Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World

Short Review: On the whole I think this is a useful book and an important call. Essentially Volf is making a Christian case for why religious exclusivists need to embrace political pluralism. He believes that globalization (political and economic) need the moral underpinnings that only religious exclusivists can bring.

Part one of the book mostly felt like Volf was going over well trod ground and introducing globalization, limits of economics and politics in morality, and introducing the need to pay attention to religious issues in politics. But there was some good imagery and synthesis in part one. Particularly his imagery around ‘you shall not live by bread alone' when talking about economics and politics was helpful.

But part two Volf started making unique contributions and the value of the book was really made. For me his grid (and distinctions between) religious pluralism and religious exclusivism and political pluralism and political exclusivism was very helpful.

The major weakness I think is that Volf did not really address what to do with religious anti-pluralists (what I think he would term fundamentalists). There is a significant group of religious exclusivists that are political exclusivists (on his grid). He addresses the problem with this group for globalization, but not really how to help move this group toward political pluralism. And that is part of what I was hoping would be a part of the book.

I listened to this on audiobook both because I knew I would get through it if the book bogged down (it didn't) and because for me the audiobook was much cheaper than the kindle or print book. I would like to re-read this again in print if I can find a cheap copy or my library gets it.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/flourishing/