Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award in Christianity and Culture

How should we remember atrocities? Should we ever forgive abusers? Can we not hope for final reconciliation, even if it means redeemed victims and perpetrators spending eternity together?

We live in an age that insists that past wrongs—genocides, terrorist attacks, bald personal injustices—should never be forgotten. But Miroslav Volf here proposes the radical idea that letting go of such memories—after a certain point and under certain conditions—may actually be a gift of grace we should embrace. Volf’s personal stories of persecution and interrogation frame his search for theological resources to make memories a wellspring of healing rather than a source of deepening pain and animosity. Controversial, thoughtful, and incisively reasoned, The End of Memory begins a conversation that we avoid to our great detriment.

This second edition includes an appendix on the memories of perpetrators as well as victims, a response to critics, and a James K. A. Smith interview with Volf about the nature and function of memory in the Christian life.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition

Part One: Remember!

     1. Memory of Interrogations

     2. Memory: Shield and Sword

Part Two: How Should We Remember?

     3. Speaking Truth, Practicing Grace

     4. Wounded Self, Healed Memories

     5. Frameworks of Memories

     6. Memory, the Exodus, and the Passion

Part Three: How Long Should We Remember?

     7. River of Memory, River of Forgetting

     8. Defenders of Forgetting

     9. Redemption: Harmonizing and Driving Out

     10. Rapt in Goodness

Postscript: An Imagined Reconciliation

On Memories of Victims and Perpetrators

Afterword

Epilogue: Fifteen Years Later

Interview with James K. A. Smith