No One Is Innocent

As I continue through Miroslav Volf's Exclusion and Embrace, I must admit mixed feelings. At times he weaves a tapestry of dialectics that is a wonder to behold, even if it is, in the end, meaningless. On the other hand, he occasionally composes passages of profound prophetic power (I like the alliterative lilt of that, don't you?). One of Volf's moves in his exploration of identity and exclusion is a leveling of the playing field between the victim and victimizer, between the oppressor and oppressed. By recognizing the universality of human sinfulness, we come to a place from which negotiation may ensue. Or, perhaps, we come to a place where those who perpetrate crimes against others receive a "get-out-of-hell-free" card. The dilemma is not a small one from a theological perspective, and in the following passage, Volf addresses it head on (the passage comes from pp. 84-85 of Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Mirolsav Volf, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996):

Where does the "no innocence" perspective leave us? Gzing paraluzed at a world in which "fair is foul and foul is fair"? Listlessly withdrawn from a wolrd in which no improvement is possible, because every action is a shot in the dark? What gain does recognition of solidarity in sin bring? In addition to freeing us "from delusions about the perfectibility of ourselves and our institutions" (Wink 1992b, 71), it pricks the balloons of the self-righteousness of perpetrator and victim alike and protects all from perpetuating evil in the name of presumed goodness. Solidarity in sin underscores that no salvation can be expected from an approach that rests fundamentally on the moral assignment of blame and innocence. The question cannot be how to locate "innocence" either on the intellectual or social map and work our way toward it. Rather, the question is how to live with integrity and bring healing to a world of inescapable noninnocence that often parades as its opposite. The answer: in the name of the one truly innocent victim and what he stood for, the crucified Messiah of God, we should demask as inescapably sinful the world constructed around exclusive moral polarities - here, on our side, "the just", "the pure", "the innocent", "the true", "the good", and there, on the other side, "the unjust", "the corrupt", "the guilty", "the liars", "the evil" - and then seek to transform the world in which justice and injustice, goodness and evil, innocence and guilt, purity and corruption, truth and deception crisscross and intersect, guided by the recognition that the economy of undeserved grace has primacy over the economy of moral deserts.[italics in original] Under the conditions of pervasive noninnocence, the work of reconciliation should proceed under the assumption that, though the behavior of a person may be judged as deplorable, even demonic, no one should ever be excluded from the will to embrace[italics in original] because, at the deepest level, the relationship to others does not rest on their moral performance and therefore cannot be undone by the lack of it.

I believe there is much truth here, although I also believe that it is necessary to arrive here only after a certain, how can I put this, honest self-assessment. That is, rather than first saying, "you know, we're all sinful", we should begin with a confession of our own sin, not as a condition of humanity, but the very real evils we have committed against others.

This is not to damp down the truth embedded within this passage (especially in light of our President's repeated invocation of the "us versus them" rhetoric, the labeling of our alleged adversaries as "evildoers", and his continued insistence that nothing less than ridding the world of evil is his goal). It is only to suggest that the realization of what Volf calls "pervasive noninnocence" should only arrive after we have admitted our own noninnocence.