(Draft dated 3-15-26)
by Charles E. Stephan
Introduction
Thomas Jay Oord’s Primacy-of-Love Christianity (POLC) is the most believable version of Christianity because other versions of Christianity are plagued by one or more of the problems listed below. POLC solves all these problems because it believes that the unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love”, that love is God’s governing attribute, and that God’s love is uncontrolling, inspiring, compassionate, forgiving, relentless, steadfast, and unconditional.
1. POLC solves the problem of evil.
The problem of evil asks why evil exists, if God is loving and powerful. POLC believes that God’s love is uncontrolling and so it prevents Him from controlling anything and motivates Him to give freedom and free will to things He creates, which makes evil, sin, pain, and suffering possible. God does not cause, enable, condone or passively allow evil, sin, pain, and suffering but He cannot prevent them because His love is uncontrolling. God always does the best He can to minimize evil, sin, pain, and suffering and to help people deal with them.
2. POLC solves the problem of Bible veracity.
The problem of Bible veracity asks why inconsistencies, errors, and ambiguities occur in the Bible, and why the Bible disagrees with science, if God is in control. POLC believes that God’s love inspired, but did not control, the people who wrote, copied, and canonized the Bible. Because God did not control such people, it was possible for inconsistencies, errors, and ambiguities to occur in the Bible. Similarly, because God’s love inspired, but did not control, the people who wrote, copied, and canonized the Bible, it was possible for disagreements with science to occur in the Bible. People can (a) be Christians, (b) believe that God inspired the people who wrote, copied, and canonized the Bible, and (c) believe that the unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love”, without believing that the Bible is infallible, inerrant, and literally true.
3. POLC solves the problem of Christian division.
The problem of Christian division asks why there are many versions of Christianity, if God is in control. POLC believes that God’s love inspires, but does not control, people who interpret the Bible. God’s uncontrolling love and human free will make possible the many versions of Christianity that exist.
4. POLC solves the problem of hell.
The problem of hell asks why a loving God would send people to eternal torment. POLC believes that God’s love is compassionate and forgiving and so it prevents Him from sending anyone to eternal torment. God gives people repeated chances, even after they die, if necessary, to give a positive response to His love. God’s love is relentless but some people might never give a positive response to His love.
5. POLC solves the problem of the uninformed.
The problem of the uninformed asks what happens to people who do not have a chance to give a positive response to God’s love. POLC believes that God’s love is compassionate and relentless and so He gives babies, cognitively impaired people, and natives isolated in jungles chances to give a positive response to His love after they die.
6. POLC solves the problem of discrimination.
The problem of discrimination asks why some versions of Christianity endorse one or more kinds of discrimination, if God is love. POLC believes that God’s love motivates Him to steadfastly and unconditionally love all people all the time and to inspire people to love Him and all things He creates. All people should have equal opportunities regardless of sex, race, color, nation of origin, religion, or age. LGBTQIA+ identities and same-sex marriages are acceptable, not sinful.
7. POLC solves the problem of abortion.
The problem of abortion asks whether God is pro-life or pro-choice. POLC believes that God’s love motivates Him to love all people all the time and so He invites both people who are pro-life and people who are pro-choice to give a positive response to His love. Both pro-choice people and pro-life people can embrace POLC because it does not encourage people to be pro-life and does not encourage people to be pro-choice. POLC is neutral with regard to abortion.
8. POLC solves the problem of selective healing and miracles.
The problem of selective healing and miracles asks why God doesn’t cure all people who are suffering. POLC believes that God’s love is compassionate and relentless and so it motivates Him to help people who need help but it prevents Him from controlling anything. Because God cannot control anything and because He does not have a localized body, there are many things that He cannot do singlehandedly. God needs creaturely cooperation or favorable conditions or both in order for healing and miracles to occur.
9. POLC solves the problem of divine hiddenness.
The problem of divine hiddenness asks why God doesn’t make His existence more obvious. POLC believes that God’s love prevents Him from controlling anything and so He does not self-reveal in obvious ways.
The problems that plague conventional (aka traditional, classical) versions of Christianity do not need to cause people to question or reject Christianity; instead, such problems can cause people to adopt a version of Christianity, such as POLC, that more appropriately takes into account the Bible, world, human experience, reason, and science.
