4:23-24)

Baghdad, Iraq. Amar was a lifelong friend of Karim’s. Three months earlier, Amar and his older brother, Jafaar, had been riding in the van of a friend, Sayeed, when a group of gunmen hailed them. Amar recognized them as men from the Mahdi Army [a Shiite militia], and assumed that they were coming to say hello. As Sayeed braked, the car was riddled with gunfire. Amar crouched as low as he could, as the Mahdi Army men emptied their Kalashnikov automatic rifles. He was unhurt, but Jafaar and Sayeed were dead.

That night, Amar told Karim that, at the morgue, he had sworn over his brother’s body to take revenge. He had vowed to kill a hundred Mahdi men — ten for each of Jafaar’s fingers. His mother, Um Jafaar, supported him, and begged Karim to help her son. He agreed.

Their first concern was to make sure that the Mahdi militiamen didn’t suspect them. During Jafaar’s funeral procession, they shouted angry denunciations of a Sunni tribe that lived nearby. Word soon spread that Jafaar’s family and friends blamed the Sunnis for his death.

Karim and Amar also decided that it would be easier to carry out the killings if they had help from the American army. Karim volunteered to be an informer and even refused their money: “If I take it, it makes me a spy, and I am a gentleman, not a spy.’”

Karim directed the Americans to a house where two of the gunmen were staying. One of gunmen was only 15 or 16, but had killed five or six people. “He was just starting out,” Karim said. They were imprisoned by the Americans.

“Then the killing started,” Karim told investigative reporter Jon Lee Anderson. Their first victim was the father of the younger gunman. When Anderson asked him whether the father had anything to do with Jafaar’s killing, he looked nonplussed, and said no, but that the man had been an intelligence officer under Saddam, and had probably killed people, too. (In Iraq’s tribal vendettas, male relatives are often seen as legitimate targets.) The father was now working as a taxi-driver. A relative hailed his cab and asked to be taken to a remote area. Karim and Amar ambushed him there. Amar had a pistol with five exploding bullets (dumdums) and four normal bullets. A single dumdum would have been enough to do the job, and Karim warned him to save some bullets in case they got in trouble. Amar emptied the pistol into him, using every last bullet. Afterward, he apologized. “I couldn’t help it. I became crazy.”

Next, they went to a Sunni sheikh whom Karim knew, whose brother was in the insurgency. The brother and his men kidnapped six Mahdi militiamen, including four who had been in the group that killed Jafaar. They took the militiamen to a house in a Sunni district where Karim and Amar beat them severely. (Karim said that Amar got out of control but Karim did not.) Under torture, the men said the brother, Jafaar, had been killed inadvertently and that Sayeed was the main target because he was with a rival militia and cooperated with Americans. Amar didn’t believe it - their real motive was that that they were jealous of Sayeed because he was rich, and he didn’t respect the Mahdi militia.

The next day, Amar greeted Karim with a kiss and told him he had left three bodies near the train track, and two in Canal Street. When Karim asked about the sixth one, Amar said the Sunni sheikh’s brother took him because he thought he killed his cousin.

The killing continued. After fifteen days, they went to Um Jafaar, Amar’s mother. “I told her who was dead and who was in jail. She was very happy,” Karim said. “Then she said, ‘Do you want me to be completely comforted?’” Um Jafaar asked them to bring her parts of the dead men’s bodies. Amar did what she asked. “One man, he cut off his ear when he was still alive,” Karim said. “But I swear that Amar has never killed anyone who was innocent.”

Karim said that Amar had killed eighteen or twenty men. “After a while, I told Amar to stop this. My wife, also, was angry with me. I didn’t like to do this, either, but we had to. We had to kill these guys, because they were killing too many people. When some of them were killed, my neighbors celebrated — sometimes even the Mahdi Army guys did.” The Americans suspected nothing.

Amar told Karim that he would not stop killing until he reached his goal of a hundred victims. “He is hungry for killing now,” Karim said. “Sometimes I think maybe he HAS gone a little crazy.”

________

Adapted from the article "Letter From Iraq: Inside The Surge” by Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker magazine, Nov. 19, 2007, pp. 64-65. The names of the Iraqis had been changed for the article.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5530]

For thirteen weeks, former child soldier Ishmael Beah has seen his memoir, A LONG WAY GONE, hover in the top ranks of the NEW YORK TIMES bestsellers list. For a young man whose village and family were burned, who evaded capture amidst the war-torn landscape of Sierra Leone, and finally was given an AK-47 and coerced to join the government army, a bestselling book comes as quite a twist in the road.

As a child soldier, Ishmael heard his commanding officer frequently tell him and his comrades, “Visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you.” In their drills when they did not properly bayonet a banana tree, the officer reprimanded them by saying: “Is that how you stab someone who had killed your family?”

As Beah’s story unfolds, one cannot help but wonder about the fate of such children, suckled on revenge from such a tender age. What is strong enough to overcome that kind of past? The answer does not come as a surprise. It is the power of forgiveness and unconditional love.

When UNICEF forces showed up one day and negotiated with Beah’s commander for the release of the children soldiers in his command, Ishmael and others found themselves suddenly transported to a rehabilitation camp. One would think that these children would be grateful for release and embrace these workers for their role in their redemption. But, you’re wrong. It would take months for these children to lose their appetite for brown-brown (cocaine mixed with gun-powder), for violence, and for revenge. Day after day these young kids would lash out at the workers and the other children. Day after day, the workers would respond with forgiveness and love.

Beah recounts the story of one of the workers in the rehabilitation compound named Poppay, whom the children beat, stabbed and left unconscious. Several days later, Poppay returned from the hospital, limping, but with a smile on his face. “It is not your fault that you did such a thing to me,” he said. As Beah recalls, “Most of the staff members were like that; they returned smiling after we hurt them. It was as if they had made a pact not to give up on us.” Wittingly or unwittingly, they were displaying the turn-the-other-cheek kind of love that Christ taught. And through their display of grace, they sent a powerful message: Revenge stops here.

