Category: Affective Theology

This reflection on Affective Theology considers the Church. Christ’s love, through his Spirit, unites the many members of the Church into one body. In Ephesians 5:25-27 Paul used human marriages as his key analogy: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having …

In this, my fourth reflection on Affective Theology, we turn to the Bible. To call it a “love letter” may seem odd, given its broad content. Yet it fits God’s ambition. God is a lover, determined to share his heart with the world by two means—with his Spirit at work in each. First, by written …

This third discussion of Affective Theology features the Spirit’s heart-changing love. He offers God’s presence through Spirit-to-spirit companionship that begins with a “born again” encounter that restores the life Adam lost in Eden. It is “the Spirit who gives life” (John 3:6 & 6:63). This new birth is parallel to physical birth as a constituting …

This is the second Spreading Goodness reflection on Affective, “heart-based” theology. It affirms Jesus as God’s ultimate expression of love as we read in John 3:16-17— “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son …