Peacemaking includes being able to admit being wrong. So stories of people who publicly acknowledge being wrong are encouraging and instructive.

Recently, author Joshua Harris has acknowledged that the popular book he wrote some twenty years ago, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, was not only naïve but in some cases caused harm, and asked his publisher to cease publishing it. Harris realizes that he was “young, certain, zealous and restlessly ambitious,” when he discouraged Christians from dating, a view he now recognizes as not based on Scripture.

“Admitting that I was wrong hasn’t been easy for me. I’ve angered people who still like my book, and my efforts are understandably viewed as inadequate by the people who were hurt. But I’m glad I set out on this journey because it’s been a pathway of transformation for me, and I’ve heard from others who have found healing in knowing they’re not alone in reconsidering old ways of thinking…

“Admitting I was wrong about the biggest accomplishment of my life has given me a greater willingness to admit that I don’t have all the answers…”

Mr. Harris notes that critics are referring to his current round of talks as an “apology tour.” Should one apologize for promoting a particular viewpoint that one later regrets? Apology is appropriate when there has been an offense. But writing a book promoting a particular lifestyle is not in itself offensive. Readers are free to accept or reject the ideas in Mr. Harris’s book, so if readers were harmed, perhaps it’s because they put too much stock in Mr. Harris’s ideas without evaluating those ideas for themselves. Perhaps it’s a matter of influence: Mr. Harris used his influence to promote a particular viewpoint that he now realizes was incorrect. Whether or not others were harmed, it’s a matter of integrity now for him to correct that viewpoint.

Mr. Harris is to be admired for admitting publicly that he was “wrong.” That takes humility.

The New Orleans District Attorney’s office is implementing restorative justice to resolve murder cases. It’s been used to induce a plea agreement for one murderer, and reduce the sentence of another.

Jeremy Burse was just 15 in 2010 when he and his friend Anthony Davis, 16, tried to rob a security guard. Burse shot at the fleeing security guard and the bullet ricocheted, striking and killing Davis. Burse was sentenced to life without parole, but the U.S. Supreme Court held that life sentences for juvenile offenders were unconstitutional, so the Orleans Parish DA office decided to use a process it termed mediation to review Burse’s sentence.

The mediation involved Burse, by then 21, his attorney, his family, victim Anthony Davis’s mother Gilda Davis, and Assistant DA Laura Rodrigue, who heads the restorative justice unit for the Orleans Parish DA office. Apparently after an emotional half-day meeting, they all agreed to recommend that Burse plead to an amended charge of manslaughter and receive a 25-year sentence for that. The judge agreed.

Gilda Davis said afterwards that Burse had offered a tearful apology during the mediation.

In an earlier case, a process called mediation was used to induce a defendant to plead guilty to manslaughter on the day his murder trial was scheduled to begin. The defendant, Cornell Augustine, was remorseful, and the victim’s family was willing to consider forgiveness over vengeance, so Assistant DA Rodrigue thought this might be a good case for mediation. The defendant and his attorney met with the DA and the victim’s family to discuss a plea deal. The defendant could have faced life in prison if convicted of murder; instead he was sentenced to 30 years on the manslaughter conviction.

The articles on these mediations imply that the DA was herself the mediator between the offender and the victim’s family—but of course the DA is hardly neutral, so it’s not clear to me that this is really mediation. It may be an expanded guilty-plea negotiation, or more like a 3-way negotiation, since the DA’s interests don’t align perfectly with the victim’s family. Typically mediation has been used in the criminal context only post-conviction, to determine sentencing, and never in cases involving violent crimes. Even if this isn’t quite mediation, it’s interesting to see an alternative approach being used in criminal cases to everyone’s satisfaction.