Jesus combines a deep commitment to seeing “the oppressed go free” with an acute awareness that the oppressed—that we!—need repentance, a radical reorientation of basic attitudes and actions in response to God’s coming salvation. “Blessed are the poor” and “Blessed are the pure” belong inseparably together (Matthew 5:3, 8). Without a “politics of the pure heart” every politics of liberation will trip over its own feet—the son who was named “Jihad” will infuse another mother with a hatred so pure that she too will inscribe “revenge” into the very identity of her offspring
