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I think a very good example of this kind of possibility is what's happening in South Africa with the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There was a marvelous piece in the Christian Century by Peter Storey, past president of the Methodist church in South Africa, in which he argues that the experiences of the commission there point "beyond conventional retribution into a realm where justice and mercy coalesce, and both victim and perpetrator must know pain if healing is to happen. It is an area more consistent with Calvary than the courtroom. It is the place where the guilty discover the pain of forgiveness." I think we ought to explore what this may mean for our judicial system. I'd like to explore it with colleagues in other disciplines, but I'm not sure that I have ready answers about it yet. What I am pretty sure, though, is that not to explore social and political implications of divine grace extended to sinful humanity in Christ would be to betray the love of our faith and to abdicate our social responsibility.

How do you respond to those who say that what you are proposing is conceptually elegant but of no practical good?
My friend Jurgen Moltmann put that question to me in a slightly different way. I was presenting the paper on the social upheavals in the former Yugoslavia that I referred to earlier, arguing that we need a theology of embrace rather than a theology of liberation. Rather than Croatians simply fighting for their liberation and Serbians simply fighting for their liberation, and therefore Christian faith serving to legitimate their fighting, we need something that will unite the two, a theology that reconciles the warring factions. Moltmann, who has been a granddaddy of liberation theology in many ways, in his very pointed and penetrating way asked me, "But can you embrace a cetnik?" Cetniks are notorious Serbian fighters. I paused—not because I didn't know what to say, but because it was difficult to say for me. It was at a time when a third of Croatia was occupied and when many of our cities and towns were being destroyed. Many people had been driven off their lands, and Croatia was full of refugees from many other countries. Finally, my response was, "I can't; but as a follower of Jesus Christ I ought to be able to." And in many ways, that question and my answer accompanied me as I was working through these issues. What would it take to embrace a cetnik? What would it take for me to have the will to embrace? What would it take then for that embrace to actually take place? I think those are some key issues with which we have to struggle.

Have you ever literally embraced a cetnik?
Actually, I've never met one, but if I did I think I would have the will to embrace him, though I also think that much would need to happen before the embrace—a full embrace, an embrace that is not a charade—could take place. Most of us, though, have our own cetniks. And yes, I've done the embracing of those whom I felt have wronged me deeply. It's hard. It's clumsy to do. It's like God's call to Abraham to "go to a land that I will show you." You have no idea where that land is, but you open your arms and you embrace, unsure about what's going to happen. It takes tremendous courage to do so. It takes practice to do so. It takes self-giving. It also takes suffering. That's the tragic side of it. And yet, in that tragedy there is incredible promise.

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October 26 1998, Vol. 42, No. 12