Monday, 23 March 2015

Exclusion and Embrace: Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation,
Miroslav Volf, Abingdon Press, 1996, page 138-139

In the chapter entitled 'Embrace' Volf has been talking about how embrace can be effected. He looks forward to the final redemption, when he suggests that the last act will non-remembring. He says that we will all be freed by the loss of memory of all unredeemed past and that this will allow former enemies to embrace within G-d's embrace. Then he asks whether that vision has any bearing in our life today. His answer?

It does - provided we do not forget that, as long as the Messiah has not come in glory, for the sake of the victims, we must keep alive the memory of their suffering; we must know it, we must remember it, and we must sat it out loud for all to hear.

So does that mean that Jewish believers should continue to remember the bad behaviour of the church for the sake of the victims and to try and prevent its repetition? This is given as one of the major reasons for remembering the Holocaust. But are we, as believers, called to remember and to continue to speak aloud of times such as the Inquisition, the pogroms, the forced conversions? Or should we forgive and move on; not, perhaps, quite forgetting, but at least not continue to shout about it, so that the wound can heal?