Chapter Three, pages 111-119

The Politics of the Pure Heart

After recounting a horrible story in which a woman abused pledges to teach hatred and vengeance to her child, Volf dives directly into the heart of reconciliation. In order for such work to advance, it needs to be undertaken not just by the perpetrators of violence and hatred, but most especially by the victims and the oppressed.

This might ring strangely in our ears, but Volf's point is a good and solid one. He goes straight to Jesus' teachings and the fact that those who listened most closely were the oppressed of the day. Usually poor, usually uneducated or poorly educated, members of an occupied country, and living in the lower echelons of society, they heard Jesus call them to hearts that were humble and lives that reflected love of God and neighbor. Twined throughout this message was the underlying message of repentance.

Volf reminds us of the true meaning of repentance: "To repent means to make a turnabout of a profound moral and religious import. Repentance implies not merely a recognition that one has made a bad mistake, but that one has sinned." It is not enough to say "I'm sorry" and walk away. Instead, repentance means fully understanding the action that one took and the harm that came from that action, and then resolving fully to engage in that action no more.

But how can we apply the need for repentance to those who are victims? This has long been the sticking point, where the hatred and anger of the victim or oppressed becomes justified as a correct response to the wrongs experienced. This is the problem, says Volf, that has allowed the cycle to return and create more oppressors out of those who were oppressed, and more victimizers out of those who were victims.

The victim cannot and should not repent for the violence done to her, but she can and she must repent of the anger and hatred that violence almost inevitable engenders. The oppressed cannot and should not repent for the policies that make each and every day a hell to bear, but he can and he must repent of the plans of violence that spin in his head to make things even. If the victim or the oppressed can repent of the destructive emotions and responses and instead seek ways to pray for the enemy, then the cycle of violence and oppression can be broken and true reconciliation has a chance to break through.