There are moments in history when the goodness of humanity brilliantly illuminates the darkness. June 1, 2010, was just such a moment. The place, appropriately, was one of the darkest cities in America — Detroit, ravaged by the collapse of the automobile industry. At Comerica Park, the Detroit Tigers’ Armando Galarraga was pitching.

The crowd fell silent as Galarraga — a young man who had been slated to be sent to the minor leagues — retired the first 26 batters. He was on the verge of making baseball history. Only 20 perfect games have ever been pitched.

Galarraga was one out away from throwing the 21st. With two outs in the ninth, the Cleveland Indians batter hit an easy grounder to the Tiger first baseman. Galarraga, the pitcher, raced to cover first. It’s a routine play; Galarraga and the ball reached first base at least a step ahead of the runner. Galarraga was about to become a baseball immortal.

Except he didn’t. “Safe!” shouted umpire Jim Joyce. Galarraga’s response was a simple smile — a smile that, as Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated said, seemed to ask, “Are you sure? I really hope you are sure.”

The blown call outraged fans across the country. For Joyce’s part, as soon as he saw the replay, he knew that he had gotten it wrong. He told reporters, “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

By baseball standards, such an admission was extraordinary: Umpires are paid to make judgment calls and stand by them. Players and managers can argue with them, but only within limits, and with no expectation of having the call reversed.

So when Joyce apologized to Galarraga, we were already in unfamiliar territory. When Galarraga, in turn, forgave Joyce, adding that the umpire probably felt worse than he did and that “nobody’s perfect,” we were witnessing something extraordinary.

The victim of what Posnanski calls one of the “most absurd injustices in the history of baseball” went out of his way to comfort the umpire who made the mistake. And the umpire was humble enough to ask for forgiveness. It was a spontaneous, unforgettable moment.

The ability to forgive is one of the most powerful forces for good in any society. It can reconcile the most grievous altercations, which are an ever-present reality in a fallen world. Forgiveness brings about shalom — the biblical term for concord and harmony — between people who have the greatest differences imaginable and can transform institutions and even warring nations.

America is rightly known for its forgiving nature. The land of second chances, we like to say. What other nation in history has simultaneously fought major world wars against two mighty military powers — Japan and Germany — eventually conquered its attackers, and then turned right around to rebuild the very countries it fought?
And yet in recent years, Americans have become a deeply cynical and unforgiving people. A 1988 Gallup poll revealed that 50 percent of Americans do not believe that they could forgive others; another revealed that “forgiveness is something virtually all Americans aspire to” (94 percent) but “is not something we frequently offer.” Only 48 percent acknowledged attempting to forgive others. And yet, as Melissa Healy, in the Los Angeles Times article “The Science of Forgiveness” noted a few years ago, a refusal to forgive those who have harmed us can increase the risk of heart attacks and depression.

How and why did we reach this tragic place?

Some saw this sad state of affairs coming. In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a popular book titled Whatever Happened to Sin? Good question. What happened is that sin has become the most politically incorrect subject we can possibly raise in polite company, because it involves being judgmental.

But a society that doesn’t take sin seriously has difficulty taking forgiveness seriously: After all, if nobody does anything wrong, there’s nothing to forgive.

The consequences of this are compounded by the long-running series of public transgressions, from the granddaddy of all scandals — Watergate — to the savings-and-loan scandals, Enron, Wall Street, and a raft of “pro-family” lawmakers like Gov. Mark Sanford being caught in adulterous affairs.

This parade of offenses, besides giving hypocrisy — the tribute vice pays to virtue — a bad name, has inured people, turning us into a nation of cynics. Americans have become accustomed to the stage-managed, scripted public apology. Americans have come to recognize that those doing the apologizing seem to be a lot sorrier for having been caught than for engaging in sinful behavior.

Consider Tiger Woods, who was forced to reveal that he had been unfaithful to his wife. I watched as Woods stood in front of the cameras and gave a tortured attempt at an apology. And then, in a monotone, with all the emotion of a marionette on a string, he asked for forgiveness. But his effort fell flat, because it was clear that he was reading from a script. No questions were allowed.

For me, and millions of others, I suspect, it was shattering to watch. This young man was tutored by his dad, close to his own family — so it seemed — and a great role model. Why couldn’t he face up to his failure and ask God and his family and his fans to forgive him? There was not a hint of authenticity. This may be why Woods continued to lose endorsements and why few people showed much sympathy toward him.

The difference between Tiger Woods and umpire Jim Joyce is sincerity. Joyce did not have to apologize, and yet he did — with deep regret for a mistake any umpire could have made. And because his apology was sincerely offered, Armando Galarraga accepted it, willingly forgiving someone who had done him harm.

But with such widespread public cynicism, many Americans no longer recognize genuine repentance when they see it, never mind offer sincere forgiveness. I’ve experienced this. Five years after Watergate I was invited to appear on The Phil Donahue show. By then I had been working in the prisons for about four years. My conversion to Christianity had been well publicized, and I had made public statements of genuine repentance.

But that day I ran into a buzz-saw of hatred. When Donahue made a particularly condemning statement, the audience would erupt in catcalls. Donahue really baited me. When I tried to answer his questions, he cut me off. One working-class woman in the audience got up and said, “I don’t understand all you big shots. You get into big trouble and you steal us poor people blind. And then you claim to have found religion, and now you’ve got God on your side. Why don’t you guys just find God and go home and be quiet?”

The audience cheered wildly. I was upset because while I knew my conversion was sincere, I also knew there was no way I was going to convince this woman. And I understand why in the succeeding years the cynicism has only deepened.

But I wish that woman, and so many others, could come with me into America’s prisons where she would witness what is missing in our culture. I’ve seen extraordinary examples of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation behind prison walls — dark, dank places that are Satan’s playground.

For instance, many years ago, a young woman named Dee Dee Washington sat in a car waiting for her boyfriend, a young man who, unbeknownst to Dee Dee, was purchasing drugs. The boyfriend got into an altercation with the drug dealer, whose name was Ron Flowers. Racing from the scene, Ron pulled out a gun and shot Dee Dee as she waited in the car. She died of her wounds, and Flowers was convicted of her murder.

— Chuck Colson is the founder of Prison Fellowship. This essay is an excerpt from Acculturated.