85. The Hands of Forgiveness

Mar 25, 2026

Steven Nolt, historian of Amish life, explains the cultural and theological roots of communal forgiveness. Marie Monville, author and speaker who survived the Nickel Mines shooting’s aftermath as the shooter’s wife, shares her journey through compassion and healing. They explore how Amish decisional forgiveness works, the difference between public and emotional forgiveness, and the long, quiet processes that reshape lives.

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ANECDOTE

Amish Forgiveness Arrives On The Driveway

Marie watched two Amish men speak with her father and was stunned when they embraced him and wept on the driveway.
They told her they had forgiven Charlie and had come to offer compassion to her family within hours of the shooting.

INSIGHT

Forgiveness Rooted In Amish Gelassenheit

Steven Nolt explains gelassenheit as a communal ethic of yielding that makes forgiveness a practiced discipline in Amish life.
Forgiveness fits with everyday rituals of giving up individual choices like driver's licenses and dress, so decisional forgiving feels consistent, not unnatural.

INSIGHT

Decisional Forgiveness Can Start Emotional Healing

Nolt contrasts decisional forgiveness (public acts) and emotional forgiveness (private interior work) and notes the Amish reverse the usual sequence.
For the Amish, a public decisional forgiveness opens space for emotional processing afterwards rather than being the endpoint.

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Almost twenty years ago, an armed man stormed a small Amish school in Pennsylvania. It was a horrific attack in which he shot at ten girls. He then turned the gun on himself. The attack claimed the lives of five young girls and severely injured five others, including one who remained profoundly disabled for the rest of her life, and died at the age of just 23. Within hours, the affected Amish community took the most extraordinary steps to extend compassion to the family of the gunman. And it set off a life-altering process for Marie, his wife.

Matthew Syed follows Marie’s inconceivable journey navigating the complexities of forgiveness. He delves into Amish theology to understand how forgiving is a frequently misunderstood discipline, embedded in the collective identity of the Amish community, and considers how their approach to forgiveness challenges conventional wisdom.

Matthew also hears from one of the foundational figures in forgiveness science on the tangled journey of forgiving oneself. This is something Marie found herself grappling with after going through a process of forgiving her husband for things she would never fully understand. It prompts Matthew to reflect on the quiet and rippling power inherent in the many acts of forgiveness that emerged from a day of unimaginable tragedy.

Featuring Marie Monville, speaker and author of the memoir One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting; Steven Nolt, Professor of History and Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, and co-author of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy; and Everett Worthington, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a leading researcher in the psychology of forgiveness.

Presenter: Matthew Syed Producer: Vishva Samani Series Editor: Katherine Godfrey Sound Designer: Mark Pittam Production Coordinator: Joe Savage Theme by Ioana Selaru A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring archive from:

CBS News Special Report, October 2, 2006

Meyer, Jack, Amish neighbour speaking to Associated Press, “Amish urge forgiveness after school shootings,” Associated Press, October 3, 2006; copyrighted by Associated Press (AP)