These times are so uncertain
There’s a yearning undefined
People filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age
The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
They’re the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us,
You know it doesn’t keep me warm
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore[1]
These words are from the second stanza of Don Henley’s 1989 song, “The Heart of the Matter.”[2] The song begins with the singer learning that his former girlfriend has found someone new. He muses that he could let the bitterness of lost love eat him up inside, but for his own good, he realizes he must forgive, even if she doesn’t love him anymore. Thoughts of forgiveness make him consider what a “graceless age” we live in, with people filled with rage. And yet what all of us need most is “a little tenderness” in place of pride and competition. I think this song has even more relevance now than it did when it was first written. The title says it all: The Heart of the Matter. Forgiveness, tenderness, humility, mercy, grace—these all get to the heart of the matter of what it means to be human.
OUR GRACELESS AGE
Ours is a graceless age, but it doesn’t have to be. We have allowed it to be filled with division, hate, fear, pride, and competition. Power-hungry politicians and money-grabbing Big Tech have fueled our divisions and fed our fears. Algorithms and the “echo chambers” of our media sources play to our worst instincts. Studies show that posts that stir our anger, especially toward “others,” are the most likely to be shared.[3]
“Grievance politics” has played a big part in fueling the fear, anxiety, and anger. Grievance politics seizes on a real or perceived grievance and seeks to right it. But often that “grievance” is carried to an extreme and used as a tool to gain political power. In her recent book, Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear, Amy Orr-Ewing says both the left and the right are to blame for “grievance” politics. The left seeks inclusion and justice for the marginalized, which are worthy causes. But what starts as a worthy cause turns into retribution, with justice being pursued in unjust ways (hence, the cancel culture). But Orr-Ewing writes that “victimhood is also a justification for right-wing rage and aggression against scapegoat foreigners who have ‘taken our jobs.’”[4] Grievance politics on the right has also fueled the rise of “toxic masculinity.” As Orr-Ewing writes, “grievance culture not only normalizes cruelty but also weaponizes it, turning what might historically be considered moral failings into celebrated political virtues.”[5]
But there is a way out of all this fear, hate, and division. There is a way out that validates the grievances of the victims while at the same time “disarming” the rage and hate and exposing those who try to use division to gain power. The way forward begins with forgiveness, which is the ancient and faithful way that God has always created new things among humans. Forgiveness changes the whole discussion, both for the victim and the perpetrator. Forgiveness redefines power, and in place of vengeance and hate, it infuses humanity with a new, more powerful energy.
WHAT BREAKS THE HOLD OF HATE
Orr-Ewing reminds us ours is not the first “graceless age” (and, unless Jesus comes sooner, it won’t be the last). Our age is reminiscent of the ancient Roman world: devoid of grace, filled with a lust for power, pleasure, hate, and division. But grace-filled, forgiven, and forgiving people transformed ancient Rome. One crucial tool the Romans used for political power was the horrible torture instrument of the cross. But God, in His wisdom, used the cross to transform humanity (1 Cor. 1:18-24). It was on a Roman cross that the God of the Universe, the One who has every right to judge all of us, took upon himself all the judgment and broke the cycle of hate, “disarming” the powers of this present evil age (Col. 2:15).
In the cross, God does an amazing thing: he takes up solidarity with the “other” and with those who are victims, while at the same time providing forgiveness for the perpetrators. The cross does not downplay the injustice done by humans but takes it seriously. “Forgiveness underlines the seriousness of the hurt and evil because forgiving requires the suffering and death of God. Forgiveness is not cheap.”[6] Those who have been victimized realize that God suffers with them, and His suffering love provides real healing. But perpetrators are also given a chance out of the spiraling descent of injustice and the opportunity for a “radical honesty” about their lives and motives. The cross shocks all of us to take a hard look into our own hearts.
One beauty of the cross is that it makes us all realize our need for grace and forgiveness. Another beauty is that the cross (and following the crucified Jesus) trains us to break cycles of hate by giving grace and forgiveness to others. “The truly revolutionary character of Jesus’ proclamation lies precisely in the connection between the hope he gives the oppressed and the radical change he requires of them.”[7] It is not just the perpetrators of violence and oppression who need to repent, but victims too, because “if victims do not repent today they will become perpetrators tomorrow.”[8] As Jesus repeatedly warned, “For if you do not forgive those who have wronged you, you will not be forgiven” (Matt. 7:15; 18:35).
THE WORLD IS READY FOR A NEW REVOLUTION
I think we are all sick of being played by politicians and Big Tech and ready for a new way of living and a new way of treating each other. In every generation, God breaks through with His revolutionary way of how we become human again. I think we are ready for that revolution. As N.T. Wright says:
Jesus’s followers are to go out into the world equipped with the power of his own Spirit to announce that a new reality has come to birth, that its name is ‘forgiveness.’ Something has happened that has unleashed this new kind of power into the world. That something is the chain-breaking, idol-smashing, sin-abandoning power called ‘forgiveness,’ called ‘utter-gracious love,’ called Jesus.
A new reality has been introduced to the world. This is at the heart of the ongoing revolution: that a new way of being human has been launched, a way that starts with forgiveness (God’s forgiveness of those who turn from now defeated idols) and continues with forgiveness (the forgiveness offered by Jesus’ followers in his name and by his Spirit to all who have wronged them).
The gospel of Jesus summons us to believe that the power of self-giving love unveiled on the cross is the real thing, the power that made the world in the first place and is now in the business of remaking it; and that the other forms of ‘power,’ the corrupt and self-serving ways in which the world is so often run, from global empires and multimillion businesses down to classrooms, families, and gangs, are the distortion.
Celebrate the revolution that happened once for all when the power of love overcame the love of power. And, in the power of that same love, join in the revolution here and now.[9]
[1] Don Henley. “The Heart of the Matter.” The End of the Innocence, Geffen, 1989.
[2] Co-written by Henley, Mike Campbell, and J.D. Souther.
[3] William J. Brady, Killian McLoulin, Tuan N. Doan, and Molly Crockett, “How Social Learning Amplifies Moral Outrage Expression in Online Social Networks,” Science Advances 7, no. 33 (2021).
[4] Amy Orr-Ewing, Forgiveness: Reclaiming Its Power in a Culture of Outrage and Fear (Brazos Press, 2026), 21.
[5] Orr-Ewing, Forgiveness, 22, 23.
[6] Orr-Ewing, Forgiveness, 27.
[7] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon Press, 1996), 114.
[8] Volf, Exclusion & Embrace, 117.
[9] N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion (HarperOne, 2016), 384-385, 399, 416.