Atheist Humbled by Christian Forgiveness

Teresa Neumann : Mar 4, 2013
Ruth Dudley Edwards – The Telegraph UK

"I am an atheist, but I prize the Christian heritage that has done so much to make this a kindly country." -Ruth Dudley Edwards

(United Kingdom)?Writing for The Telegraph UK, reporter Ruth Dudley Edwards recently penned a story entitled "Humbled by the Courage of Those Who Forgive."

In it, Edwards?who states that she is an atheist?details the events of a tragic accident in 2011 which claimed the life of 77-year-old Patricia Machin's husband Gerrard. Struck by the car of Brian Williamson, Gerrard was apparently killed on impact. (Photo: BNPS)

When Patricia later received an apology from the Crown Prosecution Service, however, that it was deemed that Williamson would ONLY be charged with careless driving, she responded by saying, "I assume this to mean that you expect me to have wished for a harsher charge to have been brought against [Williamson] . . . Nothing could be further from the truth."

Writes Edwards, regarding the surprise expressed by those in Britain's criminal justice system: "Why were people so astonished? Mrs. Machin and her late husband were Christians who really lived up to their beliefs."

"I am an atheist," says Edwards, "but I prize the Christian heritage that has done so much to make this a kindly country." Referring to the violence in Northern Ireland, she adds, "I have often been humbled by the way in which bereaved people set out to forgive those that had caused them terrible heartache?who have listened to the words of the Gospels in which they believed . . ."