Overview
Primacy-of-Love Christianity (POLC) consists of a set of beliefs that is biblical, comprehensive, coherent, understandable, believable, and insightful. This Overview is a concise summary of the most important beliefs of POLC, using as little jargon as possible.
1. The goodness, beauty, awe, wonder, and spirituality that people experience; the variety of simple and complex things in the world; the Bible and other religions; and the human desire for meaning can be interpreted to be reasons for believing that God exists.
2. The best information regarding God is provided by the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
3. The best information regarding Jesus is provided by the Bible. Although the Bible contains inconsistencies, errors, and ambiguities, it also contains an important message.
4. The unifying theme of the Bible is “God is love”. John said God is love, Jesus said love is the greatest commandment, and Paul said the greatest virtue is love.
5. Love is defined as “acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being”.
6. God is an everlasting, incorporeal, universal (aka omnipresent), living, rational, wise, nonbinary, relational, material, omniscient and amipotent person.
7. Even though there is only one God who has one mind and one will, it is acceptable to refer to God as the Trinity or Triune God because He manifests Himself as three forms of divine love, which are called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
8. “God is love” means that (a) love is God’s governing attribute and (b) God wants each person to live a life of love.
9. God’s love is uncontrolling. “Uncontrolling” means that God’s love does not allow Him to apply enough power to guarantee an outcome. God can try to influence the ongoing development of the world but He cannot control it. God’s love prevents Him from controlling anything and so God’s inability to control is involuntary. God cannot control situations, events, forces, processes, people, and other things.
10. God’s love is inspiring. It inspires people to love God, love themselves, love other people, love the rest of the world, and love doing good. It inspires people to work with God and other people to make the world a better place.
11. God’s love is steadfast. God faithfully promotes overall well-being and helps people flourish everywhere at all times by means of His uncontrolling interaction with the world. God’s love is constant and reliable.
12. God’s love is compassionate. God’s love motivates Him to invite everyone to enjoy a loving personal friendship with Him in this life and the next. Even though God’s love is steadfast, His emotional state changes because He is compassionate and is affected by human prayers, decisions, and actions and by the pain, suffering, and joy that people experience. God suffers and empathizes with people and tries to console them and help them thrive. God responds to people’s pain and suffering by suffering with them, by trying to help them heal and flourish, and by trying to bring good from bad.
13. God’s love is forgiving. Jesus provides the clearest picture that God’s love is forgiving. God’s forgiving and compassionate love prevents Him from sending anyone to eternal torment.
14. God’s love is relentless. Although creatures can choose not to love, God cannot choose not to love. God works at all times in all places for the overall well-being of the world and helps it thrive. God’s love prevents Him from giving up on people who do not love Him. If necessary, God gives people multiple chances to give a positive response to His love, and even after people die, God continues to invite them to accept His love. God always makes maximal effort but there is no guarantee that He will be successful because His love is uncontrolling. Some people might never give a positive response to God’s love.
15. God’s love is unconditional. Even when people make bad decisions, God loves them and encourages them to do good. God’s love extends to all people when they do good and when they do bad.
16. God’s love is self-giving. God gives gifts because love gives gifts. The most important demonstration of God’s self-giving love is Jesus. Self-giving also characterizes God’s giving up control of the world when He gave it freedom and natural laws and when He gave creatures free will. God’s love makes these gifts irrevocable and so God cannot withdraw or override them. God’s gifts of freedom and natural laws mean that God can try to influence the ongoing development of the world, but He cannot control it. God’s love motivates people to be self-giving, but self-giving does not have to involve self-sacrifice.
17. God’s love is creative. God creates out of love and loves everything He creates at all times in all places. God created and cares for humans, and the world they live in, so there are creatures for Him to love and to love Him.
18. God’s love is pluriform. God and creatures can express at least six kinds of love (agape is “in spite of” love, eros is “because of” love, philia is “friendship” or “alongside” love, kenosis is “self-giving” love, ahavah is “affection” love, and hesed is “faithfulness” or “steadfast” love). Each kind of love promotes the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world. The way that God expresses His love depends on what is appropriate in each individual situation.
