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Love at the Center: Tom Oord's Systematic Theology Project

Love at the Center: Tom Oord's Systematic Theology Project

Published 7 months, 3 weeks ago
Description

In this episode, I sit down with my longtime friend Tom Oord, who's in the middle of writing what might be the first ever systematic theology with "love" right there in the title. We dove deep into how systematic theology actually works - you know, the difference between someone like Wayne Grudem who treats the Bible like a collection of proof texts versus Paul Tillich who's doing this whole apologetic dance with existentialism. Tom's taking this fascinating approach where he's putting love at the very center from the get-go. We talked about how every systematic theology reveals the theologian's situatedness - whether that's the parade of white, male, Reformed voices dominating the bestseller lists, or how Tom's own journey of getting kicked out of evangelical spaces for advocating LGBTQ inclusion shapes his work. The conversation got really good when we dug into the practical stuff too - like how theology has to grapple with Jesus's either/or between God and mammon, and why the incarnation can't just be abstract doctrine but has to flood into ethics immediately. Plus, Tom's doing this wild thing where he's putting his rough drafts on Substack and letting people tear them apart in real time, which honestly takes more guts than I'd have.

You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube.

Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. Oord directs a doctoral program at Northwind Theological Seminary and the Center for Open and Relational Theology.

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