For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Help Miroslav Volf and the Yale Center for Faith & Culture reach our end-of-year goal $25,000 Matching Challenge for 2022! How to donate to YCFC and support the For the Life of the World podcast:Click here to give onlineMail a check made out to "Yale Center for Faith and Culture" (409 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511).Dear Friend,Inspired by faith in Christ in whom God became one of us, at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture we help people discern and pursue lives worthy of our shared humanity. Our fragile, finite, fallible—but nevertheless beautiful and immeasurably precious—humanity.This work matters so much to me personally because I believe it matters to God and it matters for the world.And today, I am excited to tell you about a tremendous new opportunity for us to fund this important work.Members of our Advisory Board have established a $25,000 challenge gift. If we raise $25,000 by December 31st we will unlock an additional $25,000, doubling the impact of your gift.To put that in perspective: Meeting our goal would be enough to fund our For the Life of the World podcast and support two student fellows for all of 2023.Would you consider a donation to our work today? Simply click here to give online, or mail a check made out to "Yale Center for Faith and Culture" (409 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511).Lifting up my heart with gratitude, Miroslav VolfDirector, Yale Center for Faith & CultureHenry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale Divinity School

"If the goal of God in creating the world is to make it the home of God and humans together, then it is the intention of God to make this place as beautiful and as humane—as hospitable—to human life as it can possibly be." Miroslav Volf reflects on why he wrote his latest book, The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything.  He also celebrates and eulogizes his friend Phil Love, to whom the book is dedicated.Click here to buy The Home of God for 30% off!Production NotesThis podcast featured Miroslav VolfSpecial thanks to Patty & Phil LoveEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

The mission of Yale Divinity School is "to foster the knowledge and love of God through scholarly engagement with Christian traditions in a global, multifaith context." A variety of Yale Divinity School faculty and alumni have been featured as guests on For the Life of the World, and this episode highlights some of those contributions, including Krista Tippett, Willie Jennings, Keri Day, Kathryn Tanner, and David Kelsey (not to mention Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz). Current Yale Divinity Student Luke Stringer introduces each highlight segment. Special thanks to Harry Attridge and Tom Krattenmaker.Show NotesOur first segment features Yale Divinity School alum Krista Tippett, the founder and CEO of the On Being Project. She's a nationally syndicated journalist who has become known for curating conversations on the art of being human, civil conversations, and social healing. Miroslav Volf invited Krista onto the show to talk about the importance of engaging otherness on the grounds of our common humanity, her personal faith journey from small town Baptists in Oklahoma, to a secular humanism in a divided Cold-War Berlin, and then back to her spiritual homeland and mother tongue of Christianity.For the Life of the World launched in 2020 during an immensely chaotic and troubling year. The painful and confusing early days of the pandemic gave way to the horrifying footage of George Floyd's murder. In the days following this event, we aired a reflection by Yale Divinity School professor Willie Jennings and a conversation with Princeton Theological Seminary theologian and Yale Div school alum Keri Day. First, an excerpt from Willie Jennings' reflection on the murder of George Floyd. And then, theologian Keri Day shares the core motivations of Christians to embrace the other across lines of difference.This next segment features theologian, Kathryn Tanner, who spoke to Ryan McAnnally-Linz about the virtue of patience through the lens of economy and capitalism. She's the Frederick Marquand Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and her latest book is Christianity in the New Spirit of Capitalism.This final highlight segment features theologian David Kelsey, who is the Luther A. Weigel Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School, where he taught for 40 years. Ryan McAnnally-Linz, himself an alum of Yale Divinity School, brings Kelsey onto the show to talk about the wild and inexplicable grip of evil on earthly creatures, and the analogously wild and inexplicable nature of God's grace—and God's immediate, if silent, witness and presence to human anguish.Production NotesThis podcast featured Krista Tippett, Willie Jennings, Keri Day, Kathryn Tanner, and David Kelsey (not to mention Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz)Edited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan Rosa and Luke StringerA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

“We’ve become experts at means but amateurs at ends.” Miroslav Volf and Kelly Corrigan discuss the role of education in seeking a flourishing life; the risks and rewards endemic to asking questions of meaning and existential import in the higher educational context; the meaning of success to college students, and how the specter of success drives our cultural narrative; what it takes to live a life based on one's deepest -held values; Miroslav shares his own personal experience of approaching what makes life worth living within a particular Christian vision; what made him decide to be the only openly Christian kid in his high school; and how suffering grief, forgiveness, and living faith informed his early childhood and shaped his family's life.Show NotesListen to Kelly Corrigan Wonders on Apple PodcastsAbout Kelly CorriganKelly Corrigan has written four New York Times bestselling memoirs in the last decade, earning her the title of “The Poet Laureate of the ordinary” from the Huffington Post and the “voice of a generation” from O Magazine.  She is curious and funny and eager to go well past the superficial in every conversation.  More on KellyCorrigan.com.Production NotesThis podcast featured Kelly Corrigan and Miroslav VolfEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaSpecial thanks to Kelly Corrigan and Tammy StedmanA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