But Beah’s horrific tale is, sadly, too common. There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers in the world today. Ishmael Beah has a lesson worth learning for all of us. As he says, “To forgive is not to forget but to transform all that happened into something positive because the other route can only bring more suffering to [ourselves] and to those around [us].”

________

Copyright (c) 2007 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #24070]

Dit vor dat. Tit for tat. Quid pro quo. Blow for blow.

The expression "tit for tat" is kind of odd. I recently discovered that its origin probably came from the Dutch expression dit vor dat, meaning "this for that." It's similar to the Latin quid pro quo, often heard in courtroom legalese -- meaning "something for something." Or, it may have come from the English, "tip for tap," or "a blow for a blow."

Whatever its etymology, it certainly indicates a tendency to repay in kind -- I'm talking retaliation.

When someone hurts us, something inside us says, "I want you to hurt too." Or maybe, "Nobody has the right to treat me so badly" -- we're talking payback.

Yeah, you may feel some guilt about your attitude, but at the same time a feisty stubbornness says, "I have every right to feel this way!"

But Jesus suggested a different attitude. He instructed us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who mistreat us, and to "do to others as you would have them do to you" (Luke 6:27-28,31). We find additional instructions in Romans 12 on the way to treat people: "Do not repay anyone evil for evil" (v.17) and "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (v.21).

That's radical thinking, isn't it? In fact, it's almost the exact opposite of what you feel like doing. But when we harbor resentment in our heart, often we suffer the most. Those toxic emotions damage us, eat away at us, change us.

This, of course, doesn't mean that you should ever be a doormat or continue to accept abuse from someone. That's a serious issue which requires some serious help. But whenever it is possible -- particularly when the person who hurt you is repentant -- you should follow Jesus' example.

Jesus was never about payback. He was about doing the unexpected. He was about turning the other cheek and offering forgiveness and exhibiting righteous living.

No dit vor dat. No tit for tat. No quid pro quo. No blow for blow. Jesus has always been about mercy and grace and love. -- Cindy Kasper

DESTINATION POINTS * Is there someone in my life who has hurt me deeply? * What have I done in retaliation to hurt that person? * What will I do to begin healing by following Jesus' words?

By doing good, you will overcome evil.

Revenge fantasies were darkening my heart before I trusted in Jesus.

________

We had heard the distant gunshots for a few weeks. But that morning they were close and seemed to ring out with purpose. I looked to my older brother and the other adults for reassurance. Their eyes were full of anguish and frustration. All we could do was wait.

The “freedom fighters” arrived. By mid-morning we were all lying face down in the house, listening as bullets whizzed through the air. Between bursts of gunfire, our typically bustling neighborhood was eerily silent. In the lull we could hear voices shouting instructions. If they found out my name, they would kill me.

Fantasies of Food

I was born in Liberia, West Africa, where my father served in the Special Security Service of President Samuel Doe (no relation), who had come to power through a violent military coup ten years earlier. His regime suppressed political opposition and rigged elections to stay in power. The “freedom fighters” had come to remove him, starting a war and killing anyone who worked in Doe’s government and anyone from his tribe. This was the situation in Liberia in August 1990. While the world was focused on Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, millions of Liberians were in the middle of a bloodbath.

I was 11. A year earlier I had lost my mother to illness. Now my father’s life was in danger. A few weeks before the rebel soldiers arrived, he had instructed me to go live with my brother, Roosevelt, and his wife. Bewildered and filled with questions, I packed a small bag with a few sets of clothes.

We lived behind rebel lines for three months, the hardest season of my life. The rebels were ruthless, murdering innocent people on the barest of suspicions.

While we hid, we ate one small meal a day, mostly rice and greens. Meat and clean water were scarce. Hope was scarcer. As children, we prefaced every statement about the future with, “If I live through the war, I will . . .” We lived on fantasies of food. We hadn’t been to school in six months.

By November 1990, President Doe had been killed, and peacekeepers were arriving from neighboring countries. The damage seemed beyond repair, and my innocence was irretrievable.

Roosevelt and I left Liberia on a refugee ship bound for neighboring Ghana in early November. Life was just returning to normal when I received word that my father had been killed. He had turned himself in to rebel forces on the promise of freedom for answering questions, and was never seen again.

I was an orphan. Whenever I was by myself, I cried. The war left my heart reeling.

Fantasies of Vengeance

Like many Liberians, Roosevelt and his wife were Christians. We went to church, but I had trouble believing in prayer. I had prayed that my mother wouldn’t die, and she did. I had prayed that my father wouldn’t die, and he did. Now I was scared to pray that my brothers and sister wouldn’t die.

And so my life’s goal changed. I wanted to find the soldier or soldiers who made me an orphan and make them pay. Wartime fantasies of food were replaced by fantasies of vengeance.

Soon, my brother and his wife applied to go to America as refugees, and in 1993 we arrived in Boston. I was both excited and scared. How would I be treated? Would I adjust to the schools, the crime, the cold weather? I had never felt temperatures below 75 degrees.

I started school a few weeks later, a refugee living in my third country. But my time there was marred by chaos, poor grades, and disappointment. I couldn’t focus in classes. In quiet times, during quizzes and tests, and whenever I was alone, my thoughts returned to war.

I daydreamed of revenge. I cried myself to sleep most nights. I was existing but not living.

After barely graduating high school, I enlisted in the U.S. Army with hopes of learning to use a deadly weapon. But about halfway through basic training, I was medically discharged due to a mild heart condition. I came home utterly embarrassed. What had my life become?

