Free of Charge

Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace

Book Details

Discerning Reader Editorial Review

Reviewed 01/04/2010 by Chad Vandervalk.

Recommended. A deeply-felt book that goes back to the heart of what it means to be truly Christian: to be forgiven by God and to in turn forgive others.

In our increasingly graceless culture, where can we find the motivation to give? And how do we learn to forgive when forgiving seems counter-intuitive or even futile? These are some of the really big questions that Miroslav Volf tackles in his book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Volf provides a penetrating analysis of our western culture and the Biblical basis for giving and forgiving that runs counter to this culture.

In this book Volf lays a strong foundation for living a beautiful life of selfless giving and forgiving; a beautiful life that runs counter to our deep inclinations of selfishness and competition. Volf begins with a great theological discussion of giving as really participating in the giving life of God. God is the first and really the only giver. We are able to simply pass on the gifts to others, and in the meantime gain benefit from the gifts. Giving is only possible when all of our selfishness is removed, when there is no real benefit to us, when there will be no pay back; or at least no expectation of any of these things.

This kind of giving becomes the foundation for forgiving, in Volf’s mind. Forgiving becomes a mixed gift. Forgiveness requires both a condemnation of the act and a promise not to hold the other person accountable for that act. When we tell someone we forgive them, we accuse them of doing something that deserves forgiveness, but at the same time we promise not to hold them accountable for that act. Volf uses a story from his family to powerfully illustrate this:

I was one then, and my five-year-old brother, Daniel, had slipped through the large gate in the courtyard where we had an appartment. He went to the nearby small military base–just two blocks away–to play with "his" soldiers. On earlier walks through the neighbourhood, he had found some friends there–soldiers in training, bored and in a need of diversion even if it came from an energetic five-year-old.

On that fateful day in 1957, one of them put him on a horse-drawn bread wagon. As they were passing through the gate on a bumpy cobblestone road, Daniel leaned sideways and his head got stuck between the door post and the wagon. The horses kept going. He died on the way to hospital–a son lost to parents who adored him and an older brother that I would never know.

Aunt Milica should have watched him. But she didn’t. She let him slip out, she didn’t look for him, and he was killed. But my parents never told me that she was partly responsible. They forgave her.

…The pain of that terrible loss still lingers on, but bitterness and resentment against those responsible are gone. It was healed at the foot of the cross as my mother gazed on the Son who was killed and reflected about the God who forgave. Aunt Milica was forgiven, and there was no more talk of her guilt, not even talk of her having been guilty. As far as I was concerned, she was innocent.

Volf uses this powerful story to tease out the various aspects of true forgiveness, a forgiveness which is really allowing God to forgive the other through us. Volf grounds all the actions of giving and forgiving in the work of God and Jesus through us, a work which needs to be accepted to be effective.

Both our transformation and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness depends on our union with Christ. And so does forgiveness, the fact that God doesn’t count our sin against us. …How do we receive forgiveness? How do we receive Christ who brings with him new life and forgiveness? The way we receive anything from God: by faith. …What does faith do? It embraces Christ. "Faith takes hold of Christ and has Him present, enclosing him as the ring encloses the gem," wrote Luther. …Faith is our hands open to receive Christ whom God has given. If I am giving you a present, all you need to do is open your hands, and it will be yours. God gives, faith receives. And because God gives even before the hands of faith open to receive, faith never goes away empty-handed. To have faith is to have Christ and, with Christ, a new life and forgiveness of sins.

It is this new life in Christ, and our forgiveness offered to us from God that allows us to forgive others. When we forgive we are passing on the forgiveness of God; as Volf puts it, when we forgive, we put our signature underneath God’s. Volf weaves "his rich reflections around the sturdy frame of Paul’s vision of God’s grace and Martin Luther’s interpretation of that vision", explains Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in an endorsement of the book.

This book takes a deep plunge into the murky waters of the Christian ability to give and forgive within a culture that calls simply for justice and revenge. Volf represents the Biblical call to love others as we have been loved by God, to forgive as we have been forgiven. He recognises that this may seem like a Utopian dream, but urges us to pursue this dream because through God’s Spirit we may just find it obtainable.