169. The Materiality of God's Mission, with Miroslav Volf, author of The Home of God

Spiritual Life and Leadership

Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the co-author of The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything.
In this episode, Miroslav Volf and I talk about what it means for this world to be God’s home. And what it means for this world to be our home. And what this means for the mission of the church. And, finally, what should the church do when it feels like this world isn’t our home?
THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

• Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the co-author of The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything.
• The purpose of this book is to sketch the story in which we situate our lives so we can discern the meaning of our lives.
• According to Miroslav Volf, creation is God’s home.
• God delights in bringing the world to its fullness.
• In Revelation, we see God making his home on the earth.
• Miroslav Volf reflects on why Christian tradition seems to have lost the idea that God wants to make God’s home here on earth—rather than far away in heaven.
• We ought to think in terms of salvation being a matter of matter. According to Miroslav Volf, there is a materiality to salvation.
• The world is a home of homes.
• Miroslav Volf coined the term dysoikos, which refers to “home that isn’t home.” It expresses the feeling of being alienated, of being a stranger in one’s own home or space.
• God redeems us out of our sense of dysoikos, so that we might be made at one with each other, at one with our place, at one with creation, and at one with God.
• God invites us out of dysoikos and into the home that God has for us?
• Miroslav Volf reflects on how the church is called to navigate a world—a home—that is constantly changing.
• We can’t orient ourselves around the old world. And we don’t know how to orient ourselves with a world that hasn’t yet been born.

RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:

• Miroslav Volf
  • Yale Center for Faith and Culture
• Books mentioned:
  • The Home of God: a Brief Story of Everything, by Miroslav Volf

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