Still overcome by grief, I had lost hope for a brighter future. With no connection to God and no real walk with Christ, I had no source of comfort and no sense of purpose.

To make matters worse, Roosevelt — the only family member I knew to be alive — had a sudden heart attack at age 38. He slipped into a coma and was rushed to the hospital.

Alone in our home, I sat paralyzed in the basement, where I slept. Someone else close to me was going to die. I had nowhere to run. For hours I wept in complete darkness.

In that darkness, I turned to God. At first, all I had was one question: “Why?” I listed all the things that I blamed him for: Ma, Pa, the war, separation from family, their suffering, my disappointments — and now my brother, my beloved brother. I blamed God. Why?

I also blamed myself. Guilt overwhelmed me. I had chosen to hold on to the pain of my past and to nurse my desire for vengeance. I realized, in that darkness, that I could keep those fantasies alive, or I could relinquish them once and for all. I begged God to forgive me. I would let go of revenge and rage. I asked God, from the sincerest and deepest part of my heart, to save my brother.

Practicing Forgiveness

Four days later, I got news that Roosevelt would recover. That answered prayer was the first step in my journey to faith.

Still, it took years to trust God completely. As I grew in my faith, my mind — once a desert swept by anger and despair — became fertile ground. Flowers of faith and hope bloomed, though they were sometimes choked by the vicious thorns and weeds of hatred. For years I had comforted myself with the fantasy of killing the man who had killed my father. The roots of that destructive pattern went deep.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I began truly walking the road of forgiveness. I decided that I wanted to take the chance and find my father’s killer. At first I wasn’t sure what I would say. I sat across from an empty chair in my dining room and practiced saying, “I forgive you.” Sometimes, my monologue would get so intense that I would stand up and scream or break down and cry. I questioned my path. Did I really want to meet him this way?

Besides, the chances of finding him were slim to none. He wouldn’t want to be found. But the longer I practiced, the more resolved I became. I decided to travel halfway around the world to offer this man what Jesus offered me.

In 2010, at age 31, almost 20 years after I had left, I made my way back to Liberia. But I did not meet my father’s killer. He had died in the fighting.

Even so, I forgave him.

In that trip, God answered prayers, though not in the way I expected. Even without the fulfillment of my own plans, I could live in peace. I could forgive.

Today, I hope to share this hard-won peace and hope with fellow Liberians, so many of whom suffered greatly during our country’s brutal civil wars. My wife and I plan to run a self-sustaining farm that will support a library and community center. But more important, we’ll strive to bring gospel healing, a way to escape the darkness of Liberia’s violent past — a darkness I know all too well. Because wherever Jesus’ words of forgiveness are spoken, the future is bright with hope.

________

Marcus Doe is the author of Catching Ricebirds: A Story of Letting Vengeance Go (Hendrickson Publishers).

David Cross’s wife bought a van from the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Used Car Superstore. “It was a piece of [garbage]” Cross said. He says the van had multiple issues including a broken odometer and damage from a previous wreck, so he took it back to the dealer. The dealer not only refused to refund his money, but wouldn’t even negotiate the price on another van.

So Cross returned that night and drove the van onto the lot -- and into multiple vehicles. “I hit the first $25,000 car I could see,” Cross said. “I didn’t hit a car under $20,000. Then I moved a van that they wouldn’t come down on the price for. I moved it with the lemon they sold me. I just held it to the floor until I couldn’t move it any more.” In all, he says, “I took out seven vehicles, including my own.” He then flagged down a police cruiser and turned himself in.

“I woke up this morning and wondered if it was a dream,” he said, “but then I looked over and there’s my bail papers.”

________

Portsmouth Herald

So much for letting go, letting be and taking it on the chin. New research shows that not only are humans genetically hot-wired for revenge, it actually brings pleasure.

________

A former catwalk model is strangely unrepentant that she recently descended to dirty tricks. After discovering that her boyfriend had been unfaithful to her, she remained icily calm for a month -- and then invited him over for a romantic dinner at home. She cooked a meal befitting domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, the piece de resistance of which was a chocolate cake containing a medical-strength laxative. She sent him a get well card with the message -- “Sucked in. Don’t ever speak to me again.”

Revenge might be a dish best eaten cold, but according to a study published in the journal Science, it is an extremely satisfying one nonetheless.

Dominique de Quervain of the University of Zurich measured the activation of the brain’s “reward pathways” as people planned the punishment of those who had done them wrong.

Volunteers were subjected to scenarios of betrayal and revenge, and their responses were studied with positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the brain. In the study, two people with equal amounts of money interact anonymously. They are told they can increase their income if they trust each other. Person A is then given the chance to give a certain amount of his money to Person B. If he does, the researcher quadruples the money B receives. B then is given the choice to either keep all the money or split the take with A.

When B keeps the money -- a betrayal of trust -- the subjects in the A role are given different options in different runs of the game. One option is to fine B up to a maximal amount of money. Another is to fine B, but with a requirement that the amount of the fine is also deducted from A’s holdings -- a scenario in which the betrayed person has to pay for the revenge he gets. A third option is to deliver a symbolic censure, with no fine.

De Quervain and her Swiss colleagues found that people showed the greatest satisfaction -- as measured by the activation of a brain structure called the caudate nucleus -- when they levied a maximal fine at no cost to themselves. There was lower -- but still substantial -- satisfaction when they had to “pay” for the revenge. There was virtually none with the symbolic censure.

Interestingly, the people who showed the most caudate activation when levying the maximal fine in the “free revenge” scenario were the ones willing to spend the most when “paid revenge” was the only option. This suggests that some people take unusually great pleasure in paybacks.

History is littered with the victims of revenge stories involving scorned women bent on proving that their fury is the thin end of the payback wedge. And now there’s the internet to satisfy our keen interest in what’s politely called the “karma” genre. To read 239 celebrity revenge stories, click on to www.anecdotage.com to discover the dark side of royalty, the rich and the famous from Peter the Great to Julie Andrews delivering a very un-Mary Poppins backhander.

