PACIFISM NEEDS A JUST GOD?

'...the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance.'
Miroslav Volf in Timothy with Kathy Keller, The Way of Wisdom, p.54.

HOW CHRISTIANITY ATTTRACTS IN A HOSTILE CULTURE

'One is immediately struck in 1 Peter with two contrary reactions of outsiders to the soft missionary difference. On the one hand, there is angered surprise and blaspheming from non-Christians that Christians are no longer joining them  "in the same excesses of dissipation" (4:4). The Christian difference is the cause of discrimination and persecution. Moreover, 1 Peter tells us, such negative reaction is to be expected from non-Christians. Christians should not be surprised by the "fiery ordeal" which they have to endure (4:12). The negative reactions of non-Christians do not rest on misunderstanding, but are rooted in the inner logic of the non-Christian constellation of values which seem incompatible with the values of Christians. On the other hand, one of the central passages in 1 Peter entertains a lively hope that precisely the Christian difference - outwardly visible in their good deeds - will cause non-Christians to see the truth and eventually convert (2:12,15; 3:1;3:16). This expectation presupposes overlap between Christan and non-Christian constellations of values. The good works of Christians can be appreciated by non-Christians and look attractive to them.' 

Miroslav Volf, Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter, p.25.

(Available at: http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Miroslav%20Volf%201%20Peter.pdf)

WHERE CHRISTIAN IDENTITY LIES

'Notice the significance of the new birth for Christian social identity. Christians do not come into their social world from outside seeking either to accommodate to their new home (like second generation immigrants would), shape it in the image of the one they have left behind (like colonizers would), or establish a little haven in the strange new world reminiscent of the old (as resident aliens would). They are not outsiders who either seek to become insiders or maintain strenuously the status of outsiders. Christians are the insiders who have diverted from their culture by being born again. They are by definition those who are not what they used to be, those who do not live like they used to live. Christian difference is therefore not an insertion of something new into the old from outside, but a bursting out of the new precisely within the proper space of the old.'

Miroslav Volf, Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter, p.18.

(Available at: http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Miroslav%20Volf%201%20Peter.pdf)

CHRISTIANS & CULTURE

'...to live as a Christian means to keep inserting a difference into a given culture without ever stepping outside that culture to do so. ' 

Miroslav Volf in Jeremy R Treat, 'Sexuality and the Church' in Beauty, Order and Mystery, p.56.

PRAISING GOD

'In thanking, blessing or praising God, a person expresses his or her own relation to the God he or she is adoring: joyous gratitude for what God has done and reverent alignment with God's character from which God's actions spring.' 

Miroslav Volf in David G Peterson, Encountering God Together, p.120. 

CHRISTIANITY AND CULTURE

'To be a Christian means to live one's own identity in the face of others in such a way that one joins inseperably the belief in the truth of one's own convictions with a respect for the convictions of others. The softness which should characterize the very being of Christians - I am tempted to call it "ontic gentleness" - must not be given up even when we are (from our own perspective) persuaded that others are either wrong or evil. To give up the softness of our difference would be to sacrifice our identity as followers of Jesus Christ.'

Miroslav Volf, Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter. Available at: http://www.yale.edu/faith/resources/x_volf_difference.html

THE TRINITY & RELATIONSHIPS

'Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of the three persons, faith leads human beings into divine communio. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the Triune God - a"foursome," as it were - for the Christian God is not a private deity. Communion with this God is at once communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God. Hence one and the same act of faith places a person into a new relationship both with God and with all others who stand in communion with God.'

Miroslav Volf in Timothy Lane & Paul Tripp, Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, p.20.