Welcome to this new temporary blog site. As some of you know, my Christus Victor (gregboyd.org) site was hacked last month and was so well done (congrats Mr. Hacker!) it would have cost us a significant chunk of change to debug it. Since we are preparing to launch a new site (“ReKnew”) on June 1, and since we need to pour all our resources into getting that new site and ministry up and running, we thought it would be best to let the old site die.
At the same time, I didn’t want to wait for ReKnew to get launched before I start blogging again. In fact, once the ReKnew site is launched I’m planning on blogging several times a week. So I thought I'd best start getting back into the groove of blogging on a regular basis, using this temporary site to get started. In the next couple of days, Lord willing (Ja 4:15-16), I’ll blog on some of the theological concepts and arguments that recently have been blowing my mind as I’ve been working on my forthcoming book, The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Today, however, I thought I’d provide a brief update on several matters related to the approaching launch of ReKnew.
First, I'd like to once again sincerely thank the many people who sacrificially gave to the ReKnew fundraiser this last December and January. Our goal (and it really was more of a dream, since we suspected it was long shot) was to raise $20,000 to match the $20,000 that had already been given by the ReKnew team. We ended up raising $45,000 over and beyond the original contributions of the ReKnew team! We received contributions from 9 different countries and 25 different states! I am simply overwhelmed with gratitude. Thank you! Beyond helping launch this new ministry, I can’t tell you how rewarding it is for me and the ReKnew team to see so many people from all over the world who are passionate about the theological vision of ReKnew.
It’s so exciting to see that people around the globe are waking up to the enormous gulf that exists between the triumphalist religion of Constantinian Christendom that has claimed title and deed to the name of Jesus the last 1500 years, on the one hand, and the humble, servant, self-sacrificial movement of Christ-like love that Jesus inaugurated, on the other. All over the world individuals and groups are receiving the revelation that the true picture of God is not the angry, Caesar-looking, deterministic Judge who sanctions and incites religious and nationalistic violence; it's rather the picture of Jesus who relinquishes all justified violence to give his life for his enemies, using his last desperate gasp for air to pray for their forgiveness. This is the vision of God and the Kingdom life that is at the heart of the theology that ReKnew seeks to advance.
The generous contributions we received are enabling us to do a number of things. We are coming down the final stretch in constructing our kick-gluteus maximus website, and we’ve hired a long-time passionate follower of the theology of ReKnew, Adam Langley, to serve as its manager and editor. Welcome aboard Adam! Not only will I be regularly blogging on this site, as I said, but he’ll be continually adding new content in the form of essays and videos on relevant theological topics and current events.
We’ll also provide people on a regular basis with information on individuals, movements, websites, blogs, magazine articles, books and events around the world that are in some way relevant to the theological vision of ReKnew. Our hope is that this website will begin to serve as a sort of “Resource Hub” for folks who share, to one degree or another, the theological vision of ReKnew.
Our vision for this ministry also includes forming a network of like-mind people who will support one another and who will help promote and fund conferences, seminars, think-tank gatherings and research projects that help deconstruct the misguided and damaging aspects of the theological vision of triumphalist Christendom and help articulate and advance the vision of the Jesus-looking God and the Jesus-looking Kingdom that is at the heart of the theological vision of ReKnew.
Folks, these are exciting times! The Constantinian vision of God and the Church that has been identified with Jesus for 1500 years is slowly dying and is being gradually replaced by a global movement of Jesus-radicals who get what the Jesus movement – viz. what the Kingdom of God – is all about. Right now, these individuals and groups are not only not networked with one another; they are largely unaware of one another. Yet, in a variety of different ways, they are each boldly re-examining and re-visioning what it means to be “Christian,” what it means to do “Church,” and what it means to seek to change the world in a distinctly Jesus-looking – rather than Caesar-looking -- kind of way. All around the world there are individuals and groups who are completely rethinking what traditional Christians have assumed they already knew. In this light, you might say that these people are boldly seeking to ReKnew the traditional Christian vision of God, of the Church and of the theology that supports it. And this, folks, is in a nutshell what ReKnew is all about. We simply want to play whatever role God would have us play to help feed, grow, motivate, expand and network this fledgling Kingdom movement. And we are positively stoked about getting this thing launched!
Lord willing, I will blog again in the next couple days about some of ideas and arguments I’ve been tossing around as I’ve been working on The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Until then, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus!
Greg
