Customer Reviews

The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World

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Miroslav Volf is an evangelical theologian and professor at Yale Divinity School. He also grew up in the former Yugoslavia and its communist rule. And it is precisely his experiences in Yugoslavia during his year of mandatory military service that provide the focus for this book, a sustained reflection on the meaning of memory and grace with regard to wrongs committed against us.

Volf sets up his reflections by recounting his memory of the sustained interrogations to which he was subjected by "Captain G." during his year of military service. Because of his training in America, his background in theology, his critique of Marxism, and his marriage to an American, he was a person of suspicion. This resulted in sustained interrogations, threats of detainment, and psychological torture. This background leads him to the question, What does it mean to remember these wrongs done against us?

The first stage of his argument deals with the question of if we should remember. In today's culture, especially in the wake of the Holocaust and other attrocities of the past century, the answer seems an obvious yes. And Volf echoes this answer, marshalling the call of such people as Elie Wiesel, who rally around the cry, Remember! It is important to acknowledge wrongdoing, and to recognize both those who are wrong and those who have been wronged. But, he also turns us to wrestle with the question of how we should remember.

Memory is important, but it is also ambiguous. Memory can be put to many uses. It can help us to prevent further wrongs or atrocities, but it can also lead us to perpetrate wrongs out of self-interest (say out of the desire to not be a victim again ourselves). So the first facet of memory that Volf emphasizes is that we must remember truthfully. This means honestly seeking as complete an understanding of events as possible, admitting the points of view of others than ourselves, and acknowledging the complexities that are often inherent in these situations. It is often easy in situations where we have been wronged to make out the perpetrator as the "evil" party and ourselves as the "good" or "innocent" party. But the facts often reveal a more complex picture. While the evil can still be named as such, there is often more to it, such as the fact that Captain G. was operating within a system that condoned and encouraged his behavior toward Volf and other suspects. A second important facet of our remembering is that it is to be in service of reconciliation. We are to strive to bring a full and accurate account of events to mind so that we can fully acknowledge the situation, along with the perperatator, and then offer forgiveness and grace to that person, and, when it is received, enter into a new and reconciled relationship with them, beyond the roles of perpetrator and victim, where the wrong is forgotten.

This brings us to the third major theme of Volf's book. Beyond memory, and beyond a certain type of remembering in service of grace, comes forgetting. We should strive toward and look forward to a grace-filled world in which wrongs are fully acknowledged and then forgotten. In light of Jesus' death on the cross, a death which dealt with all evil, we look forward in hope to a time when that grace will embrace our situation. Volf is careful to remind that this forgetting is always on the other side of acknowledgement, forgiveness, and reconciliation, but it is still an end. We should (though it is not easy) long for a time when perpetrator and victim can come together without those labels, when a new and reconcilied relationship has forgotten completely those earlier roles, and draws them together as friends and companions. This is Volf's vision of the life to come, on the other side of the final judgment, a life that we can begin to experience here and now through a drive for reconciliation (as opposed to retribution).

Volf's End of Memory is an honest wrestling with the true nature of Christianity, the atonement, and grace. It helps paint a fuller picture of grace by looking beyond what grace means for me personally to a look at what grace should mean for my enemies, as well. He makes a convincing case for the importance of memory, a truthful and just type of memory, but then qualifies this memory as provisional. We instead look toward the end of memory, that time when all things will be made new, all wrongs remembered and then forgotten, and all eyes turned from past hurts to fulfillment and joy in Jesus Christ. It is a great and challenging vision of a grace-filled life. And is also a deep reflection what shapes our identity (hint: it's not our history, though that plays a role; who we are is ultimately grounded in God.)

I've just started reading this newest book by Volf, and its every bit as nuanced and sophisticated as "Exclusion and Embrace" and accessible as "Free of Charge." If either of these books grabbed you, you'll want to read this one, too. Hopefully, this be as widely read and acclaimed as Volf's other books, and Eerdmans will issue a paperback edition. If I were back in seminary, I would certainly want this to be on any reading list I received having to do with contemporary Christian ethics and social issues.

In a post Holocaust, post (this is ethonocentric, I know) 9/11 world the world, we are commonly called to Remember the wrongs, both terrible and minute, forever. The idea runs: If we forget, we disgrace the victim and allow the perpetrator to go free. But Volf, stirred deeply both by his own trying life situations and abiding faith in Christ, declares we should not allow this false form of eternal remebering to take us away from the work of Christ. Not to seek reconciliation, not to seek forgiveness in its proper way is to fail to understand who Christ, the gracious act of redemption and reconcilliation with the Triune God, and the ultimate eschatological goal Christ draws us towards (this is primary to Volf's understanding of theology in general. Faith in Christ is eschatologicaly pulled forward).

