This semester’s awareness week, focusing on forgiveness, is chock-full of events for students and faculty, with speakers from all over the country who have witnessed injustice firsthand in several parts of the world.

“I think when you deal with the issue of forgiveness, a lot of students and a lot of people will ask, ‘Well, why do I have to forgive?’” said John Back, dean of Student Development. “But what happens is if you haven’t dealt with it, it either comes back in another issue or suddenly there’s an issue in your life … you realize you haven’t dealt with.”

“This is a topic that students can all relate to across the board, regardless of their background or where they’re from or the issues that they see right now,” said Laura Igram-Edwards, director of student programming and Associated Students adviser. “Everybody needs to learn how to forgive.”

Forgiveness Awareness Week has an $8,000 budget for advertisements, honoraria and food, according to Victoria Smith, associate director of University Events.

More Than One Point Of View

This week’s chapels are dedicated to the theme of forgiveness, with guest speakers’ expertise ranging from psychology to the civil rights movement.

“We wanted to bring in speakers and facilitate discussions from a variety of viewpoints in terms of understanding the impact of what it means to forgive or maybe not to forgive,” Igram-Edwards said.

Everett Worthington, professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, kicked off the week with a talk in Monday morning chapel titled “Forgiving When It’s Hard.” 

“He comes from a personal perspective of an issue in his life that required him to forgive someone and then a psychological perspective of it,” Igram-Edwards said. “We definitely wanted speakers to be able to tell their personal stories.”

As the week carries on, a variety of speakers will present on different aspects of forgiveness. Some are close to Biola, like Talbot alumna Kathleen Doyle, and Tim Muehlhoff, an associate professor of communication, who both spoke on Tuesday. Others will be new faces to many Biola students, like Chris and Phileena Heurtez. The couple has worked in the social justice arena to combat human trafficking in more than 70 countries. The Heuretzs will share their testimonies in Wednesday’s morning chapel, and in an invitation-only, AS-sponsored luncheon for student leaders actively involved on campus, from AS, SMU, intercultural studies, psychology and a variety of other departments.

“These leaders can take those lessons and apply it to what they’re already doing on campus in hopes that we can continue to build leaders for a better tomorrow,” said Matt Fier, AS religious lectures coordinator.

On Wednesday night, Johann Christof Arnold, Hashim Garrett and Charles Williams will take over AfterDark and speak on “Compassion Without Borders.” All three men have dedicated their lives to spreading the truth of forgiveness by working together at Breaking the Cycle, Arnold’s non-profit organization devoted to forgiveness and peace-making.

Garrett is a survivor of a shooting that has paralyzed him from the waist down. Williams, teacher at the  New York Military Academy, has worked in the criminal justice system since 1985 and has witnessed violence first hand. Arnold has been working with families who were affected by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and when asked to speak at Biola, he rearranged his schedule to make the date.

“He's also bringing 2,000 free copies of his book ‘Why Forgive?’ for Biola students, and is bringing much of his leadership team at Breaking the Cycle, at no charge to the university,” said Smith.

All three men will speak again Thursday at noon at a free pizza lunch in the Library Courtyard.  They will then finish off the week at Friday morning chapel with a session named after Arnold’s book “Why Forgive?”

“It will be a little bit different than our usual reflective Friday chapel,” Back said. “We will still have worship in the beginning, but we want to give as much time as possible for the three of them to speak.”

Relating Forgiveness to the Past

In addition to the sessions, a Holocaust exhibit has been displayed in the Library Reading Room and will remain there for the month of April.

“Holocaust Awareness Week happens to fall in the month of April, so the timing was somewhat serendipitous for us,” Smith said.

A “Prayer through Poetry” event dedicated to the forgiveness theme will take place Thursday night in the Fireplace Pavilion. It is an open mic event that will include painting supplies for students to use to express themselves.  Afterward, “Les Miserables,” the critically acclaimed story of forgiveness, will be screened in Calvary Chapel.