We’re told to forgive. But what does that even mean?
For a culture with a simmering anger problem, we spend a lot of time preoccupied with forgiveness: From 12- step programs advocating amends, to asana yoga classes dedicated to radical compassion, to forgiveness spells available for purchase on Etsy, we are regularly reminded that personal growth requires us to forgive.
But what does that word even mean? And what does it look like in practice?
By way of an answer, many Western philosophers point toward Judeo-Christian concepts of forgiveness as interpreted by Joseph Butler, an 18th- century bishop and prolific apologist. Butler argued for an understanding of forgiveness as the overcoming of resentment accomplished by self- mastery and tolerance for others. However, even that interpretation leaves room for scholarly debate: Is forgiveness an act or a feeling? Does it require us to view a wrongdoer with benevolence, or is merely checking our desire for revenge sufficient?
These are the questions underlying Alex Mar’s “Seventy Times Seven,” a chilling account of a homicide that left a 78- yearold woman dead and an already divided community grasping for answers. Unlike with many recent works of true crime, there is no tease of whodunit or a potential miscarriage of justice here: As Mar makes explicit in her prologue, “this is not a story of wrongful conviction.” Instead, the facts of the case were disturbingly clear from the outset. One May afternoon in 1985, three teenage girls appeared at the door of Ruth Pelke’s home in Gary, Ind. Pelke was well known for teaching children’s Bible classes out of the community’s living rooms. Under the guise of seeking information about religious instruction, the teenagers entered Pelke’s house, intending to rob her. One, 15- yearold Paula Cooper, carried a butcher knife wrapped in her denim jacket. As Pelke started to jot down information about her Bible classes, Cooper bludgeoned her and then stabbed her more than 30 times.
It didn’t take long for the police to solve the crime: Cooper left her jacket and a prescription for birth control pills at the scene. The three girls, along with a fourth accomplice, stole Pelke’s car and were seen driving it, a bloody knife discarded on the floor. Once apprehended, all four teenagers readily confessed to the murder. And that’s when this otherwise clear- cut story became much thornier, as the larger Gary community found itself grappling with impossible questions about how to punish children convicted of murder.
The 1980s was an era defined by tough- on- crime grandstanding and a renewed use of the death penalty nationwide ( a 1972 Supreme Court decision had voided all capital statutes in this country; however, the moratorium ended in 1976). Driven by political ambition, the Lake County prosecutor Jack Crawford sought the harshest possible sentences for each of the four girls. That included the death penalty for Cooper. The case, Crawford argued, was one that “shocked the human conscience,” a legal concept often used to seek extreme remedies in court. What Crawford didn’t publicly acknowledge but clearly implied were the added optics of the case: Pelke was white; Cooper was Black and came from a broken home. Pelke’s murder played directly into many white voters’ deeply held prejudices.
Mar characterizes Crawford as gratified when a judge sentenced Cooper to death: He erroneously crowed in a press release about her status as the youngest person in modern America to receive the death penalty. ( That dubious distinction was actually held by George Stinney Jr., who was 14 when he was convicted of murder and executed in 1944.) Nationwide, more than a few Americans shared Crawford’s enthusiasm — including, at least initially, all of the surviving Pelke relatives to whom Mar spoke.
But then, not long after Cooper’s sentencing, Ruth’s adult grandchild, Bill Pelke, experienced a sudden change of heart. While working the night shift in the fiery bowels of the Bethlehem Steel Mill, Pelke had a revelation: He should forgive Cooper, just as he was certain his grandmother had. He later composed a letter to Cooper, expressing his forgiveness and desire that she be spared the death penalty.
But that was just the start of Pelke’s crusade for mercy.
Inspired by the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus tells Peter to forgive his brother “70 times seven” times, Pelke continued his own radical transformation. He began campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty. He cofounded an advocacy group for family members of murder victims who oppose capital punishment and toured the country, protesting outside of prisons and speaking at schools and churches — work he would detail in his self- published memoir, “Journey of Hope.” That work became consuming, hastening the end of his second marriage and perhaps even his death ( Pelke died of a heart attack in 2020).
“Seventy Times Seven” details this journey and its impact not only on the Pelke family, but on Cooper’s family as well.
A documentary filmmaker and former editor at Rolling Stone, Mar is also the author of “Witches of America,” a stunning work of participatory reportage and cultural anthropology. I found myself wanting more of that approach here. Instead, Mar relies upon a single, immediate vantage point. This lends itself to some highly cinematic scenes, such as the moment of Bill Pelke’s epiphany, in which Mar directs our gaze as if it were a camera: “Move in closer,” she writes. “And here is the familiar image: Ruth Pelke, with a ring of soft, silvery- white curls around her head, high cheekbones, a beatific half- smile.” However, more often than not, the present- tense narration interferes with a reader’s understanding of the case, its players and the sequence of events. It also requires Mar to rely heavily on awkward transitions that can feel dislocating. (“And now it is 1985.” “Now hours have passed.” “And now it is Tuesday night.”) But the biggest drawback of this approach is the way it limits Mar’s ability to reflect on the significance of particular moments and to explore their larger sociopolitical implications.
Too bad, because there’s a lot to be said on those counts — and I suspect Mar is exactly the right kind of journalist to do so.