Thinking about yesterday's "Love your enemies " quote reminded me about something I'd read by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I went to Google hoping to find it, and while I didn't see what I was looking for, I found something else that fits right in with my theme of the week: To Embrace the Enemy, an interview with Croatian theology professor Miroslav Volf from September 2001.
Every word of it was worth reading, but here are two of the things Dr. Volf said that particularly struck me:
The naming of the deeds as evil and the protection of those who are innocent is extraordinarily important. But none of these things means we should not also seek to forgive the offender and reconcile with the offender. We can never close the door to reconciliation and all our actions must be directed toward the goal of reconciliation. Just reconciliation, of course, because justice is an integral part of reconciliation.
and
There has been much talk about "hunting down" and "punishing" the terrorists. That is very dangerous language. Animals are hunted down. That language serves to take the perpetrators out of the very community of our species—"They are the barbarians and animals, and we are the good and decent ones." I agree that we must work to find out who did it and, in a carefully qualified sense, bring those people to justice. But we shouldn't speak in a way that debases their humanity. That kind of language seems to put the perpetrator beyond redemption.
Incidentally, this interview was published on the Christianity Today site, not one of my regular reads. Skimming through some of the other articles I found myself frustrated, because there are some real hot-button issues for me on these pages. But that's another reminder for me that I can try to understand differing views and work to change people's views without, I hope, resorting to anger, disrespect, and denegration. (Another day, another struggle...another 1440 struggles...)