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,“…
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”…
Revolting Beauty
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Sermons, Woodland Hills Church
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
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…
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…
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…
Cross Vision – How the Crucifixion of Jesus Makes Sense of Old Testament Violence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Renowned pastor-theologian Gregory A. Boyd tackles the Bible’s biggest dilemma. Author: Gregory Boyd Publisher: Fortress Press ISBN-10: 1506420737 Buy on Amazon: HardCover Paperback Kindle AudioBook Study Guide The Old Testament God of wrath and violence…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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
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…
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
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…
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
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…
Crucifixion of the Warrior God
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Author: Gregory Boyd Publisher: Fortress Press ISBN-10: 1506420753 Buy on Amazon A dramatic tension confronts every Christian believer and interpreter of Scripture: on the one hand, we encounter Old Testament stories of God commanding horrendous…
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…
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…