Miroslav Volf: Exclusion and Embrace

Miroslav Volf laments about his country

“Did I not discover in oppressed Croatia’s face some despised Serbian features? Might not the enemy have captured some of Croatia’s soul along with a good deal of Croatia’s soil?”

in his book, ‘Exclusion and Embrace’.

Here’s another quote:

"Cultural identity insinuates itself with religious force; Christian and cultural commitments merge. Such sacralisation of cultural identity is invaluable for the act of piety. Blind to the betrayal of Christian faith that both sacralisation of cultural identity and the atrocities it legitimizes represents, the “holy” murderers can even see themselves as the Christian faith’s valiant defenders".

But the best I’ve come across so far is (I’m yet to finish the book, but can’t wait to put this up):

"It is a mistake, I believe, to complain too much about Christianity being “alien” in a given culture...There are, of course, wrong ways to being a stranger, such as when an alien culture (say one of the western cultures) is idolatrously proclaimed as the gospel in another culture (say one of the Asian cultures). But the solution for being a stranger in a wrong way is not full naturalization, but being a stranger in the right way. Much like Jews and Muslims, Christians can never be first of all Asians or Americans, Croatians, Russians or Tutsis (or Nagas), and then Christians. At the very core of Christian identity lies an all encompassing change of loyalty, from a given culture with its gods to the God of all cultures. "

I heard that there are some updates in his new book ‘The end of memory’. But this 2002 Grawemeyer Award winning book (and one among the 100 best books in the 20th century by Christianity Today) is great and sets the heart racing as you turn the pages. Please get hold of the book and digest it.