But I was disappointed to find that the review did not seem to engage fully with the central arguments of the book, and at some points misrepresented Volf's position. Volf is asking questions that evangelical theologians have rarely asked, and that Volf thinks other theologians may have answered wrongly. He is exploring the fluid nature of identity and selfhood in relation to the other. This matter of the relationship of justice to embrace is one area where Olson's review seems to misunderstand Volf. The review discusses Volf's views on forgiveness and forgetting of genocidal evil without acknowledging that Volf sees this as absolutely inseparable from the pursuit of justice between perpetrators and victims.
Grace affirms justice in the act of transcending it.
To document Volf's offense, Olson cites a couple of quotations from Volf, which he pulls not from Volf's main text but from the fine print of two footnotes. But checking Volf's footnote from which the quotation is taken, one finds that Volf describes this not as his own view but as something he has heard others say. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. As I write this letter from an urban slum neighborhood in the Sahara desert, I would echo Volf's critique of comfortable suburban theologies.