"Somewhere is better than anywhere." (Flannery O'Connor, as quoted by Wendell Berry in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community) Today, Christian ethicist Adam Eitel (Yale Divinity School) sits with Matt Croasmun for a conversation on ethics and theology. Eitel is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School. Together, he and Matt discuss the demands of teaching and learning theology on personal character—holiness even; the relationship between ethics and theology; the locatedness and situatedness and particularity of Christian ethics; and the rooted, framing question, that animates Adam Eitel's writing and teaching: "What sort of life does the Gospel enjoin?"About Adam EitelAdam Eitel is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School.Show NotesTeaching theology as a vocation"Authority is linked to character"Instruction in holinessThe millennial demand for personal character to matter in academic authorityFormation"I see my work as a professor of Christian ethics as a theological vocation."Millennial entitlement, juxtaposed with vulnerabilityTheology as a lived, embodied enterpriseThe lines between the personal and the pedagogicalProblems for Christian ethicsIt's hard for Christian ethics to stay theologicalCan Christian ethics appropriately express social criticism?"The temptation for Christian ethics to bracket the theological commitments, that fund a specifically Christian moral imaginary."Dichotomy between tradition and critique"So we end up sawing off the branch that we're sitting on..."Declaration of Independence's "All men are created equal." as both the impetus for reform and the object of reform."When we're doing theology, when we're doing ethics, we are always looking backwards in some respect, concatenating texts, bringing their different manners of speaking together and to, in order to see what can now be said on the basis of what's been said, that doesn't require an uncritical attitude toward the text or the social arrangements they endorse."Locatedness and situatedness and particularity of Christian ethics"What sort of life does the Gospel enjoin?"Production NotesThis podcast featured Adam Eitel and Matt CroasmunEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

