The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cascade Books, 2016)

Ever since Karl Barth breathed new life into the field of theology, systematic theologies have tended to follow the order of the creed—placing the doctrine of God, and especially the doctrine of the trinity, at the beginning. The God Who Saves presents a novel approach to Christian dogmatics that makes soteriology the first and normative word in theology. The result is a consistently soteriocentric theology.

The work is additionally distinguished from other systematic approaches to Christian doctrine by the fact that the soteriology in question derives from a fresh hearing of the apocalyptic message of the New Testament, drawing constructively on the insights of Rudolf Bultmann, Ernst Käsemann, Eberhard Jüngel, and J. Louis Martyn. The God who saves is the God who invades and interrupts the cosmos in the death of Jesus. Human beings participate in salvation through their unconscious, existential cocrucifixion, in which each person is interrupted by God and placed outside of herself. This saving event, which embraces each person without remainder, is definitive for God’s identity as the triune Christ, Spirit, and Creator. The result is an account of theology that is postmetaphysical, existential, and hermeneutically critical.

Finally, The God Who Saves is a uniquely interdisciplinary work of theology, drawing on contemporary philosophy, history of religions, intercultural studies, hermeneutical theory, and popular culture. Here is a bold, constructive work of dogmatic theology for the twenty-first century.

Read an excerpt from The God Who Saves, used with permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers, and download a press kit.

Endorsements for The God Who Saves:

“David Congdon and I grew up together theologically. It has been my privilege to watch his penetrating insight grow and develop into a creative theological program. Rumors of dialectical theology’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. If you are interested in a glimpse of what a fresh dialectical theology for the twenty-first century looks like—and you should be!—you need look no further.”
—W. Travis McMaken, Associate Professor of Religion, Lindenwood University

“While the idea of universal salvation has long been a minority report in the Christian tradition, it has found an increasing number of advocates in recent times. This volume provides a rigorous, creative, and comprehensive dogmatic account of this belief from one of the brightest young scholars at work today. Even those who are not in agreement with Congdon’s line of argument and conclusions will be challenged and enriched by the detail and scope of his engaging theological vision.”
—John R. Franke, Theologian in Residence, Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis; Author, Manifold Witness: The Plurality of Truth

“Congdon has authored a sophisticated and ambitious dogmatic essay full of insight and bristling with provocation. He invites us to join him in a sustained experiment in radically soteriocentric thinking: what if the work of the God of the gospel on the cross were truly the Archimedean point from which all things are moved and so saved? Congdon’s aim is to limn the revolution in Christian theology that should follow when Christian imagination and intelligence are animated and disciplined anew by faith in the God whose very being is at stake in his advent ‘for us and for our salvation.’ The God Who Saves is an important intervention in contemporary doctrinal debate.”
—Philip G. Ziegler, Chair of Christian Dogmatics, Professor, University of Aberdeen

“This is a bold, clear, and stimulating articulation of the good news. While few will follow Congdon at every point, his account of eschatological theo-actualized universalism provokes in the places where it matters most, and reminds us again why the advent of Jesus Christ is the first article of faith, and the ground that makes Christian dogmatics possible, intelligible, and profoundly hopeful. Dorothee Soelle once insisted that ‘when we ask ourselves what God is like, we must answer first by looking at what God does.’ This essay takes up that momentous task admirably.”
—Jason Goroncy, Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Whitley College, University of Divinity, Australia

“A powerful and provocative work. In prose that is simultaneously critical, polemical, and constructive, Congdon articulates in outline a distinctive theological vision of the apocalyptic gospel of God’s gracious salvation. Though many will disagree with the proposals found herein, none can afford to ignore the searching questions that Congdon puts to contemporary theological discussions. To do so would impoverish our discourse and impair our witness to the expansiveness of God’s embrace.”
—Christian T. Collins Winn, Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Bethel University