Last week the citizenry of Maynooth enjoyed the learned teachings of Prof. Miroslav Volf, as reported by your able blogger, Zoomtard. Volf is an acclaimed theologian, who grew up a Croatian Christian under Communism, is a Pentecostal among the evangelicals, an evangelical among mainline Protestants and a writer who straddles all kinds of categories that we naturally think shouldn’t go together. His books bounce post-modernists like Derrida up against Christian contrarians like John Howard Yoder and then read them through the lens of classic systematic theologians like Jurgen Moltmann. There is a tremendous depth in all of his books.
Volf delivered a lecture that explained the role of remembering rightly in the midst of the violent world we live in. As he outlined the uniquely Christian response to conflict, I was receiving texts from a dear friend. His brother was at that moment trapped in his apartment with his wife and children in Beirut as civil war broke out. As Volf outlined why it is dangerous for us to preach slogans like “Never Forget!”, these friends of mine were hiding in a corner beneath a mattress while snipers occupied their complex and fires raged up and down the street. Volf’s theology found its genesis in the context of the Serbian onslaught of the Yugoslav Civil War. As he made affectionate fun of the stuffy priests at Maynooth, this friend’s neighbour had been kidnapped and was being beaten by Hezbollah troops.
It was, wholly appropriately, a profound reminder to me that theology is not a fun intellectual game. The Christian life is not just a team I’ve picked the way I support Manchester City, that I represent in the public square and hope it does not receive 8-1 drubbings. I believe, I proclaim and I live this life because it is true. That family, who are safe now, by the way, as is their neighbour, have dual-citizenship in a peaceful first-world country where they could ply their trade and live a life of supreme comfort. They are in Beirut for the same reason I am in Maynooth. They are convinced that God wants them there. And in that last sentence, there is so much truth that a raging civil war can’t move them.
We believe in Christianity and we engage in the theological project because it is the truth.
The day after Volf wowed us down at the Seminary, Teragram linked me up to the Volfian alter-ego, Mr. Robert Wright. Wright is one of these glorious mouthpieces of the Empire. A western world intellectual who offers easy answers to hard questions. No sacrifice required here. Nothing at all like the kind of life-destroying decisions that need to be made by our Lebanese brothers and sisters. Nothing at all like the issues faced by Volf or even by his parents (see the first link in this post). The world may be a horrid place but in Mr. Wright’s view, it is getting better. As simply as a Beatles song or a Philips ad, we are reminded that we have to believe it’s getting better, getting better all the time.
http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf
Volf’s life was destroyed by ethnic conflict whereby Serbians decided to wipe the land clean of the Muslim presence of their Bosnian neighbours. They despised their fellow Christian Croatians because they were Roman Catholic, not Orthodox. All three nations went to war and Srebrenica is just the most famous example of how viciously tribal and raw humans can be.
Yet according to Wright, a man who lives in the United States and is the king of the castle, there is moral progress to be observed.
Twenty-five hundred years ago members of one Greek city state considered members of another Greek city state sub-human and treated them that way. And then this moral revolution arrived and they decided, ‘actually no, Greeks are human beings. It’s just the Persians…’
He calmly assures the audience of the TED Talk that today no one in that room would consider another person sub-human for being of a different kind. And he may well be right. But tickets to TED cost $6,000. So his audience is hardly representative of the world. When you have that much money, you don’t need to even actively hate your neighbour. You can just build high walls to keep him out. Even Wright makes a disclaimer. If you disobey the rules tremendously, then dehumanization might be legitimate. This easy optimism will collapse into bitter violence in less prosperous times. But to paraphrase Volf, at the heart of Christianity lies the persuasion that we do not love the Other based in any way on the Others deserving our love.
The world that Wright argues for is a simple world filled with tractable problems marred only by irrational thinking. If only we can be calm, reasoned, sensible and that most Orwellian of terms, (maybe Orwellian is the most Orwellian of terms?) rational, then the future will be bright and utopia will be ours. He says,
All the salvation of the world requires is the intelligent pursuit of self-interest.
To which Volf, our Lebanese brother and sister and Zoomtard responds, by saying that the salvation of the world requires the perfect pursuit of self-sacrifice that can only be found in Jesus. And the role of the Christian in a world where the earth swallows 12,000 people whole and soldiers eat the food of dispossessed peasants is to follow Jesus in self-sacrifice. To choose to live and work and employ people in Lebanon. To choose to live and work and teach people in Croatia. To choose to stand up and call any progress that leaves a billion people without running water a self-serving lie equal to the tyrants and colonists we think we’re progressed beyond.
Your Correspondent, Started ranting and couldn’t stop himself
Zoomtard: 
Thanks for raving. I’m glad you made it back to the world of blogging, and I’m glad I stopped myself from deleting you blog because I thought you’d never make it back. Your blog always challenged me on quite a few levels, and I am thoroughly enjoying the new & dare I say improved ‘Zoomtard’ blog. Thanks. It’s refreshing to read a Christian blog that dares to be bare.
Thanks very much Amy. I really appreciate the encouragement.