After Oedipus
The Evolution of Open and Relational Theology
Oedipal and Post-Oedipal
Jane teaches classics (Greek and Roman literature) at a local college. Her husband is passionate about open and relational theology, and she has an interesting take on the tradition.
She observes that many of its adherents—especially the men who grew up in conservative evangelical settings — remind her of Oedipus as interpreted by Freud: they seem obsessed with killing the father. In Greek tragedy Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and suffers devastating consequences—not just for himself, but for his entire community. Freud reimagines this myth as a symbol of unconscious desires and rebellion against paternal authority.
Jane sees echoes of this dynamic in certain strands of open and relational theology, where the rejection of the authoritarian God appears not merely as a step toward liberation, but as a kind of compulsive protest—a psychological drama played out in theological terms. "It's all they can talk about," says Jane. "About how the idea of omnipotence is bad and needs to be killed."
Jane recognizes that some open and relational (process) theologians grow beyond this obsession with killing the image of a father they don't like. “They grow up,” she says. Thus, she speaks of two phases of open and relational theology: an Oedipal phase and a post-Oedipal phase. She hopes her husband will grow into a post-Oedipal phase. This page is dedicated to Jane—for her insight, wit, deep love of the ancient world. And to her husband, too.
- Jay McDaniel
She observes that many of its adherents—especially the men who grew up in conservative evangelical settings — remind her of Oedipus as interpreted by Freud: they seem obsessed with killing the father. In Greek tragedy Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and suffers devastating consequences—not just for himself, but for his entire community. Freud reimagines this myth as a symbol of unconscious desires and rebellion against paternal authority.
Jane sees echoes of this dynamic in certain strands of open and relational theology, where the rejection of the authoritarian God appears not merely as a step toward liberation, but as a kind of compulsive protest—a psychological drama played out in theological terms. "It's all they can talk about," says Jane. "About how the idea of omnipotence is bad and needs to be killed."
Jane recognizes that some open and relational (process) theologians grow beyond this obsession with killing the image of a father they don't like. “They grow up,” she says. Thus, she speaks of two phases of open and relational theology: an Oedipal phase and a post-Oedipal phase. She hopes her husband will grow into a post-Oedipal phase. This page is dedicated to Jane—for her insight, wit, deep love of the ancient world. And to her husband, too.
- Jay McDaniel
Confession
Entering the Post-Oedipal Phase
I'm growing up. I think I’ve entered a post-Oedipal phase of open and relational theology. I’m no longer obsessed with killing the Father—that is, dismantling the image of a patriarchal God. It feels like I’m stepping into a future less haunted by the past and shaped more by tenderness and mutual becoming.
The ghost still lingers, but he no longer narrates my story. I feel less angry. Less anxious. I don’t even feel the need to prove I’m right anymore. I realize now that others may not have been haunted by the same ghost. They might have believed God is all-powerful and all-loving—but somehow, for them, the love was what mattered most.
In any case, there’s more space now. Space for love. For curiosity. For simply being. I'm not trying to kill the Father all the time and to convert everybody to my point of view.
The Years of Anger
I was angry for years. I needed to tear down the God I had been handed—the patriarchal Father who sat on a throne, pulling the strings. The God of reward and punishment, not love. Open and relational theology gave me language for that anger. It spoke honestly about what God can’t do. And there was a certain pleasure in that talk—a liberating joy in naming what no longer held power over me.
But even then, I remained stuck in the anger—still haunted by the God I had supposedly left behind. I kept deconstructing. I kept debating. I kept battling those who disagreed—especially those who held to a more traditional theology. I wanted to prove I was right. The world became a battlegroun and d between “good theology” (mine) and “bad theology” (theirs). I became an evangelist of sorts—an evangelist for open and relational theology.
Letting Go of the Fight
Eventually, I got tired of defining myself by what I was against. I slowly entered the post-Oedipal space—no longer fixated on killing the Father. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. Maybe it had something to do with getting married—having a wife who is both more loving than I am and more traditional in her theology. She once gently suggested that my desire to "kill the Father" might be a particularly male sort of struggle.
In any case, I’ve found myself drawn into a different kind of faith—not reactive, not defensive. Just real. A God who is vulnerable, patient, and present. That’s the God I walk with now. And somehow, that is enough.
A More Spacious Faith
This quieter faith has given me room to live more lightly with others—including those I once dismissed for having “bad theology.” I’m learning that love matters more than being right, and that love finds its home in many different theologies.
I think I’m more open now. And closer to the God in whom I believe.
James, age 42
I'm growing up. I think I’ve entered a post-Oedipal phase of open and relational theology. I’m no longer obsessed with killing the Father—that is, dismantling the image of a patriarchal God. It feels like I’m stepping into a future less haunted by the past and shaped more by tenderness and mutual becoming.
The ghost still lingers, but he no longer narrates my story. I feel less angry. Less anxious. I don’t even feel the need to prove I’m right anymore. I realize now that others may not have been haunted by the same ghost. They might have believed God is all-powerful and all-loving—but somehow, for them, the love was what mattered most.
In any case, there’s more space now. Space for love. For curiosity. For simply being. I'm not trying to kill the Father all the time and to convert everybody to my point of view.