"If you don't really understand religion, if you don't understand faith, if you don't understand theology, you can't really understand the modern world.""Words make worlds," says one of my podcasting heroes, Krista Tippett. Ask any poet, priest, or politician, and they'll agree. Language does have that power, for better or for worse.But whatever power our words have to make a world that we can then ourselves inhabit—that power is drawn from the archetypal Word—the Word made flesh, by whom all things are made and in whom all things are held together, and for whom all tongues confess.So this simple definition offered by Bishop Graham Tomlin, that theology is just "words about God" is actually quite expansive. When our words about God are directed first toward God, but then toward the church and the world, theology lives up to its purpose of worship, reform, and witness. Graham Tomlin is President of St. Mellitus College and author of many books of theology and Christian spirituality. He recently completed his tenure as Bishop of Kensington and now leads the Church of England's Center for Cultural Witness. He joins Matt Croasmun today for a conversation about the meaning and potential of theology. Thanks for listening.About Graham TomlinThe Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin is President of St Mellitus College and Bishop of Kensington. He served a curacy in the diocese of Exeter, and among past roles he has served as Chaplain of Jesus College, Oxford and Vice Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, where he taught within the Theology Faculty of Oxford University on Historical Theology, specializing in the Reformation period. He was closely involved in the foundation, and was appointed the first Dean, of St Mellitus College, a position he held for the first eight years of the College’s life, before being made Bishop of Kensington in 2015. He has spoken and lectured across the world, and in 2016 was awarded the Silver Rose of St Nicholas, a global award recognizing a significant contribution to theological education and learning. He was very involved in the response to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. He is married to Janet and has two married children and three grandchildren. He is a keen follower of various kinds of music and sport, suffering a lifelong addiction to Bristol City Football Club.Show NotesThe Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin is President of St Mellitus College and Bishop of Kensington.What's going well with theologyTheology connecting in the church; the church as context for theologySpiritual theology deepening and nurturing human lifeEllen Charry and thinking about eudaimonia in theological contextChallenges to theologyFragmentationThree audiences for theology: God, Church, and WorldAudience 1: God. Theology as prayer and worshipAudience 2: Church. Theology as reform and referendum, enabling the church to be the churchAudience 3: World. Theology as witness, declaring what life looks like, seen through the lens of the gospel.Theology for the World: Pluralism and Secularity"If you don't really understand religion, if you don't understand faith, if you don't understand theology, you can't really understand the modern world."Religious studies and objectivity vs subjectivity in studying religionLived experience and inhabiting faith to understand it.Theology's connection to every other academic endeavorTheos, Logos: Words about GodGod as the source of our being and the one to which we return.Three aspects of Theology: Worship, Reform, and WitnessThe God who reveals himself to usThinking holistically about the worldEngaging heart and mindAbout St. MellitusTheology in the church doesn't mean dumbing it down or removing academic seriousness.Theologians with a passion for the church and see the connection between theology and Christian life.Churches don't always see the need for theology; they stay pragmatic.Production NotesThis podcast featured Graham TomlinEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Food and meals are hidden in plain sight throughout the Bible, providing a background context for Christian spirituality and flourishing. Matt Croasmun joins me on the podcast today to talk about his new book co-authored with Miroslav Volf, The Hunger for Home: Food and Meals in the Gospel of Luke. For them, a meal is a site of nourishing mutual encounter. It's this definition of a meal that makes that riddle work I think. It's also incredibly illuminating (and even delightfully surprising, really) to consider how that nourishing mutual encounter—a meal—provide a context that spans thousands of years and the whole of human history from creation to fall to redemption. It can all be understood as a site of nourishing mutual encounter with God, family, neighbor, world—everything. From the fruitful multiplying of living creatures to the forbidden fruit—from the passover seder, manna from heaven, water from the rocks, and feasts in the fields—to the Lord's table prepared before our enemies, turning water into wine, multiplying loaves and fish—from the Last Supper before the Crucifixion, and the final wedding supper of the Lamb. It's all a meal that we hunger for always; it's a meal that wherever we are, we're still home.This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.AboutMatt Croasmun (PhD, Yale University) is Associate Research Scholar at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is the co-author, with Miroslav Volf, of For the Life of the World and The Hunger for Home and directs the Yale Life Worth Living Initiative. Follow him on Twitter @MattCroasmun.Show NotesBuy the book: The Hunger for Home: Food and Meals in the Gospel of Luke (Enter 17FALL22 for 20% off + Free Shipping)What is home?What is hunger?Jesus fasting in the wilderness: "One does not live by bread alone..."The human needs bread that is not only bread.Word and world is one thing. Allow your bread to become an encounter with the creator of all good things.Life, staying sustained, and feastingMaterial life, sustained by the life of the LordFalse choice: word or bread. It's actually one thing, issuing from the mouth of the Lord.Sinners at the Table: "The only kind of meals are meals among sinners.""Sinners all."Jesus dines with sinners because he's a doctor who comes to heal sinners. We dine with sinners because we're all patients of that doctor.Rich and Poor at the TableThe eschatological feastThe Rich Man and LazarusThe Unjust Steward (or, The Dishonest Manager)"We're looking for homes to be invited into. And it may be the poor who have these homes."MutualityLeveraging houses and the wealth they represent for entry into homes.The Last Supper / Eucharist"Made known in the breaking of bread"The Road to Emmaus: "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."Jesus as the ultimate Bible Study Leader: "The best bible study ever."The eucharist is making sense later.Recognition: It wasn't the bible study with Jesus on the road. It was the meal.Norman Wirzba, Food & Faith"Made known in the breaking of bread"Production NotesThis podcast featured Matt CroasmunEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaSpecial thanks to David Aycock and Baylor University PressA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

A pervasive anti-intellectual tradition seems to haunt American Christianity. Paired with nationalism, xenophobia—a fear of the other, and an hypersensitive oscillation between defensiveness and jingoism in the culture war—it's worth asking what in the world happened to this religion which was founded by a peaceful, humble homeless preacher who healed the poor, the lame, and the blind.But the over-correction to an intellectualizing of theology, to the exclusion of lived experience, swings the pendulum back in another erroneous direction. A merely cognitive theology that stays relevant only at abstract academic levels would be stale and dead—unlivable.Perhaps what this moment needs is a widened perspective on the global, universal potential of theology, especially as it meets particular contexts and communities and the individual human life, where the transcendent meets the immanent and real human concerns inform the theological task. In other words, theology for the life of the world.In today's conversation, Matt Croasmun discusses the purpose of theology with George Marsden, professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame, and author of many books, including his celebrated biography of Jonathan Edwards, The Soul of the American University, and The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship. Together they discuss the relationship between theology and the church, the meaning of theological education in the university, the definition of human flourishing, pluralism and representation in higher education, the danger of privilege and prejudice in Christian theological teaching, and ultimately how theological perspectives gain plausibility in public life.Production NotesThis podcast featured George Marsden and Matt CroasmunEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

