Laura Waters Hinson, the director of “As We Forgive” — an award-winning documentary about forgiveness and reconciliation after the Rwandan genocide — was witness to the role Christianity can play when radical forgiveness is required. Hinson chronicled the astonishing relationships borne of forgiveness after Rwandans began confessing to genocide crimes and were released into society. A woman who had lost her sister and niece forgave the man who had viciously clubbed them to death. He ended up building a house for her, and became her neighbor and friend. An Anglican bishop forgave the people who had skinned his niece alive, and became a leader in the reconciliation process.

“The only way they could forgive is to say ‘this person who killed is also God’s child, and I am not the one to judge them,” Hinson told me. “They could give up their anger because they felt it was God’s to handle. They felt they had been forgiven by God, so they were called to forgive this person. They all talked about the incredible release that comes from forgiveness.”

When Gary Ridgway, known as “the Green River killer” (he was convicted of 48 murders) faced the father of a 16-year-old victim he heard the unthinkable: “I forgive you for what you have done,” the grief-stricken father told him. “You’ve made it difficult to live up to what I believe, and what God says to do, and that is to forgive. And he doesn’t say to forgive certain people; he says to forgive all. So you are forgiven, sir.” Ridgway broke down crying.