political theology, Vol. 18 No. 3, May, 2017, 233–248
Johann Baptist Metz’s Memoria Passionis and the Possibility of Political Forgiveness Joas Adiprasetya Constructive Theology, Jakarta Theological Seminary, Jakarta, Indonesia
The idea of memoria passionis promoted by Johann Baptist Metz provides a strong basis for correlating the Christian creed of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and our political engagement in atrocious situations. However, Metz’s idea of memory and remembering is not sufficient as we attempt to construct a just and peaceful society based on the Christian notion of forgiveness. This article attempts to make use of Metz’s memoria passionis, while at the same time proposing the necessity of political forgiveness as an intrinsic aspect of such a memorative faith. In such a proposal, forgiving and remembering must be two unavoidable and intertwined dimensions of memoria passionis Jesu Christi. Johann Baptist Metz, memoria passionis, forgiveness, remembering, dangerous memory
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The story of a cellist Sarajevo, May 27, 1992. Vedran Smailović, a cellist of the Sarajevo Opera Orchestra, stood at his window and watched a long line of hungry people standing in a breadline. Unexpectedly, a mortar shell screamed down from the sky. Twenty-two men, women, and children were immediately killed. It was the day after that breadline massacre when Smailović started to play Albinoni’s melancholy “Adagio in G. Minor.” Every day at exactly 4:00 p.m. for a total of twenty-two days — one to honor each of the victims — he played the same music, remembering the innocent victims. Many wonder if he chose this music knowing it was reconstructed from a piece of music found in the ruins of Dresden after the Second World War. Albinoni’s music survived the bombing, as if it had waited to be used as a remembrance of Sarajevo’s tragedy.1
1 Paul R. Bartrop, Smailović, Vedran. In: A biographical encyclopedia of contemporary genocide portraits of evil and good (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO; 2012).
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DOI 10.1080/1462317X.2015.1131800