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

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was a British Jewish Rabbi, philosopher, politician, and author of more than 30 books. In this conversation, Miroslav Volf interviews Rabbi Sacks about Jewish perspectives on human flourishing, joy, sabbath and work, and the deeply communal and particular nature of Jewish faith as a witness to the common good. Rabbi Sacks died on November 7, 2020. May his memory be a blessing.This episode starts with a 12-minute reflection and memorial from Miroslav Volf, followed by a 40-minute conversation with Rabbi Sacks.For a video of the full conversation, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWpQ-23OBtU&t Show NotesThe Jewish vision of a life worth living: life going well, life led well, life feeling as it should.Following the Mosaic Law, as a means to etching everyday life with the charisma of holiness.“How would you take an ordinary life, and imbue it with a sense for the transcendence?"The Hebrew Bible’s focus on “life down here”—building a sense for God’s presence here and now, as opposed to only in the afterlife. The Law exists because “you did not serve God with joy and goodness of heart, out of the abundance of all good things.""The product of the life well lived is joy.""Joy in Judaism is always done in the company of others… a kind of shared celebration. … Everyone’s got to feel included to be a Jewish joy."“God is somebody very close. This is not a philosopher’s God. … This is God as next-door neighbor."Sabbath and Joy: The End Not of Work, but the End of StrivingSabbath is “as if you were guests at God’s table.""Sabbath is the most remarkable of all utopias because it’s now."Sabbath is a celebration of the good of merely being and being in God’s being: Liminal space, a time out of time.How our personal lives of flourishing fit into the larger vision of flourishing at society as a wholeCommunal life. Faith in Judaism as “the redemption of our solitude."Closeness to God as the summum bonum (the highest good”) of Judaism. Creation, Revelation, and Redemption in Judaism"Judaism is a religion of protest against the world’s first great empires."Ecclesiastes as the best critique of modern consumerismOn failure and human imperfection. "Judaism is a religion of forgiveness. God empowers us to fail.""The routinization of charisma” and constant access to divine forgivenessThe role of punishment in Judaism, divine vengeance, and “why do the righteous suffer?"Victor Frankl and "the will to meaning”—history is not just what Joseph Heller (Catch-22) “A trash bag of random coincidences, blown in the wind."The life worth living is a life suffused with meaning. About Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksRabbi Sacks is the author of over 30 books. His most recent work, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times (2020), was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller. Past works include: Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence; The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning; The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, winner of the Grawemeyer Prize for Religion in 2004 for its success in defining a framework for interfaith dialogue between people of all faith and of none; To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility; and A Letter in the Scroll: On Being Jewish, winner of a National Jewish Book Awards in 2000. Rabbi Sacks was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen in 2005 and made a Life Peer, taking his seat in the House of Lords in October 2009. He died on November 7, 2020.

Poet Christian Wiman and theologian Miroslav Volf, both colleagues and friends, discuss poetry's ability to give voice to the mixed feelings of life today, talking about the mash-up of home and exile, joy and sorrow, saint and sinner; and Wiman reads some of his favorite poetry from his upcoming anthology, Home: 100 Poems.Poet Christian Wiman is Professor of the Practice of Religion and Literature at Yale Divinity School. He’s the author of several books of poetry, including Every Riven Thing, Hammer is the Prayer, and his most recent, Survival Is a Style. His memoirs include the bracing and beautiful My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer, and He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art. He edited an anthology of 100 poems on Joy a few years ago, and is currently putting finishing touches on another 100 poems on Home.Our guest last week, the novelist Marilynne Robinson, says of Wiman, "His poetry and scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world.  This puts him at the very source of theology, and enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader’s surprise and assent are one and the same.”Show NotesOn being nowhere, absence, place, and homeSimone Weil: “We must take the feeling of being at home into exile, we must be rooted in the absence of a place." Christian Wiman’s homeThe resonance of objects and personsCompleting a poetry anthology about home during a pandemicThe ubiquity of home in poetry"The Niagara River” by Kay RyanIndividual life joining with collective life, the circularity and rhythm of lyric poetry; searching for a remembrance of homeWilliam Wordsworth: “Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come”“Innocence” by Patrick Kavanagh"To be a poet is to be in exile." What is it to be a believer?"Poets are not poets most of the time, the rest of the time they’re poor slobs like everybody else."Living in and attending to our exile: Abraham “living in tents, awaiting the city, whose architect and builder is God”; Jesus sleeping in the boat in the storm.Gillian Rose, Love’s Work and Nietzsche’s "tragic joy”; writing when she was dying of cancer and viewing faith as unmaking oneself."The Bennett Springs Road” by Julia Randall: “The bird that sang I am."What is the right relationship of security to precarity?“In a Time of Peace” by Ilya KaminskyHow do we live lives of joy while there’s suffering all around us?“Shema” by Primo LeviAlexander Schmemann’s “bright sorrow"Marilynne Robinson’s model of creating characters with credible lives of faith‚ credible for the very fact that they are attentive to the suffering around them.W.H. Auden: “A good poem is the clear expression of mixed feelings.""Taking life by the throat"Both/And Life“Filling Station” by Elizabeth Bishop—“Somebody loves us all."

