Depictions of God in the Old Testament can be troubling to people who believe God to be wholly loving. Greg Boyd does an amazing job of arguing for a cruciform hermeneutic: just as Jesus humbled himself in the incarnation and crucifixion, Yahweh condescended to interact with the humans he loved in ways they could understand.
Cross Vision is the more condensed version of Greg Boyd's The Crucifixion of the Warrior God.
Greg Boyd's The Crucifixion of the Warrior God (two volumes) is the more academic version of Cross Vision. Working through many biblical examples, he argues for a cruciform hermeneutic: just as Jesus humbled himself in the incarnation and crucifixion, Yahweh condescended to interact with the humans he loved in ways they could understand.
Clark Pinnock generated remarkable interest in open theism in the 1990s with the publication of The Openness of God in collaboration with Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker, and David Basinger. This watershed book built on prior technical articles to make the case for open theology (see footnote below).
Richard Rice, in the first chapter of The Openness of God, describes how the open view is consistent with scripture. In the second chapter, John Sanders looks at historical considerations, especially how Greek philosophy has influenced Christian thought. In the third chapter, Clark Pinnock describes how God is responsive, involved in history, and genuinely loving in the open view. William Hasker in the fourth chapter discusses philosophical issues related to open theism. And in the fifth chapter, David Basinger looks at the pastoral implications of openness theology.
Footnote: Significant antecedents: William Hasker, "Foreknowledge and Necessity," Faith and Philosophy 2 Ap 1985. William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987). William Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge, Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). Gregory A. Boyd et al., Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: the Coherence of Theism: Omniscience, Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 19 (Leiden: New York, 1990). Then, of course, there is Jürgen Moltmann's ground-breaking The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (Der gekreuzigte Gott), 2nd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1974, 1991).
Brian Zahnd's highly readable book invites us to refocus our images of God from some of the harsh and unlovely ones to seeing God as perfectly revealed in Jesus.
Open theists will find his reliance on an assertion of God's impassibility a quite unnecessary part of his argument. If God is like Jesus and Jesus loves passionately why would we want to say that God is impassible?
That quibble aside, I can't recommend this book too highly!
Tom Oord writes: Most theologies suck.
They’re too technical or they describe a God nobody understands. Sometimes the God portrayed sounds like a controlling boyfriend or absentee parent. Rather than woo or persuade, most theology books clobber readers into submission.
This book is different.
Thomas Jay Oord presents a theology that makes sense. It fits the way we live our lives and matches our deepest intuitions. To the surprise of some, it harmonizes with sacred scripture... at least the good parts. And it promotes a genuinely loving God.
Open and relational theology is controversial.
Oord and others have lost their jobs because they embrace it. Others have been booted from religious communities or shunned by families and friends. It’s that radical! Using understandable language and illustrations from everyday life, Oord explains the core ideas of open and relational theology. He reveals why this way of thinking is life-changing – for good – for so many.
This theology doesn’t suck.
People around the world are turning to open and relational theology. It answers our biggest questions about good and evil, purpose and freedom, love and science.
“God Is in Control” is a motto I hear friends say from time to time. I think they’re saying they are living their lives with a desire to follow God and have a sense of the Spirit of God in them and guiding them. The problem comes when I extrapolate from that sense of God’s presence and leading to the bigger world where people and the creation are not necessarily oriented to following Jesus and his teachings. To the extent that people and things are not aligned with God’s will, it’s not really true or helpful to say “God Is in Control.” Looking at the recent history of God’s interactions with the world it seems that God is reluctant to override human free will. If we look at the way Jesus went about his mission it’s clear that God works through love, not coercive power. Making the case for this claim is where Tom Oord’s new book is so helpful.
Through careful exegesis, Oord shows how Hebrew words like shadai and sabbaoth have been mistranslated as ‘almighty’. His term amipotence expresses the idea that God’s power comes not from its controlling everything that happens but rather from God’s love. God’s love derives its immense power from the fact that God is not confined to a locality but is everywhere exerting his loving influence.
John Sander’s friendly critique of the book is here: https://drjohnsanders.com/response-to-oords-death-of-omnipotence/ and Tom Oord’s response is here: https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/my-response-to-john-sanders-on-omnipotence
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The Open Renewal approach emphasizes two impulses that can be seen as coming to us through the thought of John Wesley: (1) relational theology’s prioritizing God’s love, the freedom that humans exert, and the openness of the future, and (2) pentecostalism's reliance on the Holy Spirit to empower God’s activity on the earth. This theology aims to energize our participation in living out Jesus’ teaching and actually change the world.