19. God sometimes repents, which in the Bible means that God changes His mind.
20. God always communicates but He does so in uncontrolling ways.
21. God’s love inspired, but did not control, the people who wrote, copied, and canonized the Bible.
22. God’s love inspires, but does not control, people who interpret the Bible.
23. Christians should talk with and work with other versions of Christianity.
24. People can have various kinds of experiences they consider to be encounters with God.
25. Humans are created intrinsically good and with free will because God is love and humans are created in the image of God. Humans have free will because God is uncontrolling and because only beings with free will can love. Creatures with free will can decide to love God but they can also decide not to love God, i.e., decide to sin. Sin works against overall well-being whereas love works for overall well-being, i.e., for the common good. God took a risk by giving free will to creatures because that made it possible for creatures to make bad decisions. God is not responsible for the bad decisions that people make.
26. God’s love motivated Him to give freedom to the world, which made natural evil possible, and to give free will to people, which made human-caused evil possible. God does not cause, enable, condone or passively allow evil, sin, pain, or suffering but He cannot prevent them because His love is uncontrolling.
27. People are not predestined, preordained, elected, or predetermined.
28. The world that exists today is not the same as the world that was initially created by God because of decisions made by creaturely co-creators and because of God’s ongoing creating by such means as emergence, evolution, and self-organization. As the world developed and continues to develop, God is not responsible for diseases and such natural disasters as hurricanes. Also, predator-prey relationships develop as animals evolve.
29. The death and resurrection of Jesus make it possible for people who give a positive response to God’s love to enjoy eternal bliss.
30. God needs creaturely cooperation or favorable conditions or both in order for healing and miracles to occur. All good works involve God and the world working together.
31. Decisions people make, how people live their lives, and peoples’ pain and suffering are important because they affect God’s emotional state and how God expresses His love. They also affect other people and the world. The future depends, in part, on decisions made by people.
32. The teachings and love commands of Jesus are the basis of Christian ethics.
33. The Christian church should be a conduit of love; it should be a community that promotes the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world.
34. God loves all people all the time and so (a) all people should have equal opportunities regardless of sex, race, color, nation of origin, religion, or age, (b) same-sex marriages and LGBTQIA+ identities are acceptable, not sinful, and (c) God invites people who are pro-life and people who are pro-choice to give a positive response to His love.
35. Religion should be separate from government because God’s uncontrolling love would not use government to affect people’s religious beliefs.
36. God inspires people to love the world and to want to understand it. God endows people with the ability to obtain empirical and nonempirical information. Science deals with empirical information but science cannot say anything regarding nonempirical information. God inspires scientists to reach consensus scientific conclusions that are based on empirical information. POLC is compatible with consensus scientific conclusions regarding such things as the theory of evolution and the age of the earth.
Discussion
The existence of the world can be interpreted to be evidence for the existence of an everlasting God who exists for all eternity and therefore has no beginning and no end. The existence, history, experiences and characteristics of humans and the rest of the world provide information regarding the everlasting God, whereas the Bible provides information regarding the Christian God. The total information provided by these sources, including nature, other religions, and science, can be interpreted to mean that the everlasting God is the loving Christian God. (Arguments against the existence of God are usually arguments against the existence of a God who has one or more specific attributes, such as being all-powerful or being in control of everything.)
POLC believes that God is a spirit who has the following attributes.
God is love. Love is God’s essence, nature, primary attribute, and governing attribute.
God is everlasting. God has no beginning and no end. Only God and His love are everlasting.
God is incorporeal. God does not have a localized body. God is bodiless.
God is universal. God is omnipresent. God is transcendent and immanent. God is all-pervading. God is present to all humans and all other creatures in all places at all times.
God is a person who is living, rational, wise, nonbinary, and relational (aka passible). God experiences emotions. God is timeful, not timeless, because God experiences time the same as humans do.
God is material. God is not immaterial. God has both material (aka physical) and mental (aka subjective, immaterial) dimensions (aka aspects). Further, whenever God creates an entity, He creates it to have both material and mental dimensions, although non-living entities are created to have very little mentality. This belief is called Material-Mental Monism and it says that there are no purely mental agents and no purely material objects. Some complex entities, such as plants and animals, are composed of simple entities that coalesce and function as animated (aka living) organisms (aka creatures). Other complex entities, such as rocks, are composed of simple entities that do not coalesce and so exist as inanimate (aka non-living) aggregates. Although God has a material dimension, He cannot be perceived with the five human senses. God can only be perceived by means of nonsensory perception.
God is omniscient. God knows everything that can be known but God is not prescient because God does not know the future. The future has not occurred yet and therefore cannot be known. God acquires new information as the future unfolds. God cannot have foreknowledge because the future is not predetermined. Creatures can make decisions because God gave them free will and random events can occur because God gave the world freedom.
God is amipotent, which means that love and logic constrain what God can do. God is not omnipotent because He cannot sin, cannot change the past, cannot do things that are logically or physically impossible, and cannot do things that His love will not allow Him to do.
These divine attributes describe a God who is compatible with the Bible, world, human experience, reason, and science.
God has unique limitations and unique abilities. His unique limitations include His having limited abilities because He cannot sin, He cannot change the past, He cannot do things that are logically or physically impossible, and He cannot do things that His love will not allow Him to do. In addition, because He does not have a localized body, God’s interactions with the world cannot be physical. His unique abilities include being everlasting, knowing everything that can be known, and being present in all places at all times.
The existence of many versions of Christianity and the absence of cooperation between some versions are possible because God’s love is uncontrolling. Nevertheless, it is certainly reasonable to think that the disagreements among various versions of Christianity reflect poorly on Christianity. POLC is a version of Christianity because it, like all (or almost all) other versions of Christianity, affirms the following shared beliefs.
One, and only one, God exists.
God created the world.
The best information regarding God is provided by the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
The best information regarding Jesus is provided by the Bible.
The writers of the Bible were inspired by God.
Humans are created intrinsically good and with free will, which makes it possible for them to love but also makes it possible for them to make bad decisions and to do bad things.
The death and resurrection of Jesus make it possible for people who give a positive response to God’s love to enjoy eternal bliss.
Christians should focus more on their shared beliefs than on making their differences appear to be more important than their similarities.
POLC believes that God is love. Although most, if not all, Christians believe that “God is love”, POLC believes that “God is love” means that (a) love is God’s governing attribute and (b) God wants each person to live a life of love.
a. “Love is God’s governing attribute” means the following:
Love is God’s nature, essence, and primary attribute.
All God’s thoughts, words, and deeds express love.
God’s love is uncontrolling, inspiring, compassionate, forgiving, relentless, steadfast, unconditional, self-giving, creative, and pluriform. (Some attributes of God’s love are also attributes of God.)
God loves and wants people to love.
God promotes overall well-being and wants people to promote overall well-being.
God’s power is the power of love and it is exerted through uncontrolling actions.
Because God’s love is creative and uncontrolling, He created the world in an uncontrolling way.
Because God’s love is uncontrolling and because only creatures with free will can love, He gave the world freedom and natural laws and gave free will to all creatures complex enough to receive and express it.
God wants each person to give a positive response to His love.
b. “God wants each person to live a life of love” means that people should do such things as:
Join with other people to worship and praise God.
Get baptized and receive communion.
Love God, themselves, other people, and the rest of the world.
Promote overall well-being (i.e., work for the common good).
Express compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness when dealing with other people.
Study the Bible.
Follow Jesus’ teachings.
Confess their sins.
Thank God and people who help Him.
Work to prevent and overcome evil, sin, pain, and suffering.
Be kind and tolerant.
Help the church be a conduit of love by being a community that promotes the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world.
Talk with and work with other versions of Christianity.
Give all people equal opportunities regardless of sex, race, color, nation of origin, religion, or age.
Accept LGBTQIA+ identities and same-sex marriages.
Love people who are pro-life and love people who are pro-choice.
Encourage peace, harmony, and cooperation.
Make friends.
Visit prisoners.
Spend time with people who are lonely.
Help the poor.
Help people do such things as solve problems and recover from sickness.
Love is the focus for understanding God and understanding how people should live.
The Bible is the chief authority for Christianity. The Bible is a collection of writings that have special meaning because God inspired the people who wrote them. The writers were influenced by their assumptions, philosophies, worldviews, and languages, which were not the same for all the writers. The best interpreters of the Bible try to understand the assumptions, philosophies, worldviews, and languages of the various writers. Although God inspired the people who wrote and copied the books in the Bible, inconsistencies, errors, and ambiguities occur in the Bible because God did not control those people. Only blind faith can lead to the conclusion that the Bible is inerrant, infallible, and unambiguous. It is sometimes difficult to separate literally factual material from metaphors and anthropomorphisms. No version of Christianity can be compatible with everything said in the Bible. When Christians say a concept is biblical, they mean that the concept is their interpretation of what one or more verses in the Bible are intended to say. Unfortunately, it is possible to find verses in the Bible that can be interpreted to support a variety of concepts that might or might not be compatible. Textual analysis, history, science, and human experience can be useful when interpreting the Bible.
