Video from Yale Center for Faith and Culture
Theology of Joy
'N.T. Wright and Miroslav Volf discuss the theological subject of joy, following the first Yale Center for Faith and Culture Theology of Joy consultation in Tübingen, Germany (June 26, 2014). N. T. Wright is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Theology of Joy is a project of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture funded by the John Templeton Foundation." from video introduction
Joy is fundamental to human existence and well-being, yet it is an elusive phenomenon that resists definition. For more than two millennia, the articulation and cultivation of joy was at the center of Jewish and Christian scripture, theology, and practices—an articulation and cultivation that in turn was grounded in and evolved over centuries of lived human experience, observation and discernment. Notwithstanding the importance of joy to human well-being and the deep, ancient religious foundations for understanding and cultivating joy, the very idea of joy has all but disappeared from modern theological reflection, is all but ignored by the social sciences, and is increasingly absent from lived experience. The consequence is a “flattening out,” a “graying,” of human life and communities—abundance of entertainment notwithstanding—and a sharp bloom of individual and communal dysfunction.
Joy is fundamental to human existence and well-being, yet it is an elusive phenomenon that resists definition. For more than two millennia, the articulation and cultivation of joy was at the center of Jewish and Christian scripture, theology, and practices—an articulation and cultivation that in turn was grounded in and evolved over centuries of lived human experience, observation and discernment. Notwithstanding the importance of joy to human well-being and the deep, ancient religious foundations for understanding and cultivating joy, the very idea of joy has all but disappeared from modern theological reflection, is all but ignored by the social sciences, and is increasingly absent from lived experience. The consequence is a “flattening out,” a “graying,” of human life and communities—abundance of entertainment notwithstanding—and a sharp bloom of individual and communal dysfunctio