This is a political moment characterized by stridency, suspicion, resentment, anger, and despair—where shared commitments to truth, debate, free speech, and simple good faith in one another (these core elements of democratic society)—these are under threat of outright rejection by those in power. But the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson sees an opportunity for putting aside the resentment, suspicion of the other, and despair, and instead renewing a love of democracy, grounded in the sacredness of the person, and she sees more hope in a patriotism closer to familial love than America-first Christian nationalism.To watch the video of this conversation, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUMN011pamwShow NotesPursuing theology instead of literature America as a family The incredible singularity of the human being “When we don’t treat someone with respect, we impoverish them." How does the sacredness of humanity apply to our political moment? Christian Nationalism and the founding of America. The crises of Christianity and democracy What democracy makes possible for human beings. Democracy, Education and Honoring the Sacred in Humanity An anthology of the brilliance of humankind Structural wrongs and personal morality “I miss civilization, and I want it back." Truth, trust, and being available to each other "Honor everyone." Truth, conspiracy, and demonism (QAnon, blood libel, and twisted fantasies that prevent rational engagement) Primordial goodness, fallenness, and the bearing of original sin on democracy Suspicion, twisting the truth, and returning to seeing each other with eyes of grace Costly grace and Marilynne Robinson’s love of her characters Our political challenges are challenges about our humanity Pagan values in Trumpian politics Transitioning from fighting for others’ rights to fighting for our own rights The relation between Marilynne Robinson’s Christian identity and her political identity / Reformation Christianity and political progressivism Retrieving the beauty of the faith “The deepest kind of deep thought is sustained by Christian tradition. It’s a condescension.” Jesus as moral stranger—"almost everything important to us, wasn’t important to him; almost everything important to him, isn’t important to us." Marilynne Robinson is an award-winning American novelist and essayist. Robinson was born and raised in Sandpoint, Idaho. Christian spirituality and American political life is a recurring theme in Robinson's fiction and non-fiction. In a 2008 interview with the Paris Review, Robinson said, "Religion is a framing mechanism. It is a language of orientation that presents itself as a series of questions. It talks about the arc of life and the quality of experience in ways that I've found fruitful to think about." Her novels include: Housekeeping (1980, Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist), Gilead (2004, Pulitzer Prize), Home (2008, National Book Award Finalist), Lila (2014, National Book Award Finalist), and most recently, Jack (2020). Robinson's non-fiction works include Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989), The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998), Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (2010), When I was a Child I Read Books: Essays (2012), The Givenness of Things: Essays (2015), and What Are We Doing Here?: Essays (2018). Marilynne Robinson received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Brown University in 1966 and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1977. She has been writer-in-residence or visiting professor at many universities, included Yale Divinity School in Spring 2020. She currently teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. She has served as a deacon, and sometimes preaches, for the Congregational United Church of Christ. Robinson lives in Iowa City. ‍ Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and is the Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He was educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, earning doctoral and post-doctoral degrees (with highest honors) from the University of Tübingen, Germany. He has written or edited more than 20 books, over 100 scholarly articles, and his work has been featured in the Washington Post, NPR, Christianity Today, Christian Century, Sojourners, and several other outlets. Some of his more significant books include: Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996/2019), Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (2006), Allah: A Christian Response (2011), After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (1998), A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (2011), The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (2006/2020), Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World (2016), For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference (2019, with Matthew Croasmun).

