By Marianna Richardson
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This blog is Part 3 of a three-part series covering the HumanKind: Global Faith Forum held on February 4, 2026, in Washington, D.C. This final installment focuses on theologian Miroslav Volf and Ambassador Rabbi David Saperstein, who together offered theological and ethical foundations for the conference’s central theme of human dignity across difference.
Miroslav Volf on Ego and the Call to Honor
Dr. Miroslav Volf—Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founder and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture—began by examining one of the more uncomfortable truths about human motivation: our tendency to measure our worth by how we compare to others. People crave affirmation, he observed, not merely for what they accomplish, but simply for existing. When that need goes unmet, it turns corrosive—fueling competition, resentment, and the diminishment of those around us.
Against this backdrop, Volf drew attention to a brief but radical imperative from the First Epistle of Peter: “Honor everyone.” Two words, he noted, that carry enormous moral weight. This is not a conditional command—it does not say “honor those who honor you” or “honor those with whom you agree.” It is unconditional, universal, and, in the context of the early church, directed toward a community that frequently experienced hostility rather than honor in return.
What It Means to Honor Someone
Volf was careful to clarify what honoring another person does and does not require. It does not mean endorsing their beliefs, approving their behavior, or ceasing to challenge what is harmful. Early Christians, he noted, honored their persecutors without accepting their persecution. Disagreement, correction, and moral persuasion are entirely compatible with honoring another human being.
What honoring someone does require, Volf argued, can be understood in three movements. First, it means affirming that another person’s existence is good—recognizing their inherent worth simply as a creature of God. Second, it requires respecting their integrity and personal boundaries, even when attempting to persuade them toward a different view. Third, it involves nurturing their capacity to grow and flourish, which requires acknowledging both human fragility and our deep interdependence.
Crucially, this command extends even to those who have done great wrong. Their actions may merit condemnation; their humanity does not.
“As created in the image of God, we need to understand each other as creatures of God.”
Rooted in God’s Creative Love
Volf grounded this ethic theologically by drawing attention to what he described as a remarkable feature of Christian thought: every person is not merely made by God, but continuously sustained by God’s creative love. That love is the basis on which we honor all people—not sentiment, not calculation, but the recognition that each human being is, at every moment, held in being by divine care.
He extended this idea with a characteristic lightness of touch, drawing on biblical images of sparrows to illustrate the scope and tenderness of divine attention. He then closed with a story about his young son asking whether he would still be loved if he turned into a donkey. The only fitting answer, Volf said, was unconditional love—and it is precisely that kind of love which Christians are called to extend to every person, however difficult the encounter.
Rabbi David Saperstein: Judaism, Ambition, and the Stranger
Ambassador Rabbi David Saperstein—former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and a co-founder of the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network—offered a response to Volf’s remarks that illuminated both the resonances and the distinctive emphases of the Jewish tradition on questions of human nature and moral obligation.
Human Nature and the Two Inclinations
Saperstein began with a teaching that does not map neatly onto the Christian framing Volf had offered. Jewish tradition, he explained, holds that every person is born with two internal drives: the yetzer ha-tov, the good inclination, and the yetzer ha-ra, which is often translated as the “evil inclination” but which carries a more nuanced meaning. The yetzer ha-ra is not simply the pull toward wrongdoing; in Jewish thought, it also represents ambition, creativity, and the psychological energy that motivates achievement. Without it, Saperstein noted, “no new houses would be built and no new things invented.”
This is a subtle but important point of difference with Volf’s framing. Where Volf had treated competitive striving as a manifestation of the fragile ego—something to be overcome—Saperstein’s tradition does not condemn ambition itself. Ambition becomes harmful only when it is misdirected. The goal is not to extinguish the yetzer ha-ra but to channel it toward good ends.
Love, Obligation, and the Stranger
Saperstein then turned to the biblical commandment to care for the stranger—a command that, he noted, appears in the Torah with striking frequency. Rabbis traditionally cite thirty-six instances; the Talmud suggests the number may be even greater, depending on how passages are translated.
What Saperstein emphasized, however, was the character of most of these passages. They do not, in the main, command emotional love toward the stranger. They command action: protect the stranger, feed them, clothe them, ensure they receive the same social benefits as any member of the community. Judaism, he suggested, measures righteousness not by what one feels but by what one does. Even if one does not feel warmth toward someone who is culturally unfamiliar or whose behavior is puzzling, one is still obligated to provide for their needs.
“Judaism measures righteousness not by feelings, but by deeds.”
Shared Moral Foundations Across Faiths
Saperstein concluded by returning to the larger theme of the conference. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, he observed, all emerge from a common moral landscape. Their paths diverge in significant ways—their theological claims, their practices, and at times their emphases. But their core commitments—to justice, to compassion, to responsibility for the vulnerable—are deeply aligned. That alignment, he suggested, is not merely a diplomatic convenience. It is the ground on which genuine multifaith cooperation becomes possible, and on which the kind of work the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network is doing can rest.
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Marianna Richardson is the Director of Communications for the G20 Interfaith Forum. She is also an adjunct professor at the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University.