Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

by Miroslav Volf

Why does the call to repentance include the oppressed (in addition to the oppressors who are incomparably greater transgressors)? Why the talk of their sin and forgiveness? Because little “Jihads” along with their mothers and fathers need not only material and psychological help, but release from the understandable but nonetheless inhumane hatred in which their hearts are held captive. Put more generally and more theologically, victims need to repent because social change that corresponds to the vision of God’s reign—God’s new world—cannot take place without a change of their heart and behavior. Granted, many a false prophet used the message of repentance to stabilize the order of oppression: “the religion of the sinful soul” served to divert attention from “the economics of dirty deals” and “politics of ruthless power.” We would be unwise, however, to let this outrageous misuse blind us to the extraordinary social significance of the victim’s repentance. If it did, in our own way we would be guilty of the same sin the false prophets are guilty of—we would perpetuate the old order of oppression while self-righteously declaring ourselves the vanguard of the new order of liberty. Let me elaborate on what may be called “the politics of the pure heart.”

To Volf, repentance of the oppresed is that sin of hatred and loathing of the vicious oppressor