Explore Quotes by Miroslav Volf

Christianity and Islam are today the most numerous and fastest growing religions globally. Together they encompass more than half of humanity. Consequence: both are here to stay.

To affirm that God is God is to want to live in a particular way.

I think evangelicals would do better if they concentrated less on bolstering the formal authority of the Scripture - which I certainly would want to affirm - and more on displaying how biblical texts can shape lives in salutary ways, how they are fruitful texts, how they are texts one can live according to.

Some Jews and Muslims accuse Christians of being idolatrous for believing in the Trinity. My response to both groups is that they fundamentally misunderstand the Christian understanding of the Trinity.

In good relationships, we are happy to grow as the other person becomes part of us and who we are.

I do believe that Muslims and Christians and Jews pray to the same God. And yet they understand who God is in significantly different ways.

I don't think we need to agree with anyone in order to love the person. The command for Christians to love the other person, to be benevolent and beneficent toward them, is independent of what the other believes.

Out of 3,500 students in my high school, I was the only openly professing Christian kid. Obviously there were challenges. 'Only old and stupid people believe.'

Prejudice is a form of untruthfulness, and untruthfulness is an insidious form of injustice.

There is no more effective way to radicalize American Muslim youth than for political leaders to make public displays of prejudice against all Muslims. Suspicion will undermine their sense of identification with America and alienate some from both the culture and from politics.

For any victim, particularly us Americans, it is difficult to see ourselves through the eyes of our offender. But for any victim it is the most salutary thing to do.

Some of the worst violence in the world today between estranged religious and ethnic groups happens not on the battlefields. It happens smack in the middle of living rooms and between people who share a lot, who have a lot in common.

Rules help govern and steer a relationship along, so they're good things. But they become bad things when they become the narrow gate though which the relationship must always pass. When this happens, the rules become the basis for the relationship and, in a sense, become a substitute for the relationship.

For Christians, faith is a precious good, the most valuable personal and social resource. When it is left untapped, the common good suffers - not just the particular interests of Christians.

There are no unforgivable sins.

Muslims and Christians can work together to depose dictators and assert the power of the people. We've seen it happen on the Tahrir Square in Cairo during the 2011 revolution in Egypt, with devout Muslims and Coptic Christians protesting side by side.

Theology is not only about understanding the world; it is about mending the world.

If somebody postulates the existence of more than one god, I would have to say we don't worship the same god. If somebody says that God is basically one with the world, I would also have to say we don't worship the same god.

For many Americans, Osama bin Laden is the paradigmatic Muslim, an absurd conviction for anyone who has lived with Muslims.

The significance of the crucifixion is not only what God does for us; consistently throughout the New Testament the crucifixion is portrayed as the pattern that we are to follow. It is a model of social behavior toward the other as well as a statement about what God has done for us.

Faith idles when character shrivels.