Can we ever live in peace with an enemy who has inflicted violence and tragedy on our country? According to Miroslav Volf, a world-renowned authority on conflict resolution, the author of Exclusion and Embrace and a Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, "The answer must be yes, but we need to figure out how we can reconcile with our enemy."

No stranger to terrorism, Volf grew up in its midst in the former communist Yugoslavia. He lost his friends and compatriots to what he describes as "the logic of perverted purity — where blood has to be pure, language has to be pure, soil has to be pure." Volf contends that same sense of perverted purity is at play in the terrorism that has been directed at the United States; in this case, it’s perverse religious purity born out of a sense of being wronged that drives the actions of terrorists who envision a world free of American infidels and overlords.

Rage and the need to punish terrorists is, according to Volf, "an important initial instinct." The perpetrators of the terrorist attacks against the United States did commit an evil of incredible magnitude and "we owe it to the victims to describe the events of Sept. 11th as an evil act of immense proportions." Yet, Volf cautions, we need to carefully examine the "purity" of our motives when we seek to punish the perpetrators. Acknowledging the potential for evil in each one of us, Volf is quick to point out that "the fact that someone else is evil does not at all mean that I am good." As we condemn the drive to purity that partly motivates the terrorists, we should also attend to another kind of purity. This is the purity of our own hearts. "Purity that looks into the mirror and asks – have I been just in dealing with others, or have I pursued my own interests at the expenses of others - am I, myself pure from evil desire to violate others– in seeking justice, have I committed injustice and done so with good conscience?"