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”…
Did Yahweh Crush His Son?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Violence
Topics: Attributes and Character
Though Isaiah was probably referring to the nation of Israel as Yahweh’s “suffering servant” when these words were penned, the NT authors as well as other early church fathers interpreted this servant to be a…
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…
Did the Father Suffer on the Cross?
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Love, Trinity
Topics: Attributes and Character
When I argue that the cross is a Trinitarian event (See post), some may suspect that I am espousing Patripassionism, which was a second and third century teaching that held that God the Father suffered…
The Cross as a Trinitarian Event
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jürgen Moltmann, Trinity
Topics: Attributes and Character, Trinity
On Calvary, the all-holy God fully identified with sinners, suffering the consequences of our sin as though he himself were guilty. While God is never culpable for the evil he allows, he nevertheless assumes responsibility…
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…
Sin-Bearing God
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Divine Accommodation
Topics: Attributes and Character
On the cross, God became our sin, as Paul wrote: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). However, God didn’t begin to be a sin-bearing God when…
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,…
Where Psychology and Theology Meet
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, God's Character, Guilt, Love, Sin
Topics: Attributes and Character
Guest post by Ty Gibson The biblical narrative reveals that God bears our guilt—not merely in the penal sense that Reformed theology asserts—but in the sense that He bears our misconceptions of His character as…
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…
When God Wears Masks
Category: General
Tags: Bride of Christ, Character of God, Cruciform Theology
Topics: Attributes and Character
At various times throughout the OT we find Yahweh assuming the role of a tester, refiner, punisher and even an enemy of Israel (e.g. Jer. 9:7; Lam. 2:5; Isa 63:10). Yet, when we examine these…
Divine Accommodation in the Early Church
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Revelation
Topics: Attributes and Character, Biblical Interpretation
One of the basic points made in The Crucifixion of the Warrior God is that the Old Testament reveals how God adjusts his revelation and instructions to accommodate the weakness of his covenant people. This…
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…