The book is accessible and thought provoking. We must let Volf's vision of faith challenge and grow us.

Volf gets to the heart of our society's bullying stance by asking: How much of my (our) future will I (we) allow our tormentors to colonize? With the mind and method of premier scholarship and the heart of a poet, Volf probes the question personally and asks it publicly. Never an easy read, but probably an essential one for folks of real hope and deep honesty. He is clear, "Both ways in which this book disturbs conventional opinion are rooted in a single conviction: the proper goal of the memory of wrongs suffered-- its appropriate end-- is the formation of the communion of love between all people, including victims and perpetrators."(p.232) He desires a radical responsibility of all people and challenges us to step into it by learning to "remember rightly."

Miroslav Volf addresses an impelling question: How should a Christian recall injustices and forgive those who have committed them? His 2006 monograph crosses numerous hurdles to answer the question. Troubled by cheap opinions that substitute platitudes for genuine forgiveness, Volf contends with memories of torture he sustained while conscripted in service to the former-Yugoslavia's military 25 years ago. His conclusion proposes "the proper goal of memory of wrongs suffered" (emphasis his, p. 232).

The proper or right goal of memory re-unites perpetrator and victim in the communion of Christ's love. United by this communion of love, Volf welcomes salvation in Christ as replenishing native shelves of true felicity. As Volf considers the eschaton, neither wrong-doers and their acts nor repentant hearts can no more linger in fault, because memory becomes spared of unsettled scores otherwise crystallized in an "eternity of evil." Therefore, salvation from such torments in memory unburdens everyone of perceived need to recollect a grudge for their own Sisyphean penance. Like Sisyphus of ancient myth, a tit-for-tat can only reach the top of a hill before rolling back down again. Of course, there are hefty critics who depict an indelible mark of evil on memory.

Volf addresses varied critics who might counter that bondage to penance is not only human, but ought to be divine. For example, the "Master of the Universe" should always remember without forgiving the "killers and accomplices" of Auschwitz and Treblinka, according to an obiter dictum by Elie Wiesel (p. 212). Volf's view counters Wiesel's by distilling a sermon by St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Soul and Resurrection), for the soul in moving toward the eschaton in Christ "...drives out memory from its mind in its occupation with the enjoyment of good things" (p. 187).

"Imagine this book as a suspension bridge" from lex talionis to memory before the Fault marred the Architect's plan. Certainly no bridge lacks imperfection, but this one comes close.

Though Volf only occasionally mentions being a pacifist within these pages, I love this book as it benefits the discussion of pacifism as not merely a simple subscription to "war is bad", but as true respect for human life and Christ's love. Indeed we must explore the intricate human relations involved in making such an assertion.

Miroslav Volf brings us into an eloquent, yet difficult, discussion on remembering wrongs TRUTHFULLY in order to work towards healing and ultimately forgiveness, graduated to an end to memory of such wrongs in order to truly move forward.

While I hope I do not do a disservice to this wonderful book by writing a condensed review, I believe that anyone holding a grudge, pointing fingers, or honestly feeling hurt by wrongs suffered should explore Volf's humble reflection.

This would do well for the criminal justice community, social workers, counselors, and I think most importantly: parents. Christians may find Volf's exploration beneficial to their growth in Christian ethics, but I believe that the secular or non-Christian will find 'End' helpful in explaining certain aspects of pacifism.

As with most books of philophical discussion, The End of Memory is not as easy to read as lets say a common novel, so it may take those like me a little exra time to read and comprehend... though I suppose that helps give one a chance to seriously think about each page. My fourth star is because of this, but I suppose that may be my shortcoming not Volf's.

I look forward to reading 'Exclusion and Embrace'.

Is it possible to forget atrocities, and should one really forgive abusers? How does memory interact with social injunctions that past wrongs never be forgotten? THE END OF MEMORY: REMEMBERING RIGHTLY IN A VIOLENT WORLD will appeal to many different collections; from health and psychology holdings to social issues and history collections at the college level. These libraries will find both controversial and insightful discussions that delve into both the origins of violent memories and their purposes and the conflicts over whether to keep them alive for future generations or in the background to allow healing.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Wonderful book! At times uncomfortably honest, very deep, inciteful, and practical. Volf articulates his arguments clearly, and his thought process is well organized throughout the book. I highly recommed this book.

Haven't had time to read it but author was on Hour of Power show in California