Miroslav Volf’s theology was born not in an ivory tower, but in the cracks of a fractured world. Raised in post–World War II Yugoslavia by a Pentecostal pastor father and a Bible‑soaked mother, he spent his earliest years in a tiny apartment shared with a Serbian nanny, Milica Branković—“the angel of my childhood,” as he calls her. In a country still marked by violence between Croats (largely Catholic) and Serbs (largely Orthodox), that little household quietly embodied a different possibility: people from groups taught to distrust one another living together in love, prayer, and mutual care. It was, in hindsight, a living parable of reconciliation.As a teenager, Volf resisted the weight of his parents’ faith, only to encounter Christ for himself at sixteen—unexpectedly, in a Swedish tent meeting where he barely understood half the sermon. The change was profound enough that when he returned home, his emotionally astute mother simply looked at him and said, “What happened to you? You’re a different person.” From there, his path wound through underground theological study in communist Yugoslavia, philosophy at the University of Zagreb, a master’s degree at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, and advanced work in Tübingen, Germany on the deepest questions of God, self, and other. All of it unfolded against the backdrop of a homeland sliding into ethnic war.In this episode, Volf and Wade explore how those experiences gave rise to the themes that now define his work: exclusion and embrace, identity and otherness, and the possibility of a life “worth living” in a deeply divided age. Volf explains why he sees the gospel’s heart not in withdrawal or domination, but in the crucified Christ who absorbs enmity and opens his arms in welcome—a pattern he famously unpacked in Exclusion and Embrace, and has continued to develop through the Yale Center for Faith & Culture’s work on flourishing and public faith. They discuss how theology must be tested in the “laboratory” of real life—war, injustice, politics, and everyday relationships—and why cheap calls to reconciliation that ignore justice are as dangerous as justice pursued without any hope of reconciliation.Drawing on insights from Flourishing and Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most, Volf invites listeners—believers and skeptics alike—to wrestle with questions modern life often pushes aside: What is a good life? What are we for? How do we live with our enemies, our neighbors, and even ourselves without being consumed by resentment? Throughout, he returns to the conviction that a truly Christian vision of life is both deeply realistic about evil and radically hopeful about God’s power to create a future of joy, justice, and embrace.For anyone struggling to make sense of faith in the face of violence, culture wars, or personal hurt, this conversation offers more than abstract answers. It traces the journey of a man who has seen exclusion up close and still dares to imagine—and work for—a world shaped by reconciliation rather than revenge.

Get full access to Created in the Image of God at wadefransson.substack.com/subscribe