General
The Violent “Church Triumphant”
Category: General
Tags: Augustine, Constantine, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, The Church
In light of how central enemy-loving non-violence is to Jesus’ teaching and to his cross-centered revelation of God, we have to wonder why the church has refused to listen to its head and instead condoned…
A Response to “Are Greg Boyd and I Reading the Same Old Testament?”
Category: General
Tags: Book Reviews, Cross Vision, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology
Collin Cornell has recently published a review of Cross Vision (CV) and, less directly, of Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG) in The Christian Century. In this post I will respond to the two major objections…
McChurch
Category: General
Tags: Church, Consumerism, Discipleship
Topics: The Church
In the West, we tend to think of church as a weekend gathering in a special religious building. As a result, many mistakenly assume that Paul wrote his letters to a single body of people…
The Sine Qua Non of the Kingdom
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Judgment, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
In contrast to the habit of judgment which I challenged in the previous post, God calls his people to love the way that God loves. But what exactly does this mean? People have a lot…
A Cross-Like Church
Category: General
Tags: Church, Evangelism, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
When God’s church loves like God loves—which means valuing the other at cost to self—it will puzzle those outside the church. While such love might cause the religious to rail with outrage, it will cause…
Frank Viola’s Interview With Greg: OT Violence and the Spirit World
Category: General
Tags: Frank Viola, Old Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Violence
I have not yet personally met Frank Viola, but over the last several years we’ve conversed and debated a good deal, to the point that I consider him a good friend. He is one of…
God’s Dream for the World
Category: General
Tags: Character of God, Non-Violence
One of the grandest expressions of non-violent nature of God is found in Isaiah 11. Here God is dreaming of a time when his creation would be entirely free of violence. “The wolf will live…
Cruciform Theology in Four Steps
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, God's Love
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
The culmination of the biblical narrative of the cross reframes everything about who God is, what it means to have faith in God, and how we read the Bible! The entire Old Testament leading up…
How Jesus Cursed the Curse
Category: General
Tags: Peace, Spiritual Warfare
People who have committed to following Jesus are called to mimic even this aspect of Jesus’ life. As much as possible, we are to model what creation will look like when God’s Kingdom is fully…
Who Rules Governments? God or Satan? Part 2
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Government, Open Theism, Power, Satan
In the previous post, I raised the question of how we reconcile the fact that the Bible depicts both God and Satan as the ruler of nations, and I discussed some classical ways this has…
Who Rules Governments? God or Satan? Part 1
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Government, Open Theism, Power, Satan
Running throughout Scripture is the motif that depicts God as the ultimate ruler of the nations. On the other hand, the NT teaches that the ruler of nations is Satan. What do we do with…
Satan or God: Who Tempted David to Sin?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology
The author of 2 Samuel says that Yahweh caused David to sin by taking a census of his military personnel (2 Sam 24:1) while the author of 1 Chronicles attributes this temptation to Satan (1…
Did God Kill King Saul?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology
When we approach Scripture with the assumption that it is all God-breathed for the purpose of bearing witness to Christ, even the most trivial contradictions in Scripture can acquire theological significance. This is what I…
Sending Evil Spirits
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Evil, Judgment
In several infamous biblical depictions of Yahweh in the Old Testament, God is depicted as “sending” spirits to trouble and/or deceive people (Judg 9:22-3; 1 Sam 16:14, 23; 18:10; 19:9; 1 Kg 22:20-3). While there…
Does God Inflict Physical Disabilities?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Sickness, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In Exodus 4, we find Moses claiming that he could not be used by Yahweh to get the children of Israel out of Egypt because he was “slow of speech and tongue.” To this Yahweh…
Does the Lord “Devastate” the Earth?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Judgment
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
There is this passage that has sometimes been labeled “Isaiah’s Little Apocalypse” that proclaims how the Lord will “lay waste,” “destroy,” and “ruin” the earth. (The following builds on this previous post which identifies a…
Who Curses the Earth?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, The Fall
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
After the “fall” of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, their sin results in a five curses: on nature, on marriage, on human life, on the serpent, and on women during childbirth. Who…
How Job’s Suffering Points to Jesus
Category: General
Tags: Book of Job, Cruciform Theology, Suffering
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
As I introduced in my previous post, when we read the book of Job we must refute the common assumption that Yahweh is a Machiavellian deity who is controlling all that transpires in his creation,…
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,“…