The truth is that we aren’t as ethical, moral or civilised as we like to believe and, say researchers at the University of Miami, vengeance should be seen in its true biological light -- not a moral backwards step, but an offshoot of our natural sense of justice.

“Revenge can be a good deterrent to bad behaviour,” says Dr Michael McCullough, one of the university’s senior research psychologists. “It is a very functional behaviour on many social levels.”

Anthropologists, of course, have long held the belief that fear of retaliation from other members of the community keeps anti-social behaviour in check.

Dr Joseph Henrich, from the Emory University in Atlanta, says that recent studies have corroborated what we have long known to be true.

“Stable communities depend on people who have an intrinsic taste for punishing others who violate a community’s norms.”

The wild card in the pack, however, is that our sense of when to stop and how far to go is governed by the same part of the brain that controls appetite and, as with any thermostat, the needle can vary widely between what’s acceptable and what’s out of control -- and that’s where talk of revenge gets intellectually murky.

Dr Julie Fitness, senior lecturer in social psychology at Macquarie University and one of Australia’s leading experts in conflict resolution, agrees that it’s natural to feel the urge for revenge. “But revenge is a very loaded word. Many of the small acts of retaliation that most of us commit stem from our social radar, a sensitively attuned skill that allows us to judge whether we have been ripped off, insulted or manipulated.

“If we didn’t show other people where our personal boundaries are, they would continue to overstep them. At this functional level, payback, for want of a better term, enhances our self-esteem and confidence.

“But it’s not such self-protection mechanisms that cause trouble, it’s what sociologists call the arithmetic of revenge that has to be fully calculated before anyone launches into attack mode.

“When someone hurts you, you experience maximum suffering. But the offender often doesn’t know this and underestimates the impact of their actions in their own mind. So when you plan an act of revenge, you pay back harder than the person who hurt you believes they deserve and that’s how vendettas begin and escalate.”

But for all the wild thoughts of wiping the floor with someone, most acts of revenge are petty and covert. Even when we feel vindictive, we don’t want other people to think that we are.

According to Dr Robert Baron, a psychologist at the school of management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution in New York, most of us shy away from excess and “do in” other people on the sly -- spreading gossip, a mocking wink, refusing to speak.

The ratio of open and hidden acts of retaliation is only 100 to one. When we are in committed personal relationships, studies have shown that paybacks often go unnoticed by the “victims”.

Deciding not to make a cup of coffee for someone because they don’t return the favour, for example, is often lost on the consciousness of the person you want to “attack”. But all is not lost, such “reprisals” make us feel we have more of the moral high ground and are in control of the situation.

The last word goes to Dr Eleanor Wertheim, associate professor at the school of psychological science at La Trobe University, a leading expert in forgiveness processes. “I believe that people can be altruistic. Most people seek revenge in passive ways because they know there are many inherent dangers when they pursue retribution as an answer. Pure revenge is about punishment and it offers only short-term gratification. We have the ability to override most impulses because the ability to do so is also linked to self-protection as tightly as the desire for revenge is.”

“We asked employees to recall a time when their supervisors abused them in the workplace,” says Lindie Liang of the School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The point: to study what made people feel better after being treated unfairly by their boss.

To relieve their stress, the researchers had a study group of 229 people in Canada and the United States abuse voodoo dolls representing their bosses with pins, candles, or pliers, and then fill out a questionnaire to see if they felt better compared to a control group that didn’t abuse the dolls.

The results were published in The Leadership Quarterly, and “What we found, across several studies,” Liang says, is “people who had the opportunity to retaliate, to harm the voodoo doll that symbolized their boss, they actually showed restored justice perception.” In other words, he says, they felt they got revenge “without actually murdering their supervisor.”

*

[The original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #17268]

Mohammed Akbar centered himself in his Afghan culture and faith each time he spoke his name. The name his parents gave him literally means "Muhammad is the Greatest," and attests to a core Islamic identity shared by most in his hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan.

But in 1979, an attack on his homeland by the former Soviet Union shook the foundations of his faith and identity.

"He fled from his home to Iran after the invasion because he said he was not a fighter," recounted a Southern Baptist International Mission Board administrator who now works in South Asia.

In Iran, Mohammed Akbar soon found himself lost with no home or job in a nation swept up in its own revolution. That same year the Shah of Iran had abandoned his throne and the Ayatollah Khomeini was installing a brand of Islamic government the world had never known.

By December 1979, Iran's revolutionary police were patrolling streets to enforce Islamic codes of behavior, but Mohammed Akbar was still able to walk into a small cinema and watch a foreign movie -- the "Jesus" film.

"Mohammed had never seen anything like this before," said the IMB representative. "When he got to the part where Jesus hangs on the cross, he told me he was thinking: 'This Jesus is going to call down fire and destroy all these people [in the story] who are hurting him.' But Jesus didn't.

"And when Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing,' something happened to Mohammed," the representative recalled. "He told me: 'At that instant I said in my heart, that's for me.'

"He had just fled a country where everyone extracted vengeance and called it justice," the representative said. "He had been searching for answers and saw how Jesus changed everything in an act of sacrifice and love. Christ changed the world and changed Mohammed."

Mohammed Akbar saw this change when he gave his life to Christ after seeing the Jesus film. He clearly saw how his relationship with Jesus swept away all other issues of culture and politics, the IMB worker said.

"This guy went on to change his name to Akbar al-Masiih," he said. "That means 'The Messiah is Greatest.' As an Afghan, that's a brave thing to do. When he tells you his name, you know where he stands."

___________________

Reprinted from The Commission magazine, published by the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.

