By Gillian Bethel
During my childhood in England, I watched a documentary about the life of an Anglican bishop who’d been tortured during World War II. It made a big impression on me. A brief segment showed the twisted face of his torturer looming over him as he inflicted pain. Then the face changed to that of a young child, bright and innocent, representing the child this man used to be.
After a few moments, the sequence cut back to that cruel face again. It was portraying the bishop’s thoughts while he was being tortured. Instead of hatred, he was feeling compassion for his enemy because of what that innocent little child had become. They were such powerful images: I can see them still, and they have strongly shaped my own thinking.
Not “Nice Lucy”? questioned a headline on a British news site. In 2023, the British news followed the trial of
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Erik’s personal testimony. Erik is a pseudonym.
“A Criminal Confesses and Finds Amazing Grace,” Eternity News, Sept. 7, 2021.
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