Search Results: getting%20honest%20about%20the%20dark
No Room for Judgment
Category: General
Tags: Homosexuality, Judgment, LGBTQ, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
…talking to would have been considered rather holy when compared to most others. Jesus was challenging their addiction to getting life and self worth from their judgment of others. When we try to ascribe worth to ourselves at the expense of others—by judging them—we always minimize our own sins and…
Reversing Babel
Category: General
Tags: Conflict, Love, Racial Reconciliation
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
…to put on display what humanity looks like when people are freed from getting life from the idol of tribalism that divides us. We no longer need to seek the benefits from whatever privilege the racially-structured society grants us. Instead we can use whatever privilege we might have on behalf…
Love That Keeps On Giving
Category: General
Tags: Love, Self-Sacrificial Love, Unsurpassable Worth
…at cost to oneself. On the cross, God expressed this love in its most perfect form. The kind of love that defines God, that characterizes the life of Christ, and that is commanded of believers has nothing to do with getting something. The agape love that flows from the Spirit…
Religion that Blinds Us to God
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Relationships, Religion, Religious Idolatry
…than getting their life and worth from the God who gave the law, they were attempting to get life from the law itself. In other words, religion had become a substitute for the living God. This is one of the reasons these Jews couldn’t see that God was present in…
False Gods in the Church
Category: General
Tags: Belief, Religious Idolatry
…is Lord of their life magically makes him Lord. This is undoubtedly why so many evangelical churches spend an exorbitant amount of energy getting people to make a one-time confession of belief. The truth is, merely believing Jesus is Lord no more makes him Lord of my life than believing…
How Classical Theology Gets It Wrong
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Philosophy
Topics: Attributes and Character
…in light of actions that humans take. Moreover, those who espouse this classical view of God, interpret all depictions of God grieving, getting angry, being frustrated, or suffering out of love for wayward humans as failing to reflect God’s true nature. In fact, some have gone so far as to…
Podcast: Defending the Manifesto (3 of 10)
Category: ReKnew Podcast
Tags: Belief, Life in Christ
Greg responds to challenges by William Lane Craig from Craig’s podcast “Reasonable Faith.“ In this episode Greg discusses getting life from Christ and not from “being right” about Christ. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0058.mp3…
Do Not Fear
Category: General
Tags: Fear, Love, Politics, Religious Idolatry
We interrupt this election season to bring you the following reminder: [F]ear is a diabolic force. Its ultimate creator is Satan, and he uses it to keep us in bondage (Heb. 2:15). Throughout history, leaders have used fear to rally the masses around their causes, sometimes getting them to do…
Responding to the Negative Fallout of Trump’s Election
Category: General
Tags: Kingdom Living, Love Your Neighbor, Politics, Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
…powerful person on the planet, sending the message that this kind of behavior is no big deal. In an article published since the election, *Jonathan Martin similarly reflected: After getting done with our Election Day communion service Tuesday night, I walked over to a sushi restaurant in downtown Tulsa for…
Cross-Shaped Transcendence
Category: General
Tags: Cross, God's Character, Nature of God, Transcendence
Topics: Attributes and Character
…transcendence in the “wholly other” quality of this revelation. As I interpret him, this is close to what Luther was getting at with his conception of God’s hiddenness. He was noting that the utter incomprehensibility of God is most clearly unveiled precisely when God is most unambiguously revealed. God’s unfathomable…
Jesus and Nationalistic Violence
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Kingdom of God, Nationalism, Non-Violence, Peace
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
…Also significant is the trans-national vision and call of the kingdom that Jesus shared throughout his ministry. Though some of Jesus’ disciples had a hard time getting it (e.g. Peter in Acts 10), Jesus inaugurated a kingdom in which a united new humanity would be birthed and in which all…
Reviewing the Reviews: Rob Grayson (Faith Meets World)
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Reviews, Rob Grayson
Topics: Biblical Interpretation
Well folks, Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG) has been out three weeks and it’s already in its third printing! That blows me away! Thank you!! We’re already getting deeply moving testimonies of how this book – or how messages about the book — are freeing people to better see…
15 Reasons Open Theism is TRUE (a reply to Andrew Wilson)
Category: Guest Contributor
Tags: Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View, Responding to Objections
…the Father, Son and Spirit all love one another? A fantastic question, and a difficult challenge for open theists. But less difficult than the same problem for Calvinism. As we know, there are 2 risks associated with love relationship: entering into love relationship and remaining in love relationship (getting married…
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
…agree that Girard’s understanding of the cross is good, so far as it goes. As I flesh it out in CWG, Girard is getting at one of the fundamental reasons why God had to stoop to take on the appearance of a perpetrator of violence in the biblical narrative leading…
The Cross is Revelation and Salvation
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Love, Salvation
…Getting this point is crucial to understanding my argument in Crucifixion of the Warrior God and the forthcoming Cross Vision (Due out August 15). What is more, since the curse of the law includes enslavement to “the elemental spiritual forces of this world” (Col. 2:20), we may add that the…
A Cross-Like Church
Category: General
Tags: Church, Evangelism, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
…the perimeter that establishes boundaries for who is right and who is wrong, it will to some extent be getting its fulfillment and life from what it is “against,” rather than what is it “for.” Sadly, far too many churches acquire their sense of worth and identity by their religious…
The Trap of Religious Idolatry
Category: General
Tags: Identity in Christ, Idolatry, Life in Christ
…an inner emptiness and sickness. It is evidence of a spiritual pathology. The attempt to fill the emptiness with the right beliefs and right behaviors rather than God prevents them from ever getting their emptiness really filled. Religious idolatry can placate the emptiness for short periods of time. When our…
What’s the Purpose of Old Testament Law?
Category: General
Tags: Identity in Christ
…the one thing that is necessary for genuine relationship to exist: love. The law is a classic Catch-22. Our efforts to get life precludes our ever getting life. And this is exactly the point! Through the law, God actually intensifies our need to get life in order to break us…
Wake Up to God’s Presence
Category: General
Tags: Being Present, God's Presence, Practicing the Presence of God, Presence of God, Present Perfect
…morning. I determine not to get out of bed until that mind set upon the Lord is settled.” I too have found the practice of surrendering the first moments of waking consciousness to God to be profoundly helpful. At first it was hard to remember to do this before getting…
Can Life Have Meaning Without God?
Category: Guest Contributor
Tags: Meaning, Philosophy
…denominations: existentialism and nihilism. Most atheists are existentialists and would deny that life without God is meaningless. But nihilists won’t deny it. In fact you’ll often find nihilists defending the meaninglessness of a godless life. These folks are not disillusioned goth teens getting all morose and forlorn with the black…