Theology.fm exists to connect podcast listeners to Pastors, Bible teachers, and theology podcasters who teach about Scripture, theology, and the church in light of Christ and Him crucified.
The Spirit of God is at work in the world to bring about new insight into the nature and character of God, Scripture, and the church.
The church is learning to see that God looks like Jesus, and especially, Jesus dying on the cross.
When we read Scripture, or think about God, or function as the church, we can do so within a grid, lens, or vision of the crucified Christ.
Some call this a “Christological” or “Christotelic” approach to Scripture and theology. Others refer to it as the “Cruciform” or “Crucivision” way of thinking about God and life.
But whatever you call it, this way of thinking and living is transforming Christian theology and the way the church functions in the world.
There are numerous pastors, theologians, Bible teachers, and podcasters who teach using this way of reading Scripture, viewing God, thinking about theology, and being the church in the world today.
Theology.fm wants to introduce you to these pastors, theologians, Bible teachers, and podcasters. Think of Theology.fm as a Christian radio station that pulls together some of the best teachings on Cruciform theology and makes them available for you to listen to while you are driving to work, walking the dog, weeding your garden, vacuuming the house, working out, and whatever it is you do when listening to podcasts.
Theology.fm is currently in it’s infancy stage, so we are looking for new voices to add to our lineup. If you know a pastor, teacher, or podcaster who might make a good addition to Theology.fm, please recommend ONE of their podcast episodes below for us to listen to. Thanks!
First, let me apologize for the book I am writing. I appreciate approaching such a tough and controversial topic as how to reconcile the violence of the “Old Testament God” with the merciful “God of the New Testament”. “The Twilight Zone”. I am very familiar with Greg Boyd and I can honestly say he is one of my favorite theologians and one of my heroes. There are multiple reasons that I so appreciate Dr. Boyd, but among the top reasons is his work on “The Cross and the Sword.” His courage to present this topic to his church and lose 20% of his parishioners in the process was a very inspiring and timely move. It was such a breath of fresh air for an evangelical to push back against the erroneous marriage of politics and Christianity that much of the Church was endorsing. See NY Times article. I find his sermons to be so “spot on” with my own understanding of God and the mission of the modern church.
That said, the sermon on The Twilight Zone left me wanting. It’s not that there was such a big disagreement on what was presented, but more so, a feeling of incompleteness in the picture. Full disclosure, I am no theologian, and therefore my arguments are not going to be as well researched or disciplined as yours or Dr. Boyd’s. I liked what he said about how we need to view God thru the lens of the cross in order to get a full picture. The Old Testament has a major redemptive theme of the coming of the Messiah whose primary mission is to “seek and to save that which is lost” and the New Testament reveals the promise being fulfilled. So the cross does appear to be “the Gift” that God gave to mankind and we can learn a lot about Him through examining multiple aspects of this gift. What did it cost? (the Trinity splitting for the 1st/only time in creation)? Who paid the price? (God/Christ alone) What does it cost us?(nothing-grace/everything-living sacrifice)
If we are to understand the nature of God through examining the cross, I think we have to look at the “mechanics” of the cross. The primary purpose of the cross was to redeem mankind, but how did that occur? Now here is where I may depart from Greg’s description of God. We are told “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin”. Jesus was “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. So if Jesus was the solution to the sin problem and man’s separation from God, then there was a plan all along to VIOLENTLY sacrifice him. Now before you start blowing a whistle and throwing the heresy flag, hear me out. I have struggled with (and still do) the “why” of the need for blood for the remission of sins, but for whatever the reason, I would argue that the only way to introduce blood is through violence. Looking at the Old Testament, I can’t think of a time that blood was used when a life was not extinguished (no donations/red cross or similar means to obtain the blood back in the OT days). I would further argue that violence is only a temporal phenomenon, i.e., only related to life here on earth, therefore not of an eternal consequence. EXCEPT the violence that was perpetrated on Christ, by God himself (John 3:16). All the other deaths that have occurred and will occur are of little eternal value. The death of Christ was the only one that has the potential to save all mankind.
For this reason, I have a hard time seeing God without an ability to be violent. I guess its important to define violence, here and I would simply say it is related to actions that lead to ending a life. My fear is if we take out the violence of the gospel, we will take away its power. All the sacrifices in the OT, had a restorative nature to them, to set right the relationship between man and God. Christ was the ultimate blood sacrifice (which is not possible without violence), but the violence/sacrifice doesn’t end there. Now the sacrifice has turned into a daily practice of dying to self, killing off personal wants/needs to sacrifice for a greater good larger than ourselves—present your bodies a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1,Matt. 16:25) So there is the full circle of violence, to now “kill off the old man” or “die to self” so that we are serving God. Take away this “violence” and you take away our primary mission in life.
As mentioned earlier, I am no theologeon and there can be a thousand holes in my theory. I would be honored to hear from you, but also understand only so many hours are in a day. Please feel free to pick it apart and help me to better reconcile a loving God with a history of violence. Thanks for your podcast and generosity to share such talented teachers with the blogosphere.
Howard