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PODCAST

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Drew Collins, Evan Rosa, Macie Bridge

Seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. Theological insight, cultural analysis, and practical guidance for personal and communal flourishing. Brought to you by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.

religion & spirituality christianity

All Episodes

00:29:19

Creaturely Loneliness: Desire, Grief, and the Hope of...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/11/19

Loneliness seems to be part of what it means to be a relational being. Does that mean loneliness can never really be “solved”? Here’s one way to think about loneliness: As a gap between relational expectation and social reality—something that signals our essentially relational, reciprocal nature as human beings.This episode is part 6 of a series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of loneliness, solitude, and being alone.In this reflective conclusion to the

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00:47:31

Dying Alone: Terminal Loneliness, Modern Medicine,...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/11/12

Living alone may be difficult, but what about dying alone? Physicians and nurses are the new priests accompanying people as they face death. But the experience of nursing homes, assisted living, and palliative wards are often some of the loneliest spaces in human culture.“He said, ‘Someone finally saw me. I’ve been in this hospital for 20 years and I didn’t think anyone ever saw me.’”This episode is part 5 of a series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of

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00:50:19

Women Alone with God: Extraordinary Lives of Medieval...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/11/05

What is the role of solitude in Christian history? Medievalist Hetta Howes comments on the allure of enclosure, how seeking solitude supports community, and what these ancient lives reveal about our modern search for connection.“Even those moments of solitude that she’s carving for herself are surprisingly sociable.”This episode is part 1 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of loneliness, solitude, and being alone.Medieval Anchoresses and

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00:51:18

Lonely Tech: AI, Isolation, Solitude, and Grace /...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/10/29

Is technology the source or salve of social isolation? Given the realities of increasing division, the epidemic of loneliness, and unwanted isolation today, how should we think about the theological, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of the human experience of aloneness?“AI technologies aren’t capable of creating conditions in which grace can happen—it’s endemic to personhood.”This episode is part 3 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of

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00:39:55

Notice the Absence: Ecological Loneliness, Local...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/10/22

Consider human ecological loneliness and our longing for reconnection with all creation. What healing is available in an era defined by environmental loss and exploitation? Can we strengthen the fragile connection between modern society and the space we inhabit?“Loneliness is the symptom that desires its cure.”In this episode Macie Bridge welcomes writer, translator, and poet Laura Marris to reflect on her essay collection The Age of Loneliness, a meditation on solitude, grief, and the ecology of

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00:42:27

Flourishing Alone / Miroslav Volf (SOLO Part 1)

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/10/15

Theologian Miroslav Volf reflects on solitude, loneliness, and how being alone can reveal our humanity, selfhood, and relationship with God.This episode is part 1 of a 5-part series, SOLO, which explores the theological, moral, and psychological dimensions of loneliness, solitude, and being alone.“Solitude brings one back in touch with who one is—it’s how we stabilize ourselves so we know how to be ourselves with others.”Macie Bridge welcomes Miroslav for a conversation on solitude and being

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00:32:57

Christian Faith and Public Service / Sen. Kirsten...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/10/09

From bipartisan cooperation to prayerful gratitude, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand joins Drew Collins to reflect on joy, wisdom, and love of enemy in a divided nation—offering a vision of public service grounded in the way of Jesus.“Jesus defied expectations—he welcomed the stranger, he fed the hungry, he loved his enemies.”Together they discuss the role of faith in public life amid deep division. Reflecting on Jesus’s call to love our enemies and the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to “rejoice always,” she

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01:11:50

Irrevocable Covenant: Against Supersessionism / R....

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/10/02

“The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Theologian R. Kendall Soulen joins Drew Collins to discuss supersessionism, the name of God (tetragrammaton), the irrevocable covenant between God and the Jews, and the enduring significance of Judaism for Christian theology.Together they explore religious and ethnic heritage, cultural identity, community, covenant, interfaith dialogue, and the ongoing implications for Christian theology and practice.They also reflect on how the Holocaust forced

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00:48:11

Burnout and Sabbath / Alexis Abernethy

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/09/10

Clinical psychologist Alexis Abernethy explores burnout, Sabbath rest, and resilience—reframing rest as spiritual practice for individuals and communities.“For me, it’s knowing that the Lord has made me as much to work as much to be and to be still and know that he is God.”On this episode, clinical psychologist Alexis Abernethy (Fuller Seminary) joins Macie Bridge to discuss burnout, Sabbath, worship, mental health, and resilience in the life of the church. Defining burnout through its dimensions of

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00:48:30

How to Read the Gospel of John / David Ford

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/09/04

The Gospel of John is a gospel of superabundance. The cosmic Christ made incarnate would of course yield an absolute superabundance of grace, love, and unity.What makes John’s Gospel so distinct from the Synoptics? Why does it continue to draw readers into inexhaustible depths of meaning? In this conversation, theologian David Ford reflects on his two-decade journey writing a commentary on John. Together with Drew Collins, he explores John’s unique blend of theology, history, and literary artistry,