Although the Bible contains inconsistencies, errors, ambiguities, metaphors, and anthropomorphisms, it contains an important message. Several Christian Bibles and several versions of some of those Bibles exist, but POLC believes that all Christian Bibles have the same unifying theme: God is love. God is sometimes angry and upset but He is always loving. Biblical passages that portray God as unloving are in error. These passages do not fit with the clearest revelation of God in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
POLC defines love as “acting intentionally, in relational response to God and others, to promote overall well-being”. This definition is inclusive without being vague because (i) it applies to both God’s love and human love, even though they differ in degree, duration, necessity, and scope, (ii) the various kinds of love and the numerous ways of expressing love all promote the overall well-being of God, humans in this life and the next, and the rest of the world, and (iii) “overall well-being” is a synonym for “the common good” and includes such things as physical, mental, cognitive, emotional, social, spiritual, economic, and ecological well-being. “Overall” also means that justice can have a role in love. For example, if doing good for one or a few hurts many, the justice aspect of love requires that the common good take precedence. If an action is accidental, it is not intentional. An act of love might or might not involve self-sacrifice. Acts of love involve an initiator and a recipient, but these are the same in self-love.
God’s love is uncontrolling, which makes it impossible for Him to control, force, dictate, compel, coerce, command, overwhelm, manipulate, override, or dominate anything to an extent that guarantees an outcome. Nevertheless, God can interact with and try to influence things He created because He can nurture, invite, empower, recommend, enable, help, ask, support, coax, inform, suggest, nudge, lure, facilitate, offer, enlighten, inspire, coordinate, advise, console, motivate, teach, guide, and encourage them. God can try to persuade as long as the persuasion is gentle and is not controlling. God can try to influence but He cannot control.
The world was created in an uncontrolling way because God’s love is uncontrolling. God created the world from something, not from nothing. A God who can create from nothing and whose governing attribute is love would ensure that evil does not occur. The existence of evil in the world means that God does not create from nothing. There is no good reason to believe that God can create from nothing. Creation from nothing is not biblical. God always creates out of what He created earlier, never from nothing.
A scenario that is consistent with the requirement that the world was created in an uncontrolling way and with the requirement that the world was created from something says that God continuously creates worlds one after another. Each world is created from the chaos that is left from a previous world. God exists forever (i.e., for all eternity) and therefore has no beginning and no end. Because God’s governing attribute is love, He has always been creating worlds. There was never a first moment of God’s creating because there was never a first moment of God’s existing. God was creating worlds before ours and God will continue to create worlds after ours. Only God and His love are everlasting; worlds come and go. God’s love motivates Him to always be creating and always love what He creates, but God is free to decide what and how to create. God can work in uncontrolling ways with inanimate forces, processes, objects, entities, systems, relationships, structures, matter, and conditions in order to help things self-organize, emerge, and evolve. Each created world, either initially or later, contains creatures that God can love and that can love Him.
Our world, including space and time, was created from the chaos that was left from a previous world. God existed before the Big Bang occurred and created something new at the Big Bang from something that God had created before the Big Bang. God invites creatures to be co-creators with Him in the ongoing development of our world. What our world is like at any time after its initial creation depends on God’s uncontrolling influence, the existing animate and inanimate things, self-organization, emergence, and evolution. Everything that God creates is intrinsically good. The created world proclaims that God exists and gives clues concerning Him and His love.
God’s uncontrolling love explains why God’s existence is compatible with the existence of evil, sin, pain, and suffering. God’s love motivated Him to give freedom to the world, which made natural evil possible, and to give free will to people, which made human-caused evil possible. Some pain and suffering are caused by natural evil, which exists because of the way the world developed after it was initially created and includes such natural negative events as diseases and disasters. Because God’s love is uncontrolling, He created the world to include the freedom and such other conditions as natural laws, regularities, and randomness that allowed life as we know it to develop, but the freedom and other conditions also allowed natural negative events to develop.
Other pain and suffering are the consequences of human-caused evil. God created the world to include a variety of animate and inanimate things, as well as a variety of simple and complex creatures, including creatures that He can love and that can love Him. In order for creatures to be able to love, they must have free will. However, creatures that have free will can decide to love God or decide not to love God, i.e., decide to sin. Creatures that decide not to love God can also decide to do evil. Some humans use their free will to decide not to love and not to cooperate with God or not to love things that were created by God. Human love cannot exist without free will, but free will cannot make love possible without also making human-caused evil possible.