"You can be, at least according to Christian thought, the only sinless person in human history, and you can still be tortured and crucified in your early thirties."From the perspective of Christian theology, it's probably not going too far to say that both the moral exemplarity and the suffering life of Jesus should be central to the Christian understanding of flourishing. Here's another way to put it. Jesus was morally perfect and sinless, but encountered immense suffering, poverty, marginalization, and eventual torture and death. Tempted, yet without sin. But also counted among the sinners, according to Isaiah 53's "Suffering Servant" theme. He is acquainted with grief, familiar with sorrow, anguished in his soul.And so the big question here is: What kind of flourishing do we envision when we follow Christ toward that flourishing?Today, we're sharing a conversation between Matt Croasmun and Katie Grimes, Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics at Villanova University. Together they discuss the social context of theology, trying to make sense of the role of Christ in approaching theology from the perspective of flourishing. For Katie, thinking about flourishing means thinking about virtues and vices, and that means thinking about the habits that pull us along toward the fully realized human good. But it also means pursuing a theological vision that accounts for the most troubling social realities.Production NotesThis podcast featured Katie Grimes & Matt CroasmunEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

You can't understand our globalized world without understanding religion. But that's easier said than done. For any given person, it's sometimes hard enough to understand your own religious perspectives. They often change throughout life, modified by experience and ideas. Modified by people and events. Modified by an encounter with the world and an encounter with God. Then go ahead and multiply that challenge by about 7.7 billion people and the ways that some of them collide and interact. Then we see a few things: we see that diversity is both a promise and a peril, we see that approaches to religious studies, sociology of religion, and the practice of theology all must be grounded in an "informed empathy," and we see that the only way to make progress is to accept responsibility and limits as an individual, and hope and commit to the necessity of collaboration.Show NotesDiversity and creativity are one of the strengths of theology today.Sometimes diversity of thought and methodological practice can lead to fracturing.Strine on one of the challenges of working in theology: “You know, my current project is on the book of Genesis, about which there's just a massive amount of literature from all manner of different perspectives. And that's really, really great. But at least once a week, I think about my book project as a fool's errand.”Theology is more diverse and more creative than it ever has been, so it has to change and adapt. One person cannot keep up with everything going on.There is a debate within theology about what to even call itself.“Rather than building a new, different, hopefully improved theology, we may be building a lot of little different ones that go by a similar name, but don't look like anything that is the same when you get into more detail.”—StrineCroasmun asks, given those challlenges, why should a student study theology?“In a globalized world where religion isn't going away, the study of theology--of understanding, when we think about that term as how people think about God, what people say about God, how that impacts what they actually do, is as important or more important than it ever has been.”—StrineTheology needs practitioners of religion and critical outsides talking with students.Strine seeks “robust engagements” in theology that give students and others the opportunity to “[hear] strengths and weaknesses…from inside and outside, both to learn about it sort of in that third person view, but also then to make some decisions about what it is that they believe themselves.”One of the challenges to robust engagements—”theology is a lonely vocation,” Croasmun points out.Strine on the need for collaboration: “We're all finite, we're all human. There's only so much we can read. There only so many, so many hours we can work, no matter how hard we'd like to push ourselves, no matter how much coffee we drink.”One vision of collaboration: “that might take the form of like-minded people from different areas, picking a question that's bigger than what any one sort of individual feels like they can do and, and kind of networking their brains together.”—StrineAnother vision of collaboration: “But it might equally be people from very different perspectives, putting their positions in dialogue, either with the hope that they find common ground they didn't know they had before, or simply they understand better where they agree and they disagree.”—StrineThere are powerful social and institutional pressures against collaboration in academia.Strine warns against “cosmetic collaboration” which does not actually foster robust engagement and dialogue.To build a theology of collaboration and community, “what's required is for those of us who are in the academy who would like to do that sort of work to be making an argument for why philosophically, epistemologically, and pragmatically there's value in that.”—StrineAbout Casey StrineCasey Strine is Senior Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern History and Literature at The University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. He specializes in Old Testament biblical studies, but thinks deeply about the historical connective tissue that links people and societies over time and through space. Casey is also a project partner with the Yale Center for Faith & Culture's Life Worth Living initiative. Follow him on Twitter @CaseyStrine.Production NotesThis podcast featured Casey Strine and Matt CroasmunEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give