David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Derksen said. “I was taught it in school.
We were taught the history of
persecution. We had this picture of
martyrdom that went right back to the
sixteenth century. The whole Mennonite
philosophy is that we forgive and we
move on.” To the Mennonites,
forgiveness is a religious imperative:
Forgive those who trespass against
you. But it is also a very practical
strategy based on the belief that there are
profound limits to what the formal
mechanisms of retribution can
accomplish. The Mennonites believe in
the inverted-U curve.
Mike Reynolds had none of that
understanding of limits. He believed, as
a matter of principle, that the state and