God’s love does not allow Him to withdraw or override the freedom, free will, and other conditions that He gave the world and its creatures. God’s love motivates Him to promote overall well-being but it simultaneously limits Him to uncontrolling actions. Even though God always does as much as His uncontrolling love allows Him to do to promote the overall well-being of humans and the rest of the world, God’s love is not always successful because the world has freedom and humans have free will. Pain and suffering are not God’s fault because His uncontrolling love makes it impossible for Him to control things to which He gave freedom and free will.
All people are created intrinsically good by God because God is love and people are created in God’s image. All people are also created with free will because God is love. People can use their free will to make decisions and to act on the basis of those decisions. When people use their free will to make bad decisions, they do not do what God wants them to do. Even though people are born good, disobeying God can become a habit. Sin is the opposite of love, and so people sin when they do not believe in God and do not accept His invitation to love and to cooperate with Him. People have free will and so they can decide to sin or decide not to sin. People sin because they desire the wrong things too much. Sin makes the world worse than it might have been because sin impairs the well-being of sinners and the well-being of their friendship with God, other humans, and the rest of the world.
In spite of human disobedience and sin, God loves all people all the time and wants to help them. God responds to people’s pain and suffering by trying to help them heal and flourish and by trying to bring good from bad. God tries to help people resist sin because people suffer when they do not love Him. Separation from God has natural negative consequences, which can be considered to be forms of punishment, because the sinner does not enjoy the benefits of a loving personal friendship with God. God encourages sinners to be sorry and to change their ways so they do good and do not do bad. God forgives sinners who sincerely ask for forgiveness. God does not cause, enable, condone or passively allow evil, sin, pain, and suffering but He cannot prevent them because His love is uncontrolling. Despite evil, sin, pain, and suffering, the world remains intrinsically good because of God’s love.
Although God’s love motivates Him to promote overall well-being, three things make this difficult: (a) some creatures use their free will to make bad decisions and so they oppose or resist God’s desires, (b) God’s love prevents Him from controlling anything, and (c) God does not have a localized body that can do physical things so God invites creatures to do physical tasks that He wants done. For these three reasons, there are many things that God cannot do unilaterally but can try to do with the help of things He created. God cannot accomplish such things as successfully dealing with evil without human help and humans cannot accomplish such things as successfully dealing with evil without God’s help. Because there are things that God cannot do singlehandedly, He works through such people as health-care providers.
God’s love sometimes motivates Him to initiate miraculous uncontrolled actions, but miracles cannot happen without creaturely cooperation or favorable conditions or both. A miracle is an unusual and good event that affects a creature, object, or situation in order to promote overall well-being. The initiating uncontrolling action of God might be an invitation or it might be a suggestion of a novel possibility or opportunity or it might be a suggestion of a new structure or form of existence. Miracles involving such living things as creatures, organs, and cells occur only if they respond in a positive manner. When miracles involve only inanimate forces, processes, objects, entities, systems, relationships, structures, matter, or conditions, God can interact with, but not control, such natural means of change as emerging, evolving, self-organizing, shifting of the earth, blowing of wind, and flowing of water. Miracles require an initiating action by God and creaturely cooperation or favorable conditions or both. Miracles often enhance overall well-being in surprising ways. Some miracles are devices for teaching.
Epilogue
If a Christian asks “What’s love got to do with it?”, the answer is “Everything.”
Appendix
I wrote this essay because I think that Thomas Jay Oord’s “Primacy-of-Love Christianity” deserves to be understood by more people because it solves problems that plague other versions of Christianity, other religions, and atheism. Unfortunately, Oord’s beliefs are currently presented only piecemeal in various places or in documents that he wrote for theologians. Much of what is said in this essay is based on things published by Oord (see below) and blogs written by Oord but some of what is said herein is based on very helpful emails I received from Oord. My estimate is that over 80% of this essay has been reviewed and approved by Oord. Nevertheless, some of what is said herein has not been reviewed by Oord. Therefore, the reader should understand that Thomas Jay Oord has NOT affirmed that all statements made in this essay accurately present his beliefs concerning Christianity. This essay does not contain anything with which Oord is known to disagree. The basic concept of POLC is clear but additional information will become available as Oord writes blogs and completes additional volumes in his book that presents a systematic theology of love. Thomas Jay Oord is very busy working on a number of projects. I am very grateful for the help he has given me.
