“Christ is Lord”: What Does it Mean?
Category: General
Tags: Christian Life, Confession, Salvation, Shalom
Topics: Following Jesus
We enter the domain of God’s reign when we enthrone Christ as Lord of our life. This seems simple enough. But actually, I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding of what this means. The Bible…
That Weird Episode with the Pigs
Category: General
Tags: Demons, God's Character, Jesus, Non-Violence, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Creation Care, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
In my opinion, the single strangest episode recounted in the Gospels is the account of Jesus’ encounter with a demonized man that ended with two thousand pigs drowning themselves in the Sea of Galilee (Mk…
Jesus was Not a [Socialist]
Category: Guest Contributor
Tags: Discipleship, Political Idolatry, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Article by Dan Kent Our political climate right now exhausts me. The fracturing. The bullying. The ideological mobs. I feel like I’m surrounded by a hundred Towers of Babel babbling at me all day long,…
God’s Dream for the World
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Love, Trinity, Triune Love, Unity
Topics: Following Jesus
The future doesn’t yet exist—which is why it’s future instead of the present or past—this doesn’t mean I’m claiming the future is wide open. To the contrary, it’s very clear from Scripture that God has…
Worst Sinner Award
Category: General
Tags: Discipleship, Judgement, Present Perfect
Topics: Following Jesus
Jesus taught: Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you….
Jesus’ Kind of Social Justice
Category: General
Tags: Justice, Political Idolatry, Politics, Social Issues
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
For many, the primary way of building the kingdom is to influence politics in order to make America more Christian. Others take the opposite approach, concluding that Jesus didn’t try to overhaul the political systems…
Did Christ Call Us to be Moral Guardians?
Category: General
Tags: Myth of a Christian Nation
Topics: Following Jesus
Whenever Christians try to enforce their doctrines or morals on others, the result has usually been at least as bad as any non-Christian version of the kingdom of this world. Even more concerning, it’s been…
Podcast: Is God Fixing the World?
Category: ReKnew Podcast
Tags: Creation, Redemption
Topics: Creation Care
Greg fights back his curmudgeonly impulses to consider hope for planet earth. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0292.mp3
What Type of Faith Do You Have?
Category: General
Tags: Faith, Israel, Jacob
Topics: Faith & Doubt
Genesis 32 tells the story of Jacob, wrestling through the night with a nameless man, revealed to be none other than God Himself. We read that when this man “saw that he could not overpower”…
Was the Early Church Pacifistic? A Response to Paul Copan (#11)
Category: General
Tags: Crucifixion of the Warrior God, Cruciform Theology, Non-Violence, Pacifism, Paul Copan
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
In Crucifixion of the Warrior God (CWG) I argue that Jesus and Paul instruct Christians to love and bless their enemies and to unconditionally refrain from violence (e.g. Matt 5:39-45; Rom 12:14-21). Moreover, I argue…
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…
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…
Jesus and the “Favored Nation”
Category: General
Tags: Israel, Jesus, Kingdom of God, Nationalism
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Nationalism lies at the heart of the Old Testament narrative. This concept is intimately wrapped up with the law-oriented covenant God made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, for at the heart of this covenant…
God’s Non-Violent Ideal in the OT
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Nationalism, Non-Violence
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
While God condescended to working within the violent-prone, fallen framework of his people in the Old Testament—as I argue in Crucifixion of the Warrior God—the OT is also full of references to how God worked…
What “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” REALLY Means?
Category: General, Guest Contributor
Tags: Animals, Creation
Topics: Creation Care
Article by Dan Kent “So the man named all the animals, the birds of the air, and the living creatures of the field.” Genesis 2:20 In the fog of our over-Googled, ‘Hey Siri,’ information-obsessed minds I…
The Principle of Non-Violence
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Anabaptism, Greg Boyd, Non-Violence, Paul Eddy, Peace, Woodland Hills Church
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Several years ago, Woodland Hills Church hosted a Q&A with Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy to answer questions that arose from their exploration of Anabaptism. In this short clip, they address the Anabaptist principle of…
The Call To Nonviolent Discipleship
Category: General
Tags: Enemy Love, Peace
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
The cross wasn’t simply something God did for us. According to the NT, it was also an example God calls us to follow. Yet, as discussed in the previous post, most often the call to…
Why Don’t We Practice Non-Violent Love
Category: General
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Why in the history of history of the church has enemy-loving non-violence so rarely been attributed to God and so rarely been espoused as the defining characteristic of kingdom people? In light of the fact…