Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu are launching the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge, a free online program starting May 4, 2014, designed to teach the world how to forgive.
RNS:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in leading non-violent opposition to South Africa’s apartheid system of racial domination. The Truth and
Reconciliation Commission that he chaired created a way to address the overwhelming suffering and grief that were the legacy of over four decades of racial oppression. Since then he has taken his deeply human approach to resolving conflict to many other countries including Northern Ireland and Rwanda. His daughter, Mpho Tutu, has helped rape victims and refugees displaced by war and is currently completing a Ph.D. on the topic of forgiveness.
“Forgiving is a choice. A choice I have seen profoundly transform lives time and again,” says
Archbishop Tutu. “As Nelson Mandela said when he walked free after 27 years of prison, ‘I
knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.’ Mpho and I share a vision to bring the transformative power of forgiveness to people everywhere and to see it spread through families, communities, countries and our whole world.”
“Our culture glorifies the seductive but ultimately empty feeling of power that comes with an act of revenge or a harsh rebuke,” says the Reverend Mpho Tutu. “The Forgiveness Challenge is a corrective to these cultural forces. It provides training to strengthen our forgiveness muscles. Every time we are hurt we stand at a crossroads with two clear paths to deal with our pain—forgive and heal or lash out and harm.”
Together the Tutus bring their hard-earned and practical insight into the process of forgiving to a global audience in the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge. The 30-day program is based on a systematic process of forgiving that the Tutus present in their new book, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Healing Our World (HarperOne; Hardcover; March 18, 2014).