We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The Open View and Radical Suffering

photo-2Jessica Kelley spoke at Open2013 this morning, sharing her journey with tenderness and authority. Jessica began wrestling with her view of God a couple of years ago and embraced Open Theism prior to the diagnosis and eventual death of her four-year-old son, Henry. Everyone here at the conference was profoundly affected by her story and by the beauty of the God who walked with her and her husband through the darkest days of their lives. We’re so grateful that she has been open to sharing with us in this way.

Someone commented afterwards, “Theologians can work their whole lives to refine their views, but there are places where our words fall short. We have to allow the voices of those who have suffered to rise up and teach us.” This was a moment where a room full of theologians listened in silence and with tears to the voice of a grieving mother, and learned what this theology really means when radical suffering comes. Jessica reminded us, “The blueprint worldview turns broken people away from the One who was broken for them.”

Although her portion of the conference was not taped (big mistake) we’ll be working at getting her presentation to all of you as soon as possible. God is doing something amazing here.

Related Reading

Divine Wisdom

Why doesn’t God end it all and stop the slaughter? Why does God allow suffering and evil to go on so long? Here, Greg offers two possible answers to these questions. Option A is that all evil somehow is designed by God and somehow brings glory to him. But Greg thinks Option B is a better explanation, and it involves…

Podcast: Are We REALLY Free if God is Going to Ultimately Trump Our Choices?

Greg looks at the nature of freewill, specifically: how God’s promises constricts human free will. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0070.mp3

Prayer and the Open Future

Kurt Willems posted a blog today written by Derek Ouellette regarding why understanding that the future is partially open is the only thing that really makes sense of prayer. Derek addresses his thoughts to your younger self, the self that was more “Open. Teachable. Curious. Adventurous.” Let’s all be willing to respect and freely interact…

Grieving and Comfort

Henning Mühlinghaus via Compfight Ben Witherington posted this heartfelt reflection on the sudden death of his young daughter. Theology can sometimes be a relatively benign part of your life until something like this strikes without warning. That’s where things really begin to matter. This reminded us of Jessica Kelley’s reflections on the death of her son…

Your Prayers Matter

My conviction is that many Christians do not pray as passionately as they could because they don’t see how it could make any significant difference. They pray, but they often do so out of sheer obligation and without the sense of urgency that Scripture consistently attaches to prayer. The problem, I believe, is that many…

What is the significance of 2 Peter 3:9–12?

Peter says that the Lord has delayed his coming because “he is patient with you, not wanting any to perish” (vs. 9). We are encouraged to be “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” [NIV: “speed its coming”] (vs. 12). If the future is an eternally fixed reality, of course God…

Topics: