God First

The Reformation was not only a historical event with worldwide effects, but a spiritual revolution. Its driving force was the liberating discovery that God is unconditionally present in his creation as the power of change for the good. God alone is the first, everything else is the second. This led existentially to a reorientation of the whole life towards God's presence and theologically to a fundamental transformation of the traditional systems of religious thought. By orienting all life and thought, experience and suffering, imagining and doing uncompromisingly towards this creative presence of God, the Reformers revolutionized the Christian way of living and thinking. The book reconstructs the way of thinking of Protestant theology by explaining what it means to think God theologically based on the event of the cross. And it unfolds Christian monotheism not as a system of violence against other religions, but as a way of life of radical freedom and love, which sees itself as a resonance of the free gift of God's grace.