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

Tripp Fuller

What’s up, theology nerds! Today I got to 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, not waiting until chapter 47 to mention it like most systematics do. 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 a theology of love 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 follow along Tom’s writing of his systematic theology ?on his SubStack.?

Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. He is an award-winning author, and he has written or edited more than twenty-five books. Oord directs a doctoral program at Northwind Theological Seminary and the Center for Open and Relational Theology. He won the Outstanding Faculty Award twelve times as a full-time professor and now speaks at institutions across the globe. Oord is known for his contributions to research on love, open and relational theology, science and religion, and freedom and relationships for transformation.

Some Previous Tripp & Tom Pods

• A Journey of Faith and Integrity
• Faith without Certainty
• Big God Questions
• Christ, Christmas, & the Incarnation
• the Death of Omnipotence!
• Brian McLaren & Thomas Jay Oord: a God Worthy of Love
• Process This!
• Process Theology QnA
• Authority, Atonement, Abortion, and a Big Hug
• from Pluriform Love to Divine Revelation
• Big God Twitter Takes
• Trump is (NOT) a Process Theologian & Other Questions
• Thomas Jay Oord wants you to know “God Can’t”
• Open and Relational Theology Throwdown
• Open and Relational Q&A with Thomas Jay Oord
• Why Go Wesleyan?

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