Miroslav Volf

Life at the end of the twentieth century presents us with a disturbing reality. Otherness, the simple fact of being different in some way, has come to be defined as in and of itself evil. Miroslav Volf contends that if the healing word of the gospel is to be heard today, Christian theology must find ways of speaking that address the hatred of the other. Reaching back to the New Testament metaphor of salvation as reconciliation, Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion. Increasingly we see that exclusion has become the primary sin, skewing our perceptions of reality and causing us to react out of fear and anger to all those who are not within our (ever-narrowing) circle. In light of this, Christians must learn that salvation comes, not only as we are reconciled to God, and not only as we "learn to live with one another," but as we take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to the other, of enfolding him or her in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God. Is there any hope of embracing our enemies? Of opening the door to reconciliation? Miroslav Volf, a Yale University theologian, has won the 2002 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion for his book, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Abingdon, 1996). Volf argues that "exclusion" of people who are alien or different is among the most intractable problems in the world today. He writes, "It may not be too much to claim that the future of our world will depend on how we deal with identity and difference. The issue is urgent. The ghettos and battlefields throughout the world--in the living rooms, in inner cities, or on the mountain ranges--testify indisputably to its importance." A Croatian by birth, Volf takes as a starting point for his analysis the recent civil war and "ethnic cleansing" in the former Yugoslavia, but he readily finds other examples of cultural, ethnic, and racial conflict to illustrate his points. And, since September 11, one can scarcely help but plug the new world players into his incisive descriptions of the dynamics of interethnic and international strife. Exclusion happens, Volf argues, wherever impenetrable barriers are set up that prevent a creative encounter with the other. It is easy to assume that "exclusion" is the problem or practice of "barbarians" who live "over there," but Volf persuades us that exclusion is all too often our practice "here" as well. Modern western societies, including American society, typically recite their histories as "narratives of inclusion," and Volf celebrates the truth in these narratives. But he points out that these narratives conveniently omit certain groups who "disturb the integrity of their 'happy ending' plots." Therefore such narratives of inclusion invite "long and gruesome" counter-narratives of exclusion--the brutal histories of slavery and of the decimation of Native American populations come readily to mind, but more current examples could also be found. Most proposed solutions to the problem of exclusion have focused on social arrangements--what kind of society ought we to create in order to accommodate individual or communal difference? Volf focuses, rather, on "what kind of selves we need to be in order to live in harmony with others." In addressing the topic, Volf stresses the social implications of divine self-giving. The Christian scriptures attest that God does not abandon the godless to their evil, but gives of Godself to bring them into communion. We are called to do likewise--"whoever our enemies and whoever we may be." The divine mandate to embrace as God has embraced is summarized in Paul's injunction to the Romans: "Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you" (Romans 15:7). Susan R. Garrett, Coordinator of the Religion Award, said that the Grawemeyer selection committee praised Volf's book on many counts. These included its profound interpretation of certain pivotal passages of Scripture and its brilliant engagement with contemporary theology, philosophy, critical theory, and feminist theory. "Volf's focus is not on social strategies or programs but, rather, on showing us new ways to understand ourselves and our relation to our enemies. He helps us to imagine new possibilities for living against violence, injustice, and deception." Garrett added that, although addressed primarily to Christians, Volf's theological statement opens itself to religious pluralism by upholding the importance of different religious and cultural traditions for the formation of personal and group identity. The call to "embrace the other" is never a call to remake the other into one's own image. Volf--who had just delivered a lecture on the topic of Exclusion and Embrace at a prayer breakfast for the United Nations when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center--will present a lecture and receive his award in Louisville during the first week of April, 2002. The annual Religion Award, which includes a cash prize of $200,000, is given jointly by Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville to the authors or originators of creative works that contribute significantly to an understanding of "the relationship between human beings and the divine, and ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity, or meaning, either individually or in community." The Grawemeyer awards--given also by the University of Louisville in the fields of musical composition, education, psychology, and world order--honor the virtue of accessibility: works chosen for the awards must be comprehensible to thinking persons who are not specialists in the various fields.

A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation

Exclusion and Embrace

Matthew Croasmun

Ryan McAnnally-Linz

A Guide to What Matters Most

Life Worth Living

The question of what makes life worth living is more vital now than ever. In today's pluralistic, postsecular world, universal values are dismissed as mere matters of private opinion, and the question of what constitutes flourishing life--for ourselves, our neighbors, and the planet as a whole--is neglected in our universities, our churches, and our culture at large. Although we increasingly have technology to do almost anything, we have little sense of what is truly worth accomplishing. In this provocative new contribution to public theology, world-renowned theologian Miroslav Volf (named "America's New Public Intellectual" by Scot McKnight on his Jesus Creed blog) and Matthew Croasmun explain that the intellectual tools needed to rescue us from our present malaise and meet our new cultural challenge are the tools of theology. A renewal of theology is crucial to help us articulate compelling visions of the good life, find our way through the maze of contested questions of value, and answer the fundamental question of what makes life worth living.