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01:02:10

Amor Mundi Part 5: Humility and Glory of Love /...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/08/27

Miroslav Volf critiques ambition, love of status, and superiority, offering a Christ-shaped vision of agapic love and humble glory.“’And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?’ If you received everything you have as a gift and if your existence as the recipient is also a gift, all ground for boasting is gone. Correspondingly, striving for superiority over others, seeking to make oneself better than others and glorying in that achievement, is possible only as an existential

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01:03:42

Amor Mundi Part 4: The Earth Embraced / Miroslav...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/08/20

Miroslav Volf explores agapic love, creation’s goodness, and God’s grief—an alternative to despair, power, and world rejection.“When a wanted child is born, the immense joy of many parents often renders them mute, but their radiant faces speak of surprised delight: ‘Just look at you! It is so very good that you are here!’ This delight precedes any judgment about the beauty, functionality, or moral rectitude of the child. The child’s sheer existence, the mere fact of it, is ‘very good.’ That’s what I

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01:03:48

Amor Mundi Part 3: Loving Our Fate? / Miroslav Volf's...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/08/13

Miroslav Volf critiques Nietzsche’s vision of power, love, and suffering—and offers Jesus’s unconditional love as a more excellent way.The idea that competitive and goalless striving to increase one's power is the final Good, does very important work in Nietzsche’s philosophy. For Nietzsche, striving is good. Happiness does not rest in feeling that one's power is growing. In the modern world, individuals are, as Nietzsche puts it, ‘crossed everywhere with infinity.’ …And therefore condemn to

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01:06:04

Amor Mundi Part 2: Hating the World, Unquenchable...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/08/06

Miroslav Volf confronts Schopenhauer’s pessimism and unquenchable thirst with a vision of love that affirms the world.“Unquenchable thirst makes for ceaseless pain. This befits our nature as objectification of the ceaseless and aimless will at the heart of reality. ... For Schopenhauer, the pleasure of satisfaction are the lights of fireflies in the night of life’s suffering. These four claims taken together make pain the primordial, universal, and unalterable state of human lives.”In the second

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01:00:36

Amor Mundi Part 1: Unchained from Our Sun / Miroslav...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/07/30

Miroslav Volf on how to rightly love a radically ambivalent world.“The world, our planetary home, certainly needs to be changed, improved. But what it needs even more is to be rightly loved.”Miroslav Volf begins his 2025 Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen with a provocative theological inquiry: What difference does belief in God make for our relationship to the world? Drawing deeply from Nietzsche’s “death of God,” Schopenhauer’s despair, and Hannah Arendt’s vision of amor mundi, Volf

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00:33:54

How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/07/23

What if our relentless drive to be better than others is quietly breaking us?Miroslav Volf unpacks the core themes of his 2025 book, The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse. In this book, Volf offers a penetrating critique of comparison culture, diagnosing the hidden moral and spiritual wounds caused by competition and superiority.Drawing on Scripture, theology, philosophy, literature, and our culture’s obsession with competition and superiority, Volf challenges

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01:02:42

The Body as Sacred Offering: Ballet and Embodied...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/04/30

Silas Farley, former New York City Ballet dancer and current Dean of the Colburn School's Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, explores the profound connections between classical ballet, Christian worship, and embodied spirituality. From his early exposure to liturgical dance in a charismatic Lutheran church to his career as a professional dancer and choreographer, Farley illuminates how the physicality of ballet can express deep spiritual truths and serve as an act of worship.Episode Highlights from Silas

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00:34:43

Remembering Pope Francis / Nichole Flores and Ryan...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/04/23

Pope Francis died on Monday April 21, 2025. And to remember and celebrate his life, we’re bringing out an episode from our archives featuring social ethicist and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, Nichole M. Flores. Ryan McAnnally-Linz interviewed her in early 2021 about Fratelli Tutti, an encyclical teaching he published 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. From that encyclical he writes:“Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our

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01:01:48

Art and Sacred Resistance: Art as Prayer, Love,...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/04/17

“Art is a form of prayer … a way to enter into relationship.”Artist and theologian Bruce Herman reflects on the sacred vocation of making, resisting consumerism, and the divine invitation to become co-creators. From Mark Rothko to Rainer Maria Rilke, to Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” and T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, he comments on the holy risk of artmaking and the sacred fire of creative origination.Together with Evan Rosa, Bruce Herman explores the divine vocation of art making as resistance to

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00:54:20

The Fear to Hope: Ukrainian Pastor on Democracy,...

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith &... ·

2025/03/13

"Do not be afraid of your fears, but cope with them—learn how to deal with them—because unless you do, you cannot live your life abundantly and fully." (Fyodor Raychynets)Evoking courage, resilience, and faith in the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets returns to For the Life of the World three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In conversation with Evan Rosa, Fyodor shares his reflections on fear, freedom, and the emotional and spiritual

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