LAKELAND, Fla. (Feb. 18, 2008) — Florida Southern College’s Department of Religion presents the Warren W. Willis Lecture in Religion on Feb. 29 in the William M. Hollis Room on campus. Guest speaker Dr. Miroslav Volf will speak on "Muslims and Christians on Loving God and Neighbor." The lecture takes place at 9 a.m., followed by discussion. After a lunch break and Water Dome display at 11:15 a.m, discussion will continue at noon and adjourn at 1:15 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Lunch is $5. For more information, please contact Beverly Johnson at (863) 680-4180 or bjohnson@flsouthern.edu.

Professor Miroslav Volf, the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology at Yale Divinity School and the director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, has emerged as one of the most significant voices in Christian theology in the early 21st century. A native of Croatia, where he received his bachelor’s degree from the Evangelical-Theological Faculty in Osijek, he came to the United States to earn his master’s at Fuller Theological Seminary before going to Germany where he received his doctorates in theology and habilitation at the University of Tübingen under the supervision of the most influential theologian of recent decades, Jürgen Moltmann. Professor Volf’s life and work have involved dialogue between different religions and between different cultures. He is a professor at Yale and regularly teaches and lectures in Central and Eastern Europe. He is a member of the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Evangelical Church in Croatia. Dr. Volf has been involved in international ecumenical dialogues, for instance with the Vatican Council for Promotion of Christian Unity and interfaith dialogues most recently between Christians and Muslims. His award-winning books also reflect the issues of reconciliation among people: “Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace” (2006), 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.