This picture of reconciliation puts an enormous amount of weight on forgiveness as the mechanism that exorcizes the past.19 But too often reconciliation goes forward without the ameliorating work of reparations, without addressing the past for the sake of the future, leaving reconciliation incomplete. Forgiveness tied to an incomplete picture of reconciliation is not strong enough to carry all the weight this picture of reconciliation puts on it. Without reparations there can be no forgiveness, and without forgiveness there can be no reconciliation.