Political scientist Andra Gillespie (Emory University) discusses the significance of black politics in 2020, including the need to fix disproportional representation, ideological sorting in party politics, the experience and salience of racial identity as a grounding factor for black political engagement, pursuing justice through the political process, and bringing political science to bear on lives of faith. Show NotesDisproportional representation of African-Americans in CongressIdeological Sorting, Partisanship, and Race“Welcome to America’s Freedom Church”: How Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of MLK’s Ebenezer Baptist Church is leading the Georgia U.S. Senate racePursuing Justice in the Political Process: Voting Rights, Disenfranchisement, and RepresentationPolitical rules and doing the right thingVocation and Christian public engagementThe role of faith in ideological sorting, and faith in black politicsFollow Andra Gillespie on TwitterLearn more about the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference

Obama's 2012 director of faith-outreach, Michael Wear, joins theologian Miroslav Volf for a conversation on faith and politics in 2020 and beyond. They discuss the connection between the personal and the political in their own lives; why Christians should care about politics; the public responsibility that comes with democratic citizenship; compromise and personal integrity; the challenge of religious and political identity that converges around the common good; ambivalence and political homelessness; and the important challenge and prospect of finding joy in what is, while hoping for what seems impossible.Click here to listen to Michael Wear and the Faith 2020 podcastClick here to subscribe to Michael Wear's Reclaiming Hope email newsletterAbout Michael WearMichael Wear is a leading strategist, speaker and practitioner at the intersection of faith, politics and public life. He has advised a president, as well as some of the nation’s leading foundations, non-profits and public leaders, on some of the thorniest issues and exciting opportunities that define American life today. He has argued that the spiritual health and civic character of individuals is deeply tied to the state of our politics and public affairs. As one of President Obama’s “ambassadors to America’s believers” (Buzzfeed), Michael directed faith outreach for President Obama’s historic 2012 re-election campaign. Michael was also one of the youngest White House staffers in modern American history: he served in the White House faith-based initiative during President Obama’s first term, where he led evangelical outreach and helped manage The White House’s engagement on religious and values issues, including adoption and anti-human trafficking efforts.Today, Michael is also the founder of Public Square Strategies LLC, a sought-after firm that helps religious organizations, political organizations, businesses and others effectively navigate the rapidly changing American religious and political landscape. Michael previously served as Chief Strategist and member of the executive team for the AND Campaign, and is the co-author of Compassion and Conviction: The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement, alongside Justin Giboney and Christopher Butler.Michael’s first book, Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America, offers reflections, analysis and ideas about role of faith in the Obama years and how it led to the Trump era. In 2020, Michael was the co-author, alongside Professor Amy Black, of a major report on “Christianity, Pluralism and Public Life in the United States” that was supported by Democracy Fund. He also writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Catapult Magazine, Christianity Today and other publications on faith, politics and culture. Michael is a Senior Fellow at The Trinity Forum, and he holds an honorary position at the University of Birmingham’s Cadbury Center for the Public Understanding of Religion. Michael and his wife, Melissa, are both proud natives of Buffalo, New York. They now reside in Northern Virginia, where they are raising their beloved daughter, Saoirse. 

