A Public Faith: Serving the Common Good

The inaugural Richard Johnson Lecture was delivered in 2014 by Yale University’s Miroslav Volf.

Volf’s upbringing in Croatia as the only Christian in a school of 3,500 was pivotal in the development of his faith. A victim of intense and sustained interrogation by the government of then communist Yugoslavia, much of Volf's work focuses on forgiveness and reconciliation. He maintains that the Christian vision of the world entails the possibility of overcoming the past for both the victim and the perpetrator of wrongs. 

His topic for this lecture was A Public Faith: Serving the Common Good

While the place of faith in the public square is a contested, and contentious, subject, and many opponents of religion would rather it remain a private affair – and some believers are tempted to agree – Miroslav Volf believes faith can contribute to human flourishing for all people.

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Miroslav Volf is Founding Director of the Yale Centre for Faith and Culture, and the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. He has written more than 15 books, including Exclusion and Embrace, A Public Faith, and most recently For the Life of the World.

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Check out CPX's other podcast Life & Faith, a weekly conversation about the beauty and complexity of belief in the 21st century.

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This episode is sponsored by International Justice Mission