*

Anybody who thinks hard about forgiveness will start a lot more rabbits than he can catch. The topic raises a whole nest of questions, and the good answers will seldom be the easy ones.

Take a case. Suppose that you are a lonesome, middle-aged woman who has finally met a suitable man. He speaks gently, laughs musically, and reads widely. He walks you slowly through spring air that is laden with the scent of lilacs and points out the nesting habits of finches, particularly of the yellow ones. He relishes a good Sunday sermon and can later recall whole swatches of it while he cooks your dinner. He is almost unimaginably attentive. This charming man fills you with such a sense of promise, with so much trust and love and longing, that you never do ask why he wants to arrange a joint banking account while the two of you are still on your honeymoon. After he cleans you out, disappears immaculately, and then shows up on a most-wanted list (six aliases, two previous convictions for similar offenses), you face a terrible truth. You have been betrayed, and you never saw it coming.

Now some questions. What would have to happen before you could forgive this louse? Would he have to repent? Suppose you never see him again. Could you forgive him anyway? As a Christian, must you forgive him? How soon? For his sake or for yours? What if you try to forgive him, but can't? May your pastor, sedate in his wisdom and serene in his marriage, urge you to forgive? Doesn't that just add a load of guilt to your trauma?

Anyhow, isn't forgiveness too good for traitors? Isn't there something almost unjust about it -- something that trivializes the offense and encourages the offender to repeat it? May people just go around hurting other people, changing their lives forever, and then nonchalantly accept forgiveness for all the litter they leave behind?

Suppose you eventually do succeed in forgiving the litterer. Does this mean you must take him back into your life somehow? Does it mean you would not testify against him at his bigamy trial or acquiesce in his imprisonment? Does it mean you like him better than you used to?

CITIES OF REFUGE

In his thoughtful and wide-ranging book, L. Gregory Jones does not fully answer all such questions, but he does raise and address many of them. Mainly, he teaches us how to think about the topic that generates them. Perhaps the one-sentence message of this book is that we need to ponder and practice forgiveness in proper context. Hence the book's title. Describing forgiveness as "not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life," and, drawing upon a wide range of resources, including film and fiction, Jones keeps showing us the settings or "narratives" in which forgiveness belongs.

It naturally belongs in our churches, for example. Our church communities ought to be cities of refuge for sinners, busy with the traffic of forgiveness, busy with people learning the "craft" of forgiveness -- ordinarily by getting apprenticed to a master forgiver or two. The idea is that saints ought to teach forgiveness to saints-in-training. In the holy catholic church (the communion of saints), we should be rehearsing the forgiveness of sins like pianists, practicing the hard parts over and over till we get them right.

Why? Because forgiveness of sins leads to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Because forgiveness of sins expresses the deepest rhythm of the Christian life, namely, dying and rising with Jesus Christ. True, we die and rise with Christ in our baptism, but then we also keep the rhythm going throughout our whole careers as believers. Every time we kill resentment and raise up kindness, every time we mortify pride and vivify humility, every time we put off hatred and put on mercy, we die and rise with Jesus Christ. Of course, the grace of the vivifying Holy Spirit must be at work in us, but the basic rhythm is also something we have to work out ourselves. And the assignment is pretty urgent. If we don't learn how to die and rise now, how will we manage at the end of our lives?

According to Jones, forgiveness of others is a gracious self-sacrifice. In imitation of the self-giving love among the persons of the Holy Trinity and in union with the self-giving Christ, Christians painfully unlearn sin by undertaking to confess and forgive it. Each time we forgive we make the sign of the cross and then rejoice in the empty tomb. Each time we forgive we put out a contract on our old self -- the timidly self-righteous self or the proud grudge-bearing self -- and then pull the trigger ourselves. Each time we forgive we absorb evil without passing it on, and then rise, like Christ, with healing in our wings.

FORGIVENESS LITE

This is Jones's main line, and he draws it straight and true. But at the same time, he also sketches a lot of intriguing subplots. For example, he rejects excessively "light" views of life that trivialize sin and underestimate God's costly remedy for it, and also excessively "dark" views that propose violence as the only effective answer to violence. Describing forgiveness as an "innovative gesture" that can cut the loop of retaliation, Jones nonetheless insists that forgiveness implies accountability. Forgiveness is aimed at sin, after all, and sin is the kind of evil for which somebody is to blame.

One of the notable strengths of this book is that it never underestimates the difficulties involved in the discipline of forgiveness. For one thing, we human beings often find it just as hard to accept forgiveness as to offer it. "Forgivenness" is as hard a piece of the project of holiness as "forgivingness." For another, some persons seem to place themselves beyond the reach of forgiveness, even by God, so that the meaning of "the unforgivable sin" rises above a biblical trivia debate into an agonizing question for victims who have been beaten into numbness. Accordingly, Jones recognizes that full and free forgiveness, on the one hand, and bitter hatred of the offender, on the other, are not the only options. Perhaps we can adopt a benign posture toward an enemy even while, at least for a time, withholding forgiveness. Perhaps we can put some sins into suspension, neither forgiving them nor retaining them, but just bracketing them for a while till we gather ourselves for a new push toward forgiveness.

JUST WHAT IS IT?

Altogether, this is a highly intelligent, theologically instructive, and deeply reflective piece of work. I have assigned it to my students, and I hope that its kind increases.

But not its two failings. First, Jones is plainly uneasy with the task of trying to define forgiveness. Throughout the book he describes the contexts of forgiveness, and he does this beautifully. He says that forgiveness is not so much a thought or an action as an embodied way of life, and he says this repeatedly. But here is my question: If forgiveness isn't a thought or action, then just what is it that makes up the way of life we embody when we embody forgiveness? Isn't a way of life a pattern of thoughts, words, and actions?

