Renowned Yale University scholar and theologian Miroslav Volf will be the featured speaker at Concordia Seminary’s annual Reformation500 Speaker Series.

The event is set for 7 p.m. April 11 in Werner Auditorium on the Seminary’s campus, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, Mo.

Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale, will offer his perspective on the legacy of the Reformation and its 500th anniversary in a lecture entitled “Memory and Reconciliation.”

Miroslav Volf

“Miroslav Volf’s work on contemporary theological questions, ecclesiology and reconciliation continues to have important implications for the church in the midst of its ecumenical fractures and efforts toward faithful public witness,” said Dr. Erik Herrmann, director of Concordia Seminary’s Center for Reformation Research. “Commemorating and celebrating the Reformation can be a complicated prospect given the tension between its profound contributions and unresolved controversy. Yet the anniversary is also an opportunity, and part of the reason for this lecture series is to gain a deeper appreciation for what lies ahead for the church in its public witness in the world.

“I believe that Volf’s perspective on the significance of the Reformation for today will be particularly instructive and well received.”

Volf is the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. He has authored numerous books, including A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (2011); Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection (2010); Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (2006), which was the Archbishop of Canterbury Lenten book for 2006; Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996), a winner of the 2002 Grawemeyer Award; and After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (1998), winner of the Christianity Today book award.

Volf also has received many prestigious lectureships including the Dudleian Lecture at Harvard University; the Chavasse Lectures, University of Oxford; the Waldenstroem Lectures, Stockholm; the Gray Lectures, Duke University; and the Stob Lectures, Calvin College. He has been featured on National Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith and the Public Broadcasting Service’s Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly.

In 2012 the Seminary’s Center for Reformation Research began commemorations for the Reformation Quincentenary by sponsoring an annual speaker series to offer varying perspectives on the significance of the Reformation.

This lecture is free of charge and open to the public. It will be available for live stream at www.csl.edu/live.

For more information, please call 314-505-7486 or email ce@csl.edu.

About Concordia Seminary
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis provides Gospel-centered graduate-level theological education for pastors, missionaries, deaconesses, scholars and other leaders in the name of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). To learn more, visit www.csl.edu.