Theology That Makes a Difference

For the Life of the World

A celebrated theologian explores how the greatest dangers to humanity, as well as the greatest promises for human flourishing, are at the intersection of religion and globalization More than almost anything else, globalization and the great world religions are shaping our lives, affecting everything from the public policies of political leaders and the economic decisions of industry bosses and employees, to university curricula, all the way to the inner longings of our hearts. Integral to both globalization and religions are compelling, overlapping, and sometimes competing visions of what it means to live well. In this perceptive, deeply personal, and beautifully written book, a leading theologian sheds light on how religions and globalization have historically interacted and argues for what their relationship ought to be. Recounting how these twinned forces have intersected in his own life, he shows how world religions, despite their malfunctions, remain one of our most potent sources of moral motivation and contain within them profoundly evocative accounts of human flourishing. Globalization should be judged by how well it serves us for living out our authentic humanity as envisioned within these traditions. Through renewal and reform, religions might, in turn, shape globalization so that can be about more than bread alone.

Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World

Flourishing

Exclusion and Embrace, Revised and Updated

In After Our Likeness, Miroslav Volf explores the relationship between persons and community in Christian theology. He seeks to counter the tendencies toward individualism in Protestant ecclesiology and give community its due.

The Church as the Image of the Trinity

After Our Likeness

Life at the end of the twentieth century presents us with a disturbing reality. Otherness, the simple fact of being different in some way, has come to be defined as in and of itself evil. Miroslav Volf contends that if the healing word of the gospel is to be heard today, Christian theology must find ways of speaking that address the hatred of the other. Reaching back to the New Testament metaphor of salvation as reconciliation, Volf proposes the idea of embrace as a theological response to the problem of exclusion. Increasingly we see that exclusion has become the primary sin, skewing our perceptions of reality and causing us to react out of fear and anger to all those who are not within our (ever-narrowing) circle. In light of this, Christians must learn that salvation comes, not only as we are reconciled to God, and not only as we "learn to live with one another", but as we take the dangerous and costly step of opening ourselves to the other, of enfolding him or her in the same embrace with which we have been enfolded by God.

Exclusion & Embrace

Can one forget atrocities? Should one forgive abusers? Ought we not hope for the final reconciliation of all the wronged and all wrongdoers alike, even if it means spending eternity with perpetrators of evil? We live in an age when it is generally accepted that past wrongs -- genocides, terrorist attacks, bald personal injustices -- should be constantly remembered. 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 the appropriate course of action. While agreeing with the claim that to remember a wrongdoing is to struggle against it, Volf notes that there are too many ways to remember wrongly, perpetuating the evil committed rather than guarding against it. In this way, the just sword of memory often severs the very good it seeks to defend. He argues that remembering rightly has implications not only for the individual but also for the wrongdoer and for the larger community. Volfs personal stories of persecution offer a compelling backdrop for 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 hard to ignore.

Remembering Rightly in a Violent World

The End of Memory

Justin E. Crisp

Joy is crucial to human life and central to God’s relationship to the world, yet it is remarkably absent from contemporary theology and, increasingly, from our own lives! This collection remedies this situation by considering the import of joy on human flourishing. These essays—written by experts in systematic and pastoral theology, Christian ethics, and biblical studies—demonstrate the promise of joy to throw open new theological possibilities and cast fresh light on all dimensions of human life. With contributions from Jurgen Moltmann, N. T. Wright, Marianne Meye Thompson, Mary Clark Moschella, Charles Mathewes, and Miroslav Volf, this volume puts joy at the heart of Christian faith and life, exploring joy’s biblical, dogmatic, ecclesiological, and ethical dimensions in concert with close attention to the shifting tides of culture. Convinced of the need to offer to the world a compelling Christian vision of the good life, the authors treat the connections between joy and themes of creation, theodicy, politics, suffering, pastoral practice, eschatology, and more, driven by the conviction that vital relationship with the living God is integral to our fullest flourishing as human creatures.

Essays on Theology, Culture and the Good Life

Joy and Human Flourishing

From Miroslav Volf, one of the world's foremost Christian theologians—and co-teacher, along with Tony Blair, of a groundbreaking Yale University course on faith and globalization—comes Allah, a timely and provocative argument for a new pluralism between Muslims and Christians. In a penetrating exploration of every side of the issue, from New York Times headlines on terrorism to passages in the Koran and excerpts from the Gospels, Volf makes an unprecedented argument for effecting a unified understanding between Islam and Christianity. In the tradition of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Islam in the Modern World, Volf’s Allah is essential reading for students of the evolving political science of the twenty-first century.