Further, if forgiveness isn't an action, or not much of one, then just which action isn't it? Jones waits until page 229 before really raising the question of how forgiveness differs from excusing, condoning, or pardoning. He explains that such distinctions are best left to analytic philosophers, and that theologians and their kin may better learn the nature of forgiveness by working on-site, by "engaging in the ongoing craft of forgiveness." But then why write books about forgiveness? Moreover, if we hesitate to define forgiveness and to distinguish it from its near neighbors, how will we know when we have actually learned the craft of forgiveness rather than absent- mindedly learning the craft of, say, tolerance instead?

I think forgiveness of sins is both an action and an embodied way of life, and that Jones sidesteps some acute questions having to do with the action. When you forgive a person, what is it that you actually do? Do you make a move against one of your emotions? Which one? Do you shut a file in your memory? How so? Do you give up the right to revenge? (As a believer, did you ever have that right in the first place?) Do you take a vow of some kind? Out loud and in the presence of the traitor?

Jones is too good a theologian not to touch on such questions, but he is vague about the answers, suggesting that the nature of forgiveness will depend on the context. Maybe so, but what is elementary forgiveness? What is the basic machinery? If your nine-year-old asks what she must do to forgive somebody who humiliated her at school, what do you say? What do you say about forgiveness to somebody who is not up to speed on cruciform contexts and embodied ways of life?

Second, this book treats Lewis Smedes unjustly. Smedes's enormously popular (and wonderfully helpful) "Forgive and Forget" becomes in Jones's hands the epitome of what is wrong with therapeutic approaches to forgiveness -- ones in which the healing effect of forgiveness on the forgiver assumes a high profile. According to Jones, Smedes thins forgiveness down into a handy four-step technique, ignores the ambiguities of the settings in which broken people forgive other broken people, and generally separates "forgiveness from any sense of sin." Indeed, despite "intermittent insights" and "good intentions," Smedes finally offers us little more than a "frighteningly shallow perspective that trivializes and undermines central Christian practices and understandings of forgiveness."

Not so. Remarkably not so; and if this were the place to do it, I think I could show exactly where Jones has misread Smedes. The wonderful truth is that Smedes and Jones actually complement each other very nicely: Jones gives us the theological narratives, the communal embeddedness, the broad contexts of forgiveness. Smedes tells us popularly, but very toughmindedly, what actual moves we make when we forgive in those contexts. As far as I can tell, the combination is what we need, and that is why it is just fine to have more than one Christian writing more than one kind of book on this very difficult topic of forgiveness of sins.

*************************

"Rehearsing forgiveness: practicing the hard parts till we get them right." by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

"Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis," by L. Gregory Jones (Eerdmans, 332 pp.; $28, hardcover; $18, paper).

-------------------------

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., is professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary and author of "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin" (Eerdmans).

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine, April 29, 1996, Vol. 40, No. 5, Page 31

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For thirteen weeks, former child soldier Ishmael Beah has seen his memoir, A LONG WAY GONE, hover in the top ranks of the NEW YORK TIMES bestsellers list. For a young man whose village and family were burned, who evaded capture amidst the war-torn landscape of Sierra Leone, and finally was given an AK-47 and coerced to join the government army, a bestselling book comes as quite a twist in the road.

As a child soldier, Ishmael heard his commanding officer frequently tell him and his comrades, “Visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you.” In their drills when they did not properly bayonet a banana tree, the officer reprimanded them by saying: “Is that how you stab someone who had killed your family?”

As Beah’s story unfolds, one cannot help but wonder about the fate of such children, suckled on revenge from such a tender age. What is strong enough to overcome that kind of past? The answer does not come as a surprise. It is the power of forgiveness and unconditional love.

When UNICEF forces showed up one day and negotiated with Beah’s commander for the release of the children soldiers in his command, Ishmael and others found themselves suddenly transported to a rehabilitation camp. One would think that these children would be grateful for release and embrace these workers for their role in their redemption. But, you’re wrong. It would take months for these children to lose their appetite for brown-brown (cocaine mixed with gun-powder), for violence, and for revenge. Day after day these young kids would lash out at the workers and the other children. Day after day, the workers would respond with forgiveness and love.

Beah recounts the story of one of the workers in the rehabilitation compound named Poppay, whom the children beat, stabbed and left unconscious. Several days later, Poppay returned from the hospital, limping, but with a smile on his face. “It is not your fault that you did such a thing to me,” he said. As Beah recalls, “Most of the staff members were like that; they returned smiling after we hurt them. It was as if they had made a pact not to give up on us.” Wittingly or unwittingly, they were displaying the turn-the-other-cheek kind of love that Christ taught. And through their display of grace, they sent a powerful message: Revenge stops here.

But Beah’s horrific tale is, sadly, too common. There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers in the world today. Ishmael Beah has a lesson worth learning for all of us. As he says, “To forgive is not to forget but to transform all that happened into something positive because the other route can only bring more suffering to [ourselves] and to those around [us].”

________

Copyright (c) 2007 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #24070]

So much for letting go, letting be and taking it on the chin. New research shows that not only are humans genetically hot-wired for revenge, it actually brings pleasure.

________

A former catwalk model is strangely unrepentant that she recently descended to dirty tricks. After discovering that her boyfriend had been unfaithful to her, she remained icily calm for a month -- and then invited him over for a romantic dinner at home. She cooked a meal befitting domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, the piece de resistance of which was a chocolate cake containing a medical-strength laxative. She sent him a get well card with the message -- “Sucked in. Don’t ever speak to me again.”

Revenge might be a dish best eaten cold, but according to a study published in the journal Science, it is an extremely satisfying one nonetheless.

Dominique de Quervain of the University of Zurich measured the activation of the brain’s “reward pathways” as people planned the punishment of those who had done them wrong.

