By Stan Friedman
CHICAGO, IL (September 14, 2006) – Miroslav Volf, one of the world’s premier theologians, told a gathering at North Park University last week that people have the “moral obligation” to work together in remembering the past correctly if they are to live peacefully in the future.
The professor of theology at Yale University has focused much of his career on addressing tough issues of reconciliation. He is the author of Exclusion and Embrace, ranked by Christianity Today as one of the 100 most important religious books of the twentieth century.
Reconciliation can only happen if parties are willing to move beyond self-justification and admit their own contributions to conflict, Volf said.
Violence and vengeance rage, he added, because most people, nations and ethnic groups are more interested in protecting their version of the truth than they are in resolving conflict. “The claim that we possess the truth is a dangerous claim,” he said.
Volf contends that all parties in a conflict must realize they have only a “provisional truth.” Or, as the Bible says, they “see in part.”
Volf has first hand experience in dealing with conflict in society and personal struggles with reconciliation. One of his first teaching posts was at a seminary in his native Croatia—the school had to relocate because of ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia that has led to thousands of deaths, including the murders of children.
Sin will cause people to remember in way of pursuing their own interests. Instead of taking responsibility, people prefer to make themselves out as victims, Volf said. “No one likes the wrongdoing sitting on their shoulders.”
Claiming to be the victim in conflict serves another purpose as well: the victim is the one who has the power to forgive. Forgiving is far easier than repenting, Volf explained.
Forgiveness must be sought as an act of community building through reconciliation and not just a matter of changing one’s own heart. Volf pointed to the Eucharist, in which people acknowledge their sin towards God and each other and then accept forgiveness, as an example of the church modeling reconciliation.
Volf was the speaker in the University’s campus theme program, which is focusing on the question “What is truth?” He took issue with the postmodern idea that all people’s viewpoints are equally valid, “just like some people think that all religions are the same.”
“That all sounds very humble,” he said, “but the flip side of that is the person with the most power decides which truth is going to stick. That power can be physical or rhetorical. The weak, he said, are the victims of the idea that all (truths) are roughly the same.”
Volf says he roots his view of the future in his Christian faith. “We do anticipate the day in which God will tell the truth about our lives.” Until that day, he added, means people are obliged to work to remember truthfully.
“My hope for the end of the age is not just a great judgment day, but also a grand day of reconciliation,” he concluded.
Volf’s books Exclusion and Embrace can be purchased at Covenant Bookstore online at www.covenantbookstore.com.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
