Croatian-American Theologian Miroslav Volf
on
National Public Radio
National Public Radio’s show “Speaking of Faith” had a discussion with
Croatian-American Theologian Miroslav Volf, originally from Osijek and
currently a visiting professor at the Divinity School at Yale
University. Below is a summary of the program. You can hear the entire
program and look at texts and more information concerning Volf at the
following web page address:
http://www.speakingoffaith.org/programs/2004/03/11_volf/
John Kraljic
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A long tradition exists asserting that religion is not only
intellectually implausible, but socially harmful. This point of view
argues that for the sake of peace, religion must be neutralized as a
force in civil society. Croatian-American theologian Miroslav Volf makes
the counterintuitive proposal that the cure for religious zealotry in
our world is not less religion, but more religion – or rather, stronger
and more intelligent practices of faith.
Volf knows Christianity’s violent potential by experience. He grew up
amidst ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs. Miroslav Volf is the
Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale University Divinity School
and Visiting Professor of Systematic Theology at the Evangelical
Theological Faculty of Osijek, Croatia, which, in the early 1990s after
the breakup of Communist Yugoslavia, escalated into a bloody civil war.
In Bosnia and Croatia, nearly a quarter of a million people died and two
million were left exiled or displaced.
Host Krista Tippett speaks with Miroslav Volf, a theologian who bridges
the divide between conservative and liberal Christians in the United
State. The conversation took place in Washington D.C. in front of a live
audience at the National Cathedral.