T wo distinguished professors came together on the evening of Oct. 18 and the morning of the 19 for the Faiths and Globalization lecture series. Miroslav Volf, the Henry B. Wright professor of theology at Yale’s Divinity School, spoke from a Christian perspective about his struggles in occupied Yugoslavia.
Saeed Khan; a lecturer at Wayne State University and Michigan State University, spoke primarily on matters of the Near East and Islam. He gave the Muslim perspective in response to Volf’s topics.
Khan’s history as a contributor to public media sources like the British Broadcasting Corporation and National Public Radio allowed him to bring unique observations of Muslim-Christian relations and how they are affected by globalization.
“We live in a world that is leaning forward, [whereas] faiths are about things that do not change,” Volf said while discussing the contrast between today’s materialistic world and the eternal focus of faith.
Khan spoke on the struggle of faiths to stay relevant in our commercialized world, “[In many places] the ‘golden arches’ reach higher than a church’s spire or a mosque’s minaret.”
After the initial speeches, questions were taken from the audience. One of the questions asked was, “How do we promote good relations between different faiths?” Volf encouraged the audience to do as God commands and love their neighbor as themselves.
Khan took the same stance, encouraging the audience to love each other and noting “it’s not so much a clash of civilizations, as a struggle for civilization [among faiths].”
