Cost of Ambition How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse
Innbundet /
2025
/ Engelsk
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781587434815
Publisert
2025-06-17
Utgiver
Vendor
Brazos Press, Div of Baker Publishing Group
Vekt
369 gr
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
140 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
208
Forfatter
Biographical note
Miroslav Volf (DrTheol, University of Tübingen) is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture in New Haven, Connecticut. He has written or edited more than two dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Life Worth Living, A Public Faith, Public Faith in Action, and Exclusion and Embrace (winner of the Grawemeyer Award in Religion and selected as among the 100 best religious books of the 20th century by Christianity Today). Educated in his native Croatia, the United States, and Germany, Volf regularly lectures around the world.
New York Times bestselling author Miroslav Volf on why striving for superiority is at odds with the Christian faith
"[A] smart take on a world obsessed with forward motion."--Publishers Weekly
Many people believe that ambition--striving to be better than others--improves us and advances society. But what if it actually makes us worse?
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority has negative consequences in all domains of life. Instead, we should strive for excellence. Volf explores:
● what Søren Kierkegaard, John Milton, and the apostle Paul say about the cost of ambition
● how we can achieve excellence rather than strive for superiority
● how to stop being plagued by our own sense of inferiority to others
● why Christians must retrieve a humbler way of life
Volf also examines what the teachings of Jesus and the stories in Genesis say on the matter. Volf explains how striving to be better than others devalues our achievements, surroundings, and relationships by turning them into mere means to an empty goal. This pursuit, though widely accepted in modern life, is at odds with key Christian convictions.
After exposing the toxicity of ambition, Volf uses contemporary examples to guide us toward striving for excellence.
"[A] smart take on a world obsessed with forward motion."--Publishers Weekly
Many people believe that ambition--striving to be better than others--improves us and advances society. But what if it actually makes us worse?
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority has negative consequences in all domains of life. Instead, we should strive for excellence. Volf explores:
● what Søren Kierkegaard, John Milton, and the apostle Paul say about the cost of ambition
● how we can achieve excellence rather than strive for superiority
● how to stop being plagued by our own sense of inferiority to others
● why Christians must retrieve a humbler way of life
Volf also examines what the teachings of Jesus and the stories in Genesis say on the matter. Volf explains how striving to be better than others devalues our achievements, surroundings, and relationships by turning them into mere means to an empty goal. This pursuit, though widely accepted in modern life, is at odds with key Christian convictions.
After exposing the toxicity of ambition, Volf uses contemporary examples to guide us toward striving for excellence.
Les mer
An internationally renowned theologian argues that rather than improving us as individuals and as a society, our ambition to be better than others actually diminishes us.
Contents
1."O Solomon, I Have Outdone You!"
2. The Worry of Comparison (Kierkegaard)
3. Satan's Aspiration (Milton)
4. "Outdo One Another in Showing Honor" (Paul)
5. "What Do You Have That You Did Not Receive?" (Paul)
6. From Jesus to Genesis: On Biblical Discomfort with Striving for Superiority
Conclusion: Against Striving for Superiority--Twenty-Four Theses
1."O Solomon, I Have Outdone You!"
2. The Worry of Comparison (Kierkegaard)
3. Satan's Aspiration (Milton)
4. "Outdo One Another in Showing Honor" (Paul)
5. "What Do You Have That You Did Not Receive?" (Paul)
6. From Jesus to Genesis: On Biblical Discomfort with Striving for Superiority
Conclusion: Against Striving for Superiority--Twenty-Four Theses
Les mer
"Volf has always written compellingly and convincingly as he diagnoses the human condition"
Many people believe that ambition, understood as striving to be better than others, improves us as individuals and advances society. But what if the opposite is true?
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority actually makes us worse. He unpacks the toxicity of ambition and guides us to a better goal: striving for excellence.
"This book does not disappoint. Miroslav Volf has always written compellingly and convincingly as he diagnoses the human condition. In The Cost of Ambition, he guides the reader through the origins of the pervasive yet misguided need to prove one's superiority and the multitude of problems that such striving creates. Simultaneously humane and scholarly, psychologically astute and theologically sound, Volf suggests that deliverance from this predicament can only come from the proper recognition of the generosity of the glorious and gifting God, ultimately exchanging the enslaving and empty striving for superiority with freedom and fullness in Christ's accomplishments for us and God's superiority in relation to us."
--Robert Emmons, editor in chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology; author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier and The Little Book of Gratitude
"Scholarly but readable, and combining moral clarity with compassion, this book is essential on a defining temptation of our times."
--Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times; host of The Sacred podcast
Many people believe that ambition, understood as striving to be better than others, improves us as individuals and advances society. But what if the opposite is true?
In The Cost of Ambition, world-renowned theologian and award-winning author Miroslav Volf argues that striving for superiority actually makes us worse. He unpacks the toxicity of ambition and guides us to a better goal: striving for excellence.
"This book does not disappoint. Miroslav Volf has always written compellingly and convincingly as he diagnoses the human condition. In The Cost of Ambition, he guides the reader through the origins of the pervasive yet misguided need to prove one's superiority and the multitude of problems that such striving creates. Simultaneously humane and scholarly, psychologically astute and theologically sound, Volf suggests that deliverance from this predicament can only come from the proper recognition of the generosity of the glorious and gifting God, ultimately exchanging the enslaving and empty striving for superiority with freedom and fullness in Christ's accomplishments for us and God's superiority in relation to us."
--Robert Emmons, editor in chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology; author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier and The Little Book of Gratitude
"Scholarly but readable, and combining moral clarity with compassion, this book is essential on a defining temptation of our times."
--Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times; host of The Sacred podcast
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781587434815
Publisert
2025-06-17
Utgiver
Vendor
Brazos Press, Div of Baker Publishing Group
Vekt
369 gr
Høyde
216 mm
Bredde
140 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
208
Forfatter