Miroslav Volf is a theologian currently teaching at Yale University. He is Croatian by birth and began his teaching career in his native country, the former Yugoslavia, while the wars raged around him. He is a theologian who believes deeply in the cross of the crucified Christ and believes that forgiveness from such a cross must in some way inform the way we live our lives.

At the beginning of his book about embracing the enemy [Exclusion and Embrace: Abingdon,1996] he recounts a story about giving one of his lectures that would become his book:

"After I finished my lecture, Jurgen Moltmann [a world-renowned professor of theology] stood up and asked one of his typical questions, both concrete and penetrating: ‘But can you embrace a cetnik?' It was the winter of 1993. For months now the notorious Serbian fighters called ‘cetnik' had been sowing desolation in my native country, herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches, and destroying cities. I had just argued that we ought to embrace our enemies as God has embraced us in Christ. Can I embrace a cetnik—the ultimate other, so to speak, the evil other? What would justify such an embrace? Where would I draw the strength for it? What would it do to my identity as a human being and as a Croat? It took me a while to answer, though I immediately knew what I wanted to say. ‘No, I cannot—but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.' " [ p. 9.]