Volunteers were subjected to scenarios of betrayal and revenge, and their responses were studied with positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the brain. In the study, two people with equal amounts of money interact anonymously. They are told they can increase their income if they trust each other. Person A is then given the chance to give a certain amount of his money to Person B. If he does, the researcher quadruples the money B receives. B then is given the choice to either keep all the money or split the take with A.

When B keeps the money -- a betrayal of trust -- the subjects in the A role are given different options in different runs of the game. One option is to fine B up to a maximal amount of money. Another is to fine B, but with a requirement that the amount of the fine is also deducted from A’s holdings -- a scenario in which the betrayed person has to pay for the revenge he gets. A third option is to deliver a symbolic censure, with no fine.

De Quervain and her Swiss colleagues found that people showed the greatest satisfaction -- as measured by the activation of a brain structure called the caudate nucleus -- when they levied a maximal fine at no cost to themselves. There was lower -- but still substantial -- satisfaction when they had to “pay” for the revenge. There was virtually none with the symbolic censure.

Interestingly, the people who showed the most caudate activation when levying the maximal fine in the “free revenge” scenario were the ones willing to spend the most when “paid revenge” was the only option. This suggests that some people take unusually great pleasure in paybacks.

History is littered with the victims of revenge stories involving scorned women bent on proving that their fury is the thin end of the payback wedge. And now there’s the internet to satisfy our keen interest in what’s politely called the “karma” genre. To read 239 celebrity revenge stories, click on to www.anecdotage.com to discover the dark side of royalty, the rich and the famous from Peter the Great to Julie Andrews delivering a very un-Mary Poppins backhander.

The truth is that we aren’t as ethical, moral or civilised as we like to believe and, say researchers at the University of Miami, vengeance should be seen in its true biological light -- not a moral backwards step, but an offshoot of our natural sense of justice.

“Revenge can be a good deterrent to bad behaviour,” says Dr Michael McCullough, one of the university’s senior research psychologists. “It is a very functional behaviour on many social levels.”

Anthropologists, of course, have long held the belief that fear of retaliation from other members of the community keeps anti-social behaviour in check.

Dr Joseph Henrich, from the Emory University in Atlanta, says that recent studies have corroborated what we have long known to be true.

“Stable communities depend on people who have an intrinsic taste for punishing others who violate a community’s norms.”

The wild card in the pack, however, is that our sense of when to stop and how far to go is governed by the same part of the brain that controls appetite and, as with any thermostat, the needle can vary widely between what’s acceptable and what’s out of control -- and that’s where talk of revenge gets intellectually murky.

Dr Julie Fitness, senior lecturer in social psychology at Macquarie University and one of Australia’s leading experts in conflict resolution, agrees that it’s natural to feel the urge for revenge. “But revenge is a very loaded word. Many of the small acts of retaliation that most of us commit stem from our social radar, a sensitively attuned skill that allows us to judge whether we have been ripped off, insulted or manipulated.

“If we didn’t show other people where our personal boundaries are, they would continue to overstep them. At this functional level, payback, for want of a better term, enhances our self-esteem and confidence.

“But it’s not such self-protection mechanisms that cause trouble, it’s what sociologists call the arithmetic of revenge that has to be fully calculated before anyone launches into attack mode.

“When someone hurts you, you experience maximum suffering. But the offender often doesn’t know this and underestimates the impact of their actions in their own mind. So when you plan an act of revenge, you pay back harder than the person who hurt you believes they deserve and that’s how vendettas begin and escalate.”

But for all the wild thoughts of wiping the floor with someone, most acts of revenge are petty and covert. Even when we feel vindictive, we don’t want other people to think that we are.

According to Dr Robert Baron, a psychologist at the school of management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution in New York, most of us shy away from excess and “do in” other people on the sly -- spreading gossip, a mocking wink, refusing to speak.

The ratio of open and hidden acts of retaliation is only 100 to one. When we are in committed personal relationships, studies have shown that paybacks often go unnoticed by the “victims”.

Deciding not to make a cup of coffee for someone because they don’t return the favour, for example, is often lost on the consciousness of the person you want to “attack”. But all is not lost, such “reprisals” make us feel we have more of the moral high ground and are in control of the situation.

The last word goes to Dr Eleanor Wertheim, associate professor at the school of psychological science at La Trobe University, a leading expert in forgiveness processes. “I believe that people can be altruistic. Most people seek revenge in passive ways because they know there are many inherent dangers when they pursue retribution as an answer. Pure revenge is about punishment and it offers only short-term gratification. We have the ability to override most impulses because the ability to do so is also linked to self-protection as tightly as the desire for revenge is.”

A British radio DJ is mourning the loss of his 25,000 pounds ($48,000) Lotus Esprit Turbo car after his outraged wife sold the car on eBay UK for the grand sum of 50 pence (90 US cents)

Hayley Shaw became outraged after hearing her husband, Tim Shaw, interview model Jodie Marsh on his radio show. She became furious with the flirting but when Tim went too far by joking on-air that he would leave his wife and children for Marsh, Hayley completely snapped. She put his very expensive car on eBay with a buy-now-price of 50 pence (90 cents).

In what will go down as one of the greatest acts of marital revenge in history, Mrs Shaw wrote in the auction description : “I need to get rid of this car immediately - ideally in the next 2-3 hours before my cheating husband gets home to find it gone and all his belongings in the street.”

She finished with: “I am the registered owner and I have the log book. Please only buy if you can pick up tonight.”

Needless to say, the car was snapped up immediately by a eBay user and Mr. Shaw came home to find the driveway empty. He is now the unwilling celebrity on news programs and the butt of jokes everywhere.

The radio station, Kerrang 105.2, based in Birmingham, said Mr. Shaw was taking a few days off to talk things over with his wife.

