Announcing - a new title for my blog - "Crux Sola..."

After 5(ish) years of blogging under the blog-title of my own name, I have finally chosen a “proper” title. I searched the internet a bit to make sure I was not a copycat and I believe I am not (feel free to correct me if I am and I will go back to the drawing board).

The title is: “Crux Sola…” which is short for Luther’s famous dictum, “Crux sola est nostra theologia” - The cross alone is our theology.

Recently I read some of Luther’s works and also Alister McGrath’s fine essays on Luther’s theology of the cross where the dictum is stated. McGrath explains it better than I can:

In 1518 the German reformer Martin Luther defended a series of theses in disputation at Heidelberg, in which he set out the basic features of the “theology of the cross.” Of particular importance is the idea that theology involves a response to the “rearward parts of God” (posteriora Dei), which are only made known in the cross. The theses alludes to Exodus 33:23, which refers to Moses only being allowed to catch a glimpse of God from the rear, as God disappears into the distance. (McGrath, The Christian Theology Reader, 25)

McGrath points to two statements made by Luther in his discourse.

#19: The person who looks on the invisible things of God, as they are seen in visible things, does not deserve to be called a theologian.

#20: But the person who looks on the visible rearward parts of God as seen in suffering and the cross does deserve to be called a theologian.

The summary of Luther’s theologia crucis is so eloquently stated by McGrath:

For Luther, the cross is the center of the Christian faith. The image of the crucified Christ is the crucible in which all responsible Christian thinking about God is forged. (McGrath, 25).

Fellow blogger, Mike Gorman, has named his own blog from Luther’s statement, crux probat omnia – “the cross puts everything to the test.” While I share with Mike a Wesleyan background, I too appreciate Luther’s cross theology.

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