Theology will always, on this side of eternity, remain an unfinished work. Cruciform is a forum for ongoing theological reflection in pursuit of the faithful embodiment of Christ and his Kingdom in our time. It is cruciform (cross-formed) because all theological work takes place beneath the cross, and embodies the cross.
Cruciform Theology
Theology — the study of the things of God — is a human response to divine grace. We study to know — and to know God, one has to stand beneath the cross of Jesus. When he died on a Roman cross, the God of cosmos and history pulled back the curtain on himself. His climactic self-revealing act was nothing less than the loving embrace of every sinner, including every theologian. Theology is love requited.
Theology is not only a response to God’s grace; it is enabled by his ongoing grace. God equips us with himself to enable us to commune with himself. For Christians, theology is bound to the study of Scripture as God’s Word, so naturally it can and should make good use of philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, history, and literary analysis (to name just a few of the available tools). It is Christ’s promise to continue to give of himself by his Holy Spirit (John 16:13), however, that brings the enterprise alive: “Grace upon grace” (John 1:16) flows continuously to every Christian, including the Christian doing theology.
To be fruitful, theology has to be cruciform. While theology employs human ingenuity, it cannot depend on it. When it is a solely human endeavour, theology sheds light only on the traits of the human mind: its goal might be revelation, but the only thing that will be revealed is the limits of the theologian’s imagination. “The last thing anyone would ever have imagined, even with Isaiah 53 right in front of them, was a crucified Son of God” (Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, p.90).
In the context of the task at hand — knowing God — the best wisdom of the theologian is folly. No theological formulation will speak the risen Jesus to our time and place if it does not first entail the death of the theologian. In particular, each Christian doing theology has to let die the conceit that we possess, within ourselves, the ability to apprehend truth, be arbiters of reason, or appropriate wisdom. We have to lay down that which our primal ancestors took up: the right to be one’s own god.
“Unless a seed dies” (John 12:24) lies at the very heart of discipleship, because it lies at the very heart of the Triune God. Theology begins with the theologian’s dethronement.
Cruciform theology cannot be done alone, because God in himself is not alone, but is three-in-one. Discipleship — following the Son who is one with the Spirit and the Father — only ever takes on its fullest shape in community. Theology, practised faithfully, has its head bowed to the Lord, but also to the community of fellow believers. It is yielded to the perspectives and correctives of others, including the communion of saints that spans the world and history. It is mindful of the impact of its formulations on the Body of Christ of today and tomorrow.
At the same time, as with individuals, so with theology: God has no grandchildren. Every generation of Christians has to follow the incarnate Christ into their own particular time and place in history, and learn to embody him, by his Spirit, then and there. Theology’s recreative, redemptive and critical engagement with our culture is part of our missionary task to incarnate the Word, Jesus, within our culture(s). If it does not produce faithful action, theology is dead. God’s Word is powerful precisely at the point it takes on flesh: he speaks not primarily to explain, and certainly not to theorize, but to bring about the reconciliation of all things to himself (Colossians 1:20).
The Cruciform Platform
At Cruciform I will write on theology and culture from my vantage point as someone who has moved between very different worlds: global north and global south, NGO and corporate, tribal and post-modern, high church and low church — but also that vantage point every Christian has, between the age we are in and the “age to come”.
For similar reasons, I intend the blog to be a multi-vocal platform, and on occasion draw in other contributors to provide posts or counter-posts.
The work posted at Cruciform.blog will contain both thoughts-in-development and finished pieces (although no author ever feels their work is truly finished), and will range across a variety of approaches — analytical, pastoral, contemplative, activist, and expositional.
By way of the Comments section at the bottom of each post, public interaction is encouraged. A simple but firm Comments Policy will be enforced, which includes a bar on anonymity.
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