Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities

by Miroslav Volf

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2010

Overview

Miroslav Volf’s writing beautifully points away from the pettiness and selfishness so prominent in our culture today and toward the love that Christians are called to exemplify. His insights in this volume will inform and inspire all who wish to follow that path of love.

Contents

Top Highlights

“From this theologian’s perspective, the central challenge for pastoral ministry today concerns the most important mark of good ministry: the ability effectively to mediate faith as an integral way of life to persons, communities, and cultures. This has been true throughout history, in every culture and for every community of faith. But in our time maybe more than ever communities of faith seem to be falling short precisely at this point.” (Page 82)

“God hanging on the cross for the salvation of the world is not a negotiating God. On the cross, God is not setting up the terms of a contract that humanity needs to fulfill. God isn’t saying: ‘I died for you, now you’ve got to do what I tell you to do.’ Instead, God is giving God’s own self so that humanity may have life, and life abundant. God is not a negotiator. God is a giver.” (Page 8)

“The sources of satisfaction may vary: power, possessions, love, religion, sex, food, drugs—whatever. What matters the most is not the source of satisfaction but the experience of it—my satisfaction. Our satisfied self is our best hope. This is not just petty; a dark shadow of disappointment stubbornly follows this obsession with personal satisfaction as well. We are meant to live for something larger than our own satisfied selves. Petty hopes generate self-subverting, melancholy experiences.” (Page 108)

“Why did the omnipotent and loving One not do something about the tsunami before it struck? I don’t know. If I knew, I could justify God. But I can’t. That’s why I am still disturbed by the God to whom I am so immensely attracted and who won’t let go of me.” (Page 37)

Product Details

• Title: Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities
• Author: Miroslav Volf
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2010
• Logos Release Date: 2015
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Christian life; Love › Religious aspects--Christianity
• ISBNs: 9780802865069, 0802865062
• Resource ID: LLS:GNSTTDPRSSTNMTS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:18:19Z

About Miroslav Volf

Miroslav Volf is Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School. He is also the Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. as well as the Evangelical Church in Croatia.

(From Theopedia.com. Freely redistributable under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.)