Ten years later...evil and forgiveness

 

Miroslav Volf in his 2002 work "Exclusion and Embrace" suggests that: Whether we are dealing with international relations or one on one personal relations, evil must be named and confronted. Only when that has been done, both evil and the evildoer have been identified as what and who they are then they can be dealt with - this is what Volf means by "exclusion". Then and only then can there be the second move towards "embrace", the embrace of the one who has deeply hurt and wounded us or me. Of course, even then this may not happen if the perpetrator of the evil refuses to see his or her action in that light. But if I have named the evil and done my best to offer genuine forgiveness and reconciliation, I'm free to love the person even if they do not want to respond.

A second most important insight on the nature of forgiveness come from Bishop Desmond Tutu in his work "No Future Without Forgiveness" which is a recount of what happened in South Africa through the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which saw white security forces and black guerillas both confessing in public to their violent and horrific crimes against each other. Through these confessions the families of those who suffered were able for the first time begin the process of true grieving. The whole painful process pointed to a new way of being human as perpetrators were released from the burden of the anger of the victims and the victims were freed from the burden of the evil that was committed against them and from the crippled emotional existence in which they would go on living if they did not forgive.

Forgiveness then, including God's forgiveness of us, our forgiveness of one another and our forgiveness even of ourselves, is a central part of deliverance from evil.