How can we not forgive our enemies? If we cannot forgive, we are locked into an endless cycle of retribution. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, “Those who live by ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ will one day become a blind and toothless generation.” The consequences of not forgiving are amply evident. Just look at Palestine and Israel, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, the Sunnis and Shias in Iraq, and Northern Ireland. Division, recrimination, and violence haunt every corner of the globe. In fact, it looks as if the central question of the 21st century will be, “Can we human beings learn to let go of the burdens of the past and in doing so create a more hopeful future?”

We at Washington National Cathedral have put reconciliation at the center of our centennial year celebrations out of the conviction that there is nothing more urgent for the survival of the human race. We welcomed Archbishop Desmond Tutu for a public lecture on “The Spirituality of Reconciliation,” and awarded him the first Cathedral Prize for Advancement in Religious Understanding. His leadership of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a landmark historical event. A nation torn apart by apartheid and the worst brutality imaginable emerged with the black majority at last in power and a civil society and economy intact. The cycle of revenge had been broken. Tutu’s great insight: “There is no future without forgiveness.”

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