Have Mercy: A Timeless Virtue for a Merciless Age

In this bracing and hopeful book, Constantine R. Campbell makes the case that Western civilization's retreat from mercy—once its defining virtue—is fueling the cruelty of our current moment, as evidenced by harsh treatment of those who are suffering or vulnerable, ruthless retaliation against perceived enemies, and more. Have Mercy is a stirring call to rediscover mercy's power to heal broken people and fractured communities.

Campbell traces mercy's historical rise and fall, showing how it became a core value in the West with the rise of Christianity, how it was pushed to the margins from the Enlightenment onward, and what its slow disappearance is costing us now. Woven throughout the book is a single unforgettable example: Jean Valjean, the hunted ex-convict of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, whose life is changed by an unexpected act of mercy and who serves as the book's guiding thread. What Hugo imagined, history has repeatedly made real, as Campbell shows through fifteen "models of mercy"—Augustine, Abraham Lincoln, Corrie ten Boom, Nelson Mandela, and more—whose commitments to mercy transformed the lives of those around them.

For anyone distressed by the viciousness that pervades public life today, Have Mercy offers hope. It recovers a powerful virtue that can unite people across faith and political divides. And it directly addresses the question so many are asking today: How do I push back against cruelty without becoming cruel myself? The answer is both timeless and newly urgent: Embrace mercy.