Miroslav Volf just does not know how to write dull books. His book The End of Memory is a stimulating discussion of memory and forgiveness. And it asks the very good question – how will the past, much of it evil and painful, be remembered in the age to come? How will God mend what is unmendable because it has happened and so cannot unhappen? Love, after all, 'keeps no record of wrongs'. Is the divine love in some way forgetful? How can love 'cover a multitude of sins' without somehow looking past them? (1 Peter 4:8)
Volf says: '…truthful memory does not have to be indelible memory. The purpose of truthful memory is not simply to name acts of injustice, and certainly not to hold an unalterable past forever fixed in the forefront of a person's mind. Instead, the highest aim of lovingly truthful memory seeks to bring about the repentance, forgiveness and transformation of wrongdoers, and reconciliation between wrongdoers and their victims. When these goals are achieved, memory can let go of offenses without ceasing to be truthful. For then remembering truthfully will have reached its ultimate goal in the unhindered love of neighbour'. (p. 65)
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