A Christian Response

Allah

William Henry Katerberg

Over the last three decades a major cultural shift has taken place in the attitudes of Western societies toward the future. Modernitybs eclipse by postmodernity is characterized in large part by the loss of hope for a future substantially better than the present. Old optimism about human progress has given way to uncertainty and fear. In this book scholars from various disciplines -- theology, the social sciences, and the humanities -- explore the move from a bculture of optimismb to a bculture of ambiguity, b and they seek to infuse todaybs jaded language of hope with a new vitality. "The Future of Hope" offers a powerful critique of todaybs stifling cultural climate and shows why the vision of hope central to Christian faith must be a basic component of any flourishing society. The first section of the book sets the context with telling cultural criticism of modernity. The second section focuses on affinities between premodern Christian visions of hope and twentieth-century thought. The final section of the book examines the relationship between postmodern thought, Christian tradition, and biblical hope, addressing how Christians in a postmodern world can best articulate their faith. Written by truly profound thinkers, these chapters are diverse in their content, methodologies, and temperament, yet they are united by a deep engagement with both the Christian tradition and the larger cultural and intellectual climate in which we live and work. "The Future of Hope" can thus be read not just as an attempt at retrieval of hope for today but as itself one small act of hope in an age when people too seldom take time to think critically and hopefully. Contributors: DavidBillings Robert Paul Doede Kevin L. Hughes Paul Edward Hughes Daniel Johnson William Katerberg John Milbank Jurgen Moltmann James K. A. Smith Miroslav Volf Nicholas Wolterstorff

Christian Tradition Amid Modernity and Postmodernity

The Future of Hope

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal

Mellisa Yarrington

In late 2007 Muslim leaders from around the world together issued in the pages of The New York Times an open letter to Christian leaders inviting cooperation as a step toward peace. That letter, “A Common Word between Us and You,” acknowledged real differences between the two faiths but nonetheless contended that “righteousness and good works” should be the only areas in which they compete. The 138 signatories included over a dozen grand muftis, an ayatollah, and a Jordanian prince, and the document was widely considered a groundbreaking step toward reconciliation between Islam and Christianity — two major religions with a great deal in common. / That original letter and a collaborative Christian response — “Loving God and Neighbor Together” — both appear in this remarkable volume. Building on those original momentous documents, A Common Word further includes subsequent commentary and dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars addressing critical and frequently asked questions. All in all, this eventful book encapsulates a brave and encouraging move toward harmony and accord between two world religions so often seen to be at odds.

Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor

A Common Word

Often the differences between the three Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- seem more obvious than their commonalities, leading to the question "Do we worship the same God?" Can the answer be "yes" without denying our differences? This volume brings Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophers and theologians together to answer this question, offering rare insight into how representatives of each religion view the other monotheistic faiths. Each of their contributions uniquely approaches the primary question from a philosophical perspective that is informed by the practice of worship and prayer. Concepts covered include "sameness" and "oneness," the nature of God, epistemology, and the Trinity. Do We Worship the Same God? models serious-minded, honest, and respectful interreligious dialogue and gives us new ways to address an ongoing question.

Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Dialogue

Do We Worship the Same God?

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.

Dorothy C. Bass

In a time when academic theology often neglects the lived practices of the Christian community, this volume seeks to bring balance to the situation by showing the dynamic link between the task of theology and the practices of the Christian life. The work of thirteen first-rate theologians from several cultural and Christian perspectives, these informed and informative essays explore the relationship between Christian theology and practice in the daily lives of believers, in the ministry of Christian communities, and as a needed focus within Christian education. Contributors: Dorothy C. Bass Nancy Bedford Gilbert Bond Sarah Coakley Craig Dykstra Reinhard Hütter L. Gregory Jones Serene Jones Amy Plantinga Pauw Christine Pohl Kathryn Tanner Miroslav Volf Tammy Williams

Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life

Practicing Theology

An exploration of how we can be transformed by the God who gives abundantly and who forgives unconditionally.

Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace

Free of Charge

Ghazi bin Muhammad (Prince of Jordan.)

Discusses the issues brought forth from the editorial "A common word between us and you," which calls for Muslims and Christians around the world to work towards universal peace.

We are at our human best when we give and forgive.But we live in a world in which it makes little sense to do either one. In our increasingly graceless culture, where can we find the motivation to give? And how do we learn to forgive when forgiving seems counterintuitive or even futile? A deeply personal yet profoundly thoughtful book, Free of Charge explores these questions¬ – and the further questions to which they give rise – in light of God’s generosity and Christ’s sacrifice for us. Miroslav Volf draws from popular culture as well as from a wealth of literary and theological sources, weaving his rich reflections around the sturdy frame of Paul’s vision of God’s grace and Martin Luther’s interpretation of that vision. Blending the best of theology and spirituality, he encourages us to echo in our own lives God’s generous giving and forgiving. A fresh examination of two practices at the heart of the Christian faith¬ – giving and forgiving¬ – the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lenten study book for 2006 is at the same time an introduction to Christianity. Even more, it is a compelling invitation to Christian faith as a way of life.“Miroslav Volf, one of the most celebrated theologians of our day, offers us a unique interweaving of intense reflection, vivid and painfully personal stories and sheer celebration of the giving God ... I cannot remember having read a better account of what it means to say that Jesus suffered for us in our place.”– Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Miroslav Volf

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