“I am sick of him disrespecting this family for the sake of his act,” said Mrs Shaw to the press. “Maybe it was childish but I had had a few drinks that night and I just thought I would get him back the best way I could. The car is his pride and joy but the idiot put my name on the log book so I just sold it. I didn’t care about the money, I just wanted to get him back,” she added.

Oh, and to rub salt into the wounds, the buyer has left his positive feedback : “Thank you, Hayley, the car is excellent, thank your hubby for me.”

So much for letting go, letting be and taking it on the chin. New research shows that not only are humans genetically hot-wired for revenge, it actually brings pleasure.

________

A former catwalk model is strangely unrepentant that she recently descended to dirty tricks. After discovering that her boyfriend had been unfaithful to her, she remained icily calm for a month -- and then invited him over for a romantic dinner at home. She cooked a meal befitting domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, the piece de resistance of which was a chocolate cake containing a medical-strength laxative. She sent him a get well card with the message -- “Sucked in. Don’t ever speak to me again.”

Revenge might be a dish best eaten cold, but according to a study published in the journal Science, it is an extremely satisfying one nonetheless.

Dominique de Quervain of the University of Zurich measured the activation of the brain’s “reward pathways” as people planned the punishment of those who had done them wrong.

Volunteers were subjected to scenarios of betrayal and revenge, and their responses were studied with positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the brain. In the study, two people with equal amounts of money interact anonymously. They are told they can increase their income if they trust each other. Person A is then given the chance to give a certain amount of his money to Person B. If he does, the researcher quadruples the money B receives. B then is given the choice to either keep all the money or split the take with A.

When B keeps the money -- a betrayal of trust -- the subjects in the A role are given different options in different runs of the game. One option is to fine B up to a maximal amount of money. Another is to fine B, but with a requirement that the amount of the fine is also deducted from A’s holdings -- a scenario in which the betrayed person has to pay for the revenge he gets. A third option is to deliver a symbolic censure, with no fine.

De Quervain and her Swiss colleagues found that people showed the greatest satisfaction -- as measured by the activation of a brain structure called the caudate nucleus -- when they levied a maximal fine at no cost to themselves. There was lower -- but still substantial -- satisfaction when they had to “pay” for the revenge. There was virtually none with the symbolic censure.

Interestingly, the people who showed the most caudate activation when levying the maximal fine in the “free revenge” scenario were the ones willing to spend the most when “paid revenge” was the only option. This suggests that some people take unusually great pleasure in paybacks.

History is littered with the victims of revenge stories involving scorned women bent on proving that their fury is the thin end of the payback wedge. And now there’s the internet to satisfy our keen interest in what’s politely called the “karma” genre. To read 239 celebrity revenge stories, click on to www.anecdotage.com to discover the dark side of royalty, the rich and the famous from Peter the Great to Julie Andrews delivering a very un-Mary Poppins backhander.

The truth is that we aren’t as ethical, moral or civilised as we like to believe and, say researchers at the University of Miami, vengeance should be seen in its true biological light -- not a moral backwards step, but an offshoot of our natural sense of justice.

“Revenge can be a good deterrent to bad behaviour,” says Dr Michael McCullough, one of the university’s senior research psychologists. “It is a very functional behaviour on many social levels.”

Anthropologists, of course, have long held the belief that fear of retaliation from other members of the community keeps anti-social behaviour in check.

Dr Joseph Henrich, from the Emory University in Atlanta, says that recent studies have corroborated what we have long known to be true.

“Stable communities depend on people who have an intrinsic taste for punishing others who violate a community’s norms.”

The wild card in the pack, however, is that our sense of when to stop and how far to go is governed by the same part of the brain that controls appetite and, as with any thermostat, the needle can vary widely between what’s acceptable and what’s out of control -- and that’s where talk of revenge gets intellectually murky.

Dr Julie Fitness, senior lecturer in social psychology at Macquarie University and one of Australia’s leading experts in conflict resolution, agrees that it’s natural to feel the urge for revenge. “But revenge is a very loaded word. Many of the small acts of retaliation that most of us commit stem from our social radar, a sensitively attuned skill that allows us to judge whether we have been ripped off, insulted or manipulated.

“If we didn’t show other people where our personal boundaries are, they would continue to overstep them. At this functional level, payback, for want of a better term, enhances our self-esteem and confidence.

“But it’s not such self-protection mechanisms that cause trouble, it’s what sociologists call the arithmetic of revenge that has to be fully calculated before anyone launches into attack mode.

“When someone hurts you, you experience maximum suffering. But the offender often doesn’t know this and underestimates the impact of their actions in their own mind. So when you plan an act of revenge, you pay back harder than the person who hurt you believes they deserve and that’s how vendettas begin and escalate.”

But for all the wild thoughts of wiping the floor with someone, most acts of revenge are petty and covert. Even when we feel vindictive, we don’t want other people to think that we are.

According to Dr Robert Baron, a psychologist at the school of management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution in New York, most of us shy away from excess and “do in” other people on the sly -- spreading gossip, a mocking wink, refusing to speak.

The ratio of open and hidden acts of retaliation is only 100 to one. When we are in committed personal relationships, studies have shown that paybacks often go unnoticed by the “victims”.

Deciding not to make a cup of coffee for someone because they don’t return the favour, for example, is often lost on the consciousness of the person you want to “attack”. But all is not lost, such “reprisals” make us feel we have more of the moral high ground and are in control of the situation.

The last word goes to Dr Eleanor Wertheim, associate professor at the school of psychological science at La Trobe University, a leading expert in forgiveness processes. “I believe that people can be altruistic. Most people seek revenge in passive ways because they know there are many inherent dangers when they pursue retribution as an answer. Pure revenge is about punishment and it offers only short-term gratification. We have the ability to override most impulses because the ability to do so is also linked to self-protection as tightly as the desire for revenge is.”