Chapter Two, pages 79-85

Contrived Innocence


I'll admit right at the beginning that I found this section to be a little weak. Maybe it's because Volf is "preaching to the choir," or because I didn't hear anything new or newly explained. Still, the understanding of sin as a universal experience is central to the struggle with embracing the other, so it is an important section to work through.

The underlying point here is that there is no such thing as "innocence." We are all stained with sin, either wrong thoughts, wrong actions, or wrong lack of action. Volf spends quite a bit of time showing how both the "perpetrator" and the "victim" are caught in this cycle of sin, with neither completely blameless. Even if a victim does nothing to warrant being abused at that precise moment in time, that person may well be the abuser at another point, and can never claim to be without sin.

The greater problem, I believe, is what Volf touches on at the beginning of this section. It's not that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but the claim that it's "not my fault." The inability to honestly assess our actions and call them sinful or harmful is a growing epidemic in this world. On the other side of the coin is the inability to honestly admit to ourselves and to others those sins, and sincerely ask for forgiveness. The more we pass off our problems as "someone else's fault," the further we get from being able to enter into life-giving relationships.

As with any difficult subject, the immediate tendency is to say, "I know exactly what you're talking about! In fact, this person I know never takes responsibility for..." This will never bring about any kind of change, because we can never change another person or how that person chooses to act. Instead, we have to look to ourselves, to our own shortcomings, our own failures, our own contrived innocence, and admit that we have tried to pass ourselves off as blameless. If each one of us can begin by seeing this tendency within ourselves, then we will be one step closer to stopping the cycle of sin and blame in our own lives.

Why does this matter? Assigning blame is an easy way to erect barriers between ourselves and those who are different in some way. Claiming innocence means that we don't have any moral obligation to improve or establish a relationship that is strained by difference. Seeing sin in everyone else and not yourself offers a handy reason to be removed and remote, in order to remain pure. By accepting the words of Scripture, "if you say you are without sin you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you," barriers begin to fall, pointing fingers can become open hands, and sinful people can begin to work together for the benefit of the world.