I’ve been hearing a lot about Miroslav Volf recently from several different people who I respect so I decided to pick up his book Exclusion and Embrace from Amazon this week.
I’ve always had a bent towards Sociology and Psychology and the motives behind the way people think and the way they behave. What causes people to believe what they do? What is instrumental in a change of belief? Why do people behave certain ways and not react in other ways? These are the type of questions that cycle through my head several time a day and in many instances of interaction and dialogue with people.
Lately I’ve been looking into trends in developmental culture. I spend a lot of time with people and am constantly fascinated by the way they think, operate, and behave. Where people are in adolescence socially, psychologically, and developmentally pushes me to learn and grow in my own life and presses me to constantly consider how I relate to people.
Along with looking at current trends in developmental culture, I am also looking at potential directions that it is headed. One of the theme’s that I am discovering and that I think will be huge over the next several years, particularly with teenagers, is forgiveness. Miroslav Volf confronts this in his book by proposing that the idea of embrace is the theological response to exclusion.
Should be a good read. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Jessica and I used Volf’s “Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace” (http://bit.ly/aD5Xgy) as a small group discussion book a couple years ago. It was excellent!
i want to hear more about why you think ‘forgiveness’ will be a major theme lost among adolescents in the next few years.
GO.