Cruciform Theology
Why a “Christocentric” View of God is Inadequate: God’s Self-Portrait, Part 5
Category: Essays
Tags: Character of God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, Love, ReKnew Manifesto
Topics: Christology, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
I’m currently working through a series of blogs that will flesh out the theology of the ReKnew Manifesto, and I’m starting with our picture of God, since it is the foundation of everything else. So…
Why Greg Can’t be Accused of Marcionism (Let’s Not Burn Him at the Stake Just Yet)
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Hermeneutics, Marcionism, Pacifism, Richard Beck, War
Kristin Brenemen via Compfight Richard Beck posted a blog today entitled It’s the Same God: On Marcionism, Creeds, Hermeneutics and War. You’re going to want to take the time to read through it in its…
Quotes to Chew On: Conflicting Depictions of God
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Quotes
“This is something like the way I believe we should respond when we encounter biblical narratives that depict God doing things we can’t imagine Christ doing. For example, I can’t for a moment imagine Jesus—the…
Sermons: The Church – Week Five
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Church, Cruciform Theology, Greg Boyd, Woodland Hills Church
In week five of this sermon series, Greg Boyd discusses what the church should look like in the lens of the cross. A universal Church was born out of the ministry of Jesus, and this…
Rachel Held Evans Interviews Greg on Benefit of the Doubt
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Cruciform Theology, Doubt, Faith, Non-Violence, Rachel Held Evans
We shared an interview that Frank Viola did with Greg yesterday, and we’re thrilled to share an interview that Rachel Held Evans posted today. Rachel is very familiar with the resistance and criticism that comes…
Benefit of the Doubt Is Here!
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Bible, Cruciform Theology, Doubt, Faith, Frank Viola, Greg Boyd, Interview, Jesus
Benefit of the Doubt is finally here and you should definitely get yourself a copy! Frank Viola interviewed Greg about the book recently and you can read it over on Frank’s blog Beyond Evangelical. In fact,…
The “Third Way”: Seeing God’s Beauty in the Depth of Scripture’s Violent Portraits of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Non-Violence, Picture of God, Third Way
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
A publishing house recently sent me an advance copy of a book written by a well known scholar on the topic of the non-violent God revealed in Jesus, asking me to endorse it. (Publishing protocol…
The Cruciform Beauty of Horrific Divine Portraits
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Bible Interpretation, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, New Testament, Old Testament
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
“Only a person who is aware of the crucified Christ can properly understand Scripture.” Luther (Table Talks) In the last three posts I’ve been wrestling with how insights from Matthew Bate’s book, The Hermeneutics of…
The Cross and the Witness of Violent Portraits of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Bible Interpretation, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Jesus, New Testament, Old Testament
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In my previous post I noted that the prevalent contemporary evangelical assumption that the only legitimate meaning of a passage of Scripture is the one the author intended is a rather recent, and very secular,…
Getting Behind the “Letter” of Violent Portraits of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Character of God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Hermeneutics, Jesus, Matthew Bates, New Testament, Non-Violence, Old Testament, Reformed Theology, Scripture, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
“I will do to you what I have never done before… in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents…” Ezek. 5:9-10 In my previous post I offered a brief review…
Why do some of Jesus’ parables depict God in violent ways?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Bible Interpretation, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Parables, Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Greg deals with the question of what it means that some of Jesus’ parables seem to depict God in violent terms. In addition to getting an answer to this question you’ll be treated to a…
Are You Guilty of Marcionism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Heresy, Jesus, Non-Violence, Old Testament, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Greg responds to the question of whether or not his cruciform hermeneutic is anything like the heresy of Marcion, who basically advocated throwing out the Old Testament. (Spoiler: it’s not.)
Does Jesus’ Abandonment on the Cross Destroy the Trinity?
Category: Essays
Tags: Abandonment, An Open Orthodoxy, Cruciform Theology, Dwayne Polk, Essay, Father, God is Love, Godhead, Jesus, Tom Belt, Trinity, Trinity and Process
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Theological Method, Trinity
In my previous blog I argued that Jesus’ experience of God-forsakenness on the cross was genuine and that, as a matter of fact, there was a genuine abandonment of Jesus by the Father on the…
When God Abandoned God
Category: Essays
Tags: Abandonment, Cruciform Theology, Essay, Father, Son, Trinity
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Trinity
On the cross, Jesus’ cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt. 27:46). These are arguably the most shocking, beautiful, and profoundly revelatory words…
From Boston, With Love
Category: General
Tags: Boston Bombings, Cruciform Theology, Forgiveness, Jesus, Mercy, Peacemaking, T.C. Moore
We posted some of T. C. Moore’s reflections on the Open 2013 conference earlier this week. T. C. lives in Boston and was deeply moved by the violence and terror that came to his city….
The Extremity of God’s Love
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Father, God, Godhead, Jesus, Love, Sacrifice, Separation, Trinity, Unity
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
In response to questions he has received about whether Jesus was actually separated from the Father on the cross, Greg fleshes out his perspective on this. The love that unites the Trinity is the very…
Not the God You Were Expecting
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Easter, God, Humility, Jesus, Mark Driscoll, Micah J Murray, Sacrifice
Thomas Hawk via Compfight Micah J. Murray posted a reflection today titled The God Who Bleeds. In contrast to Mark Driscoll’s “Pride Fighter,” this God allowed himself to get beat up and killed while all his…
A Revelation of Beauty Through Ugliness
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, OT Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In my recent post, Getting Honest About the Dark Side of the Bible, I enlisted no less an authority than John Calvin to support my claim that we need to be forthright in acknowledging that…
What I Am, and Am Not, Doing In These Blog Posts
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Jesus, Picture of God
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In this post I’d like to try to help some potentially frustrated readers by explaining what I am, and am not, trying to accomplish in this series on the violent portraits of God in the…
A Coming Storm
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Debate, Essay, Evangelism, Jesus, OT Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
There is a storm beginning to brew on the horizon. It is a debate among Evangelicals about the violent depictions of God, stirred up largely by Eric Seibert’s Disturbing Divine Behavior. Here is a post…