The rest of this appendix contains auxiliary information concerning this essay and POLC. Male pronouns are used because they are traditional. The publications on which this essay is based are ones for which Thomas Jay Oord is the only or first author.
Philosophy of Religion: Introductory Essays (two essays). 2003
Science of Love. 2004
Relational Holiness. 2005
Postmodern and Wesleyan? (two chapters). 2009
Defining Love. 2010
God Reconsidered (one chapter). 2010
The Nature of Love: A Theology. 2010
The Best News You Will Ever Hear. 2011
The Uncontrolling Love of God. 2015
God and the Problem of Evil (two chapters). 2017
Divine Impassibility (one chapter). 2019
God Can’t. 2019
God Can’t Q&A. 2020
Panentheism and Panpsychism (one chapter). 2020
Methodist Christology (one chapter). 2020
Love, Divine and Human (one chapter). 2020
Open and Relational Theology. 2021
Pluriform Love. 2022
Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming (one essay). 2023
The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence. 2023
God After Deconstruction. 2024
My Defense. 2024
Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God (one essay). 2024
Renewing Faith (one essay). 2025
The Love of Nature and the Nature of Love (one essay). 2026
A Systematic Theology of Love. Volume 1. 2026
“God Can’t” and “The Uncontrolling Love of God” are probably the best books to read first.
The name “Primacy-of-Love Christianity” is used to refer to Oord’s beliefs because he used the phrase “primacy of love” on the following pages in books listed above.
Page 67 in “Science of Love”
Pages v, 1, and 138 in “The Nature of Love”
Page 160 in “The Uncontrolling Love of God”
Pages 1 and 24 in “Pluriform Love”
Page 458 in “Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be LGBTQ+ Affirming”
Page 46 in “My Defense”.
Some books by other authors have the phrase “primacy of love” in their titles but none of them interprets “God is love” the way Oord does.
The phrase “live a life of love” (or a very similar phrase) occurs on the following pages in books listed above.
Page 134 in “Relational Holiness”
Page 29 in “Postmodern and Wesleyan?”
Page 120 in “The Nature of Love: A Theology”
Pages 21, 40, and 41 in “The Best News You Will Ever Hear”
Page 64 in “The Uncontrolling Love of God”
Page 82 in “God and the Problem of Evil”
Pages 5 and 183 in “God Can’t”
Page 249 in “Panentheism and Panpsychism”
Page 118 in “Open and Relational Theology”
Page 468 in “Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming”
Pages 159 and 179 in “God after Deconstruction”
Pages 11 and 15 in “My Defense”
Page 140 in “Preaching the Uncontrolling Love of God”
“The Nature of Love: A Theology” says that “living a life of love” means developing Christian virtues and growing in Christlikeness. “The Uncontrolling Love of God” says it means promoting good and opposing evil, as does “God and the Problem of Evil”.
POLC says that God’s love is more important than God’s simplicity and God’s sovereignty, and so POLC is not compatible with the conventional (aka traditional, classical) versions of Christianity described by such people as Gerald Bray in his 2021 book titled “The Attributes of God: An Introduction” and by James E. Dolezal in his 2017 book titled “All That is in God”.
POLC was inaccurately characterized as possibly unbiblical or unChristian by William Lane Craig on page 145 in the 2012 book titled “God and the Problem of Evil”, by Kevin J. Vanhoozer on page 13 in the 2020 book titled “Love, Divine and Human”, and by Brian J. Orr on page 184 in his 2022 book titled “A Classical Response to Relational Theism”. Anyone who says that POLC is not biblical apparently has not read pages 130-151 and 161-165 in “Divine Impassability”, pages 27-42 in “Love, Divine and Human”, pages 151-203 in “Defining Love”, “The Nature of Love”, “Pluriform Love”, “God Can’t”, and “God Can’t Q&A”. Also, Oord says that the Bible is the chief authority on page 34 in “The Nature of Love”, page 93 in “Relational Holiness”, page 48 in “Divine Impassibility”, page 50 in “My Defense”, page 24 in “God Can’t” and page 123 in “God Can’t Q&A”.