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Who is Responsible for Job’s Suffering?
Category: General
Tags: Book of Job, Cruciform Theology, Suffering, Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In the prologue of the Book of Job, the author seems to ascribe the responsibility for Job’s affliction to Yahweh. For instance, Satan challenges God to “stretch out [his] hand and strike everything he has,“ believing that this would incite Job to curse God to his face (1:11). The fact…
God’s Heart to Prevent Judgment
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Judgment, Prayer
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Verse: Ezekiel 21, Ezekiel 22
In Ezekiel we read a passage that depicts Yahweh as warning his people about their impending punishment by saying, “I will pour out my wrath on you and breathe out my fiery anger against you” (Ezek 21:31a). As we find in several other texts, Yahweh is here depicted as a…
Revolting Beauty
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
https://youtu.be/1zg3gZMwCNY In this sermon clip, Greg shares the story of how foster parents entered into the pain of a severely abused child and demonstrated compassion rather than judgment when she displayed puzzling and revolting behaviors. This moving story illustrates the way that God enters into our sin and our curse…
Four Principles of the Cruciform Thesis
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In the second volume of Crucifixion of the Warrior God, I introduce how four dimensions of the revelation of God on the cross (as introduced in this post) lead to four principles that show us how to unlock aspects of the OT’s violent divine portraits and thus disclose how a…
Two Questions to Unlock Violent Divine Portraits
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, OT Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
There are two basic questions that help us to interpret what is going on in the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament, as I propose in Crucifixion of the Warrior God. The First Question: What does the “God-breathed” revelation of the cross teach us about the nature of…
The Non-Violent Jesus Clothed in Violence
Category: General
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
As I’ve argued in several books (for instance, see The Myth of a Christian Nation) as well as in many posts, Jesus refused to use the power that was available to him to defend himself, choosing instead to offer up his life on behalf of his enemies. When we consider…
Is the New Testament Ambiguous About Non-Violence?
Category: General
Tags: Bible Interpretation, Cruciform Theology, Non-Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
One could argue, with some legitimacy, that the portrait of God in the NT is not unambiguously non-violent, the revelation of God on Calvary notwithstanding. It can’t be denied that there are violent-appearing images of God in certain teachings of Jesus and certain NT authors, especially when it comes to…
Reviewing the Reviews: Tom Belt (Part 1)
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Reviews, Tom Belt
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Tom Belt has written a four-part review of Crucifixion of the Warrior God on his blog An Open Orthodoxy. Parts 1 and 2 offer an overall fair and balanced summary of CWG, at least to the point that correcting misunderstandings would feel petty. In Part 3 Tom offers a critique…
Christus Victor Atonement and Girard’s Scapegoat Theory
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Character of God, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Love, Rene Girard, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Many of the major criticisms of Crucifixion of the Warrior God that have been raised since it was published four weeks ago have come from folks who advocate Rene Girard’s understanding of the atonement. A major place where these matters are being discussed is here, and you are free to…
The God Who Stoops
Category: General
Tags: Bible Interpretation, Cruciform Theology
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
The way that one imagines God can be thought of along the lines of a Rorschach test. That is, I submit that the way a person imagines and experiences God says at least as much about that person as it does God. The more estranged people are from God, the…
Crucifixion of the Warrior God (Official Trailer)
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Greg Boyd, Rex Harsin
Topics: Attributes and Character, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
https://youtu.be/6Fs_sOyEBRo Video by Rex Harsin…
How God Judges Sin
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Judgment, OT Violence, Sermons
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
https://youtu.be/zkpwxkofcCE In his third sermon covering material from his book Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Greg explores the topic of judgment. In this clip, Greg suggests that while God certainly does judge sin, how he judges is very different than we might expect. You can view the entire sermon here…
Something Else is Going On
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
https://youtu.be/K4YA2oJnQhE The violent portraits of God in the Old Testament are a stumbling block for many. In this short clip, Greg introduces the idea that “something else is going on” in these passages, and that we can begin to see this something else when we put our complete trust in…
Overview of Crucifixion of the Warrior God
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Bible, Character of God, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Jesus
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
https://youtu.be/8rK8wdGwZfg Greg reviewed the content of his new book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, as a part of the Woodland Hills Church Covenant Partner gathering on March 5, 2017. If you want a fairly succinct synopsis of the thesis of his book, look no further. Ten years ago, Greg set…
The Final Battle in Revelation
Category: General
Tags: Book of Revelation, Eschatology, Jesus, Non-Violence, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
I will conclude this series on the violent imagery in Revelation by addressing the infamous eschatological battle scene found in 19:11-21, for it is this graphically violent section of Revelation that is most frequently appealed to by those who argue against the claim that Jesus reveals an enemy-loving, non-violent God…
When God Endorsed Polygamy
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, God
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
We often find God acting as if he supports things we know, by other means, that he does not. For example, though his ideal was monogamy, it’s clear in the biblical narrative that, once God decided to permit men to acquire multiple wives and concubines, he was not above bearing…
What To Do With the Violent God of the Old Testament
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, OT Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
For eight years Greg has been researching for and writing the book entitled The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. In it he confronts the commonly held idea that the Old Testament depictions of God behaving violently should be held alongside of and equal to the God revealed through Jesus dying…
Rethinking Transcendence
Category: General
Tags: Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Philosophy, Transcendence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Going back to pre-Socratic philosophers and running through the major strands of the church’s theological tradition, the conception of how God (or, in ancient Greece, “the One”) was arrived at primarily by negating the contingent features of the world that were deemed inferior and in need of explanation. God transcended…
A Dialogue with Derek Flood Part 2: Is ALL of the Bible Inspired?
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Biblical Authority, Book Reviews, Cruciform Theology, Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture, Inspiration, Jesus
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Image by TheRevSteve via Flickr Yesterday, I offered the first part of my response to Flood’s comments regarding my review of his book. Today I’ll finish up my thoughts. Scripture and Its Interpretation Flood confesses that he is confused as to how I can claim that “in the light of…
A Dialogue with Derek Flood: Is the Bible Infallible?
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Biblical Authority, Book Reviews, Cruciform Theology, Derek Flood, Disarming Scripture, Infallibility, Inspiration, Non-Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
I’m happy to see that Derek Flood has responded to my four part review of his book, Disarming Scripture. His response—and, I trust, this reply to his response—models how kingdom people can strongly disagree on issues without becoming acrimonious. And I am in full agreement with Derek that our shared…