How do visions of flourishing life converge in the new media landscape? Theologian Angela Gorrell (Baylor University) reflects on the challenges and opportunities of technology and digital life, especially those that reveal to us who we are, who we are becoming, and to whom we belong.Show NotesThe purpose of Always on: Practicing Faith in a New Media LandscapeNew media: not just social media, but entertainment, productivity, tools, and moreHow to develop interested conversations about the impact of new media on moral, relational, political, and spiritual life.How do visions of flourishing life converge in the new media landscape?Understanding (and exploiting) human psychology in new media businessSeeking joy through affirmation and recognitionBecoming curious and open to conversations about new media.The idolatry of technologyThe chief task of adolescence growing into healthy adulthood: Identity and belonging—Who am I? Whose am I? Recognition has become malformed in the new media landscape.The threat of diminished humanity through new mediaBeing one’s real self online and in-personThe importance of participation in order to act redemptively onlineNumbness, anxiety, and depression that comes through passivityWhen will you disengage from new media? When will you engage and participate?Developing a rhythm of life that appreciates human hybridity of physical and mental mediated lifeAsk: How can I nurture connection in digital spaces in meaningful ways? About Angela GorrellDr. Angela Williams Gorrell is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary. Prior to joining the faculty at Baylor University, she was an Associate Research Scholar at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, working on the Theology of Joy and the Good Life Project, and a lecturer in Divinity and Humanities at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She is an ordained pastor with 14 years of ministry experience. Dr. Gorrell is passionate about finding issues that matter to people and shining the light of the Gospel on them. She is currently working on a book that shares findings of the joy project while addressing America’s opioid and suicide crises. Dr. Gorrell’s expertise is in the areas of theology and contemporary culture, education and formation, new media, and youth and emerging adults.

In this episode, Matt Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, and Miroslav Volf discuss the Trump-Biden presidential debate from September 29, 2020, and its implications for public discourse and the very possibility of democratic deliberation. And yes, we know that that is not the headline anymore. The truth is stranger than fiction—again. The fact is lots of people are still sick. This pandemic is real. But we’re not trying to keep up with the latest headlines. The purpose of every single episode of this podcast is to help you envision and pursue a life that is worthy of your humanity. And we think there’s something to important to say about what we saw (or maybe more appropriate—what we can’t unsee) in the presidential debate. Something deeply significant for what it means to share common life together and jointly pursue the fullest vision of flourishing we can imagine.Earlier this week, we saw the symptoms of a truly unhealthy public discourse. But we are not referring to the aggressiveness or the intensity. The conditions for debate assume that we contend, fiercely even, for what we take to be right. But what makes this country’s public discourse so sick, so fragile, is something that has infected it from within—something that threatens the very possibility of debate. Now, in on this conversation, these two points are foundational, and both come from Miroslav’s book, Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized WorldWe have two basic responsibilities if we’re contending for particular normative visions of flourishing in a democracy. That is, if you have a vision of the good life and you think it’s right.First, we need to commend our vision of flourishing life—we ought to defend it robustly.And second, we must help maintain the possibility of pluralistic discourse—disagreement, debate, deliberation—about flourishing life.So, we uphold our views, articulate them, defend them, and extend them. But we encourage dialogue. We listen carefully. We’re intellectually hospitable. We’re humble and open-minded and ready to learn.And if we are not prepared to maintain the possibility of public discourse, or if indeed we imitate the behavior on display earlier this week, well, that’s how you destroy a debate.Show notesThe two responsibilities for flourishing in the public square:1. Commend your vision of flourishing life.2. Help maintain the possibility of pluralistic discourse about flourishing life.The game of democratic liberalism: self-referreeing, calling your own fouls, and when a pick-up game threatens to devolve to a brawl.What goods are there in maintaining pluralistic discourse itself?Truth matters for a certain kind of vision of humanity.Virtue doesn’t need adornment because it is its own greatest ornament. (Seneca)"Democratic practices are expressions of our deep humanity.” (Miroslav Volf)What are the deep Christian commitments that cohere well with democratic values? Why should a Christian care about the rules of the democratic game?"Because Christians value the salvation of the soul!” (Miroslav Volf) Should Christians see winning in democratic politics as advancing the interests of God?Seeking whatever means achieve political ends is radically un-Christian.The basic commitment is to love one’s neighbor.Listening as a Christian practice of love and hospitality. (Luke Bretherton: Christ and Common Life)What is the goal of debate? Does the debater listen only to rebut? Or does the debater listen to become wiser?Bad faith actorsGetting drawn into the maelstrom. "They go low, we go high""Be careful not to saw off the limb you’re sitting on."

Miroslav Volf and Evan Rosa take listener questions about how to live faithfully in this political moment, focusing especially on questions of how political division impacts Christian and civil unity.Featuring:Miroslav’s social media bio gloss of the Prayer of St. Francis: "Before I tweet, I pray: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Dr. Bethany Keeley-Jonker: "I'm struggling to balance unity in the body with my firm conviction that the Trump presidency is hostile to my most deeply held Christian values.”Ramiro Medrano: "How can we foster unity in the body of Christ in the midst of division? How does one challenge the “brethren” to consider a different perspective? How can we correct bad theology and doctrine, when both sides use (or should I say abuse) Scripture to justify their position? I’m aware that much of this is based upon poor discipleship and interpretation. However, the polarization is further encouraged from the pulpit."DisagreementMutual vilificationUnwillingness to listenNeither in spirit of public discourse nor of ChristThe role of pastors in moral and political persuasionCordell Patrick Schulten: Can the Stoic and Christian takes on adiaphora (“Indifferents” or “Non-essentials”) help reduce the amount of political friction?Anonymous: "Other than by avoidance, how do we sustain friendships in the midst of political/partisan differences?"Rebelling against the temptation to reduce human beings to their political opinions

Is what you want really worth wanting? We often settle for procedural and productivity thinking—life hacks, listicles, and tips and tricks that offer the life of your dreams. We max out our search in the shallow water of seeking answers to the questions “what do I want and how can I get it?” But Matt Croasmun (Director of the Life Worth Living Program at Yale College) suggests that if we—a society in crisis—want to live lives worthy of our humanity, we need to ask the deepest question possible and let it inform our thinking: What is truly worth wanting?Show NotesHow can I live the life that I want?Matt’s former dream of being a musician “I was more interested in being famous than in being good”Self-formation versus self-obsession“Giving up my dream to be a composer is either the most courageous or the most cowardly thing I’ve ever done”“The fundamental question is, do I have the right dreams?”The worthiness of our dreamsWhat path is worthy of my humanity? My life’s devotion?"We live answers to the deeper questions, even if we couldn't give you those answers if we were asked point blank.”Autopilot versus intuition“Whenever we aren't all that reflective about our actions, this is the infamous unexamined life”Feeling stuck Reflection can actually streamline our daily routinesIs effectiveness what we’re after? “If your ends are bad, then more effective means are hardly the solution”“The great lie of 21st century is that the effectiveness question is the most profound question we can ask. The truth is: It’s merely the most profound question we’re able to answer."“Some of those means landed men on the moon. I mean, we’re pretty good at it”We crave knowledge of the good lifeDo we want a life of ecstatic joy or peaceful serenity?Independence or interdependence? “Self awareness is a lonely place”“The answer sadly is not within; navel gazing is insufficient”Accountability to something outside ourselves Moana, Disney, and community versus individuality “This can be deeply relieving when we've been on this sort of self-help merry-go-round”The great wisdom traditions as as sources of knowledge and relevance “Act courageously in the world, take risks with our actions, with our lives ““It's easy to have so-called courage without any humility”What we've learned with our minds needs to be inscribed in our bodiesPerhaps our practices are actually smarter than some of our best ideasOrienting our everyday desires around what we know to be true“There are many processes along the way of reforming the heart, reforming our strategies, reforming our habits”Watch the video: 

In this episode, Miroslav Volf and Drew Collins discuss home as a source of joy and humanity; the way we organize and order our homes for hospitality; and the homelessness of God and what that means for humanity.For many, the first thought of home is the threat of its negation: homelessness. Still others think of the stress and anxiety—sometimes even at life-threatening levels—of being at home. For some home is grounding, a place of safety and growth, it is embrace. For others, home is hostile, unsafe and risky, it is exclusionary. This episode features discussions of:The theological and moral significance of homeThe meaning of Jesus's homelessnessMarie Kondo's philosophy of joy and home organizationDorothy Day's voluntary poverty and "personal maximalism"Home as a place for embrace, joy, and care