The Years of Anger
I was angry for years. I needed to tear down the God I had been handed—the patriarchal Father who sat on a throne, pulling the strings. The God of reward and punishment, not love. Open and relational theology gave me language for that anger. It spoke honestly about what God can’t do. And there was a certain pleasure in that talk—a liberating joy in naming what no longer held power over me.
But even then, I remained stuck in the anger—still haunted by the God I had supposedly left behind. I kept deconstructing. I kept debating. I kept battling those who disagreed—especially those who held to a more traditional theology. I wanted to prove I was right. The world became a battlegroun and d between “good theology” (mine) and “bad theology” (theirs). I became an evangelist of sorts—an evangelist for open and relational theology.
Letting Go of the Fight
Eventually, I got tired of defining myself by what I was against. I slowly entered the post-Oedipal space—no longer fixated on killing the Father. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. Maybe it had something to do with getting married—having a wife who is both more loving than I am and more traditional in her theology. She once gently suggested that my desire to "kill the Father" might be a particularly male sort of struggle.
In any case, I’ve found myself drawn into a different kind of faith—not reactive, not defensive. Just real. A God who is vulnerable, patient, and present. That’s the God I walk with now. And somehow, that is enough.
A More Spacious Faith
This quieter faith has given me room to live more lightly with others—including those I once dismissed for having “bad theology.” I’m learning that love matters more than being right, and that love finds its home in many different theologies.
I think I’m more open now. And closer to the God in whom I believe.
James, age 42
From Obsession to Trust
The Oedipal Phase: Theology as Protest
Open and relational theology — including its process variant — often begins with protest.
Protest against coercive power. Protest against the idea of a God who controls everything. Protest against omnipotence. Protest, in short, against the omnipotent Father.
In Freudian terms, this makes sense. For many, the classical God — omnipotent, omniscient, all-controlling — resembles the patriarchal Father of the Oedipus complex: powerful, forbidding, unquestionable. In such cases, rejecting the Father-God is not just intellectual; it's psychic. It's about breaking free from domination, asserting freedom, reclaiming spiritual agency. And it is absolutely necessary for those who have been harmed by authoritarian religion.
But when the rejection itself becomes obsessive, when every theological conversation returns to God's lack of coercive power, when omnipotence is attacked again and again — the protest begins to look like something more: a sign that the Father still haunts the soul. This is what we might call Oedipal Theology.
Oedipal Theology: What It Looks Like
- Vehement and repetitive: Always returning to what God is not.
- Defined by contrast: Classical theism becomes the foil for every idea.
- Haunted by the Father: Still fighting the image, still tangled in protest.
- Therapeutic tone: Theology as catharsis, working through religious trauma.
Such theology is emotionally necessary for many - namely those who grew up in, or have been traumatized, authoritarian forms of Christianity. "God the Omnipotent Father" becomes a placeholder for all that was wrong with the authoritarianism. But there comes a time — spiritually, psychically, theologically — when something else becomes possible: not just reacting to the Father, but reimagining God altogether.
The Post-Oedipal Phase: Theology as Trust
A Post-Oedipal Theology has worked through the psychic inheritance of omnipotence, without overgeneralizing its experience and perhaps also while recognizing that its very resistance to omnipotence and creation out of nothing is context-specific. This does not mean God is dead — but that the old projection of God-as-Dominator has been relinquished, grieved, perhaps even gently honored and released. In its place, a new theological imagination begins to flower: God as a nurturing power: God as lure for beauty; God as Spirit breathing with us; God as love, not control. Post-Oedipal theology:
- No longer needs to contrast itself endlessly with “classical theism.”
- Feels free to imagine God as relational without constantly reacting against omnipotence.
- Acknowledges the past without being dominated by it.
- Speaks from a center of trust rather than defensiveness.
It is marked by humility and confidence, not urgency. It doesn’t need to kill the Father again. It’s no longer haunted. It’s no longer reactive. It’s no longer proving. It’s simply living what it knows to be true: That God is relational. That power is shared.
That vulnerability is not weakness. That love is the deepest logic of the cosmos.
Growing Beyond Oedipal Theology
While Oedipal theology serves a healing and liberating purpose, it is not without its blind spots. One issue is that it can overgeneralize, assuming that the experience of the patriarchal Father-God is shared by all who grew up in Christian contexts. This neglects the reality that some people were introduced to God as loving from the beginning. For these individuals, "Father" was never synonymous with domination or fear. Their God was compassionate, relational, and trustworthy from the start. To them, the urgent rejection of the Father may feel misplaced, or even dismissive of their own spiritual experience. I think of John Cobb and his willingness, indeed his freedom, to address God as Abba.
A second problem is that Oedipal theology can be insensitive to the fact that, for many Christians, the terms "omnipotence" and "creation out of nothing" do not carry authoritarian overtones. These ideas may be held in ways that affirm God's mystery, power, and generosity, not God's control or coercion. As a result, the intense preoccupations of Oedipal theology can appear alien or even off-putting. Instead of fostering dialogue, they may unintentionally reinforce division.
How to Grow Beyond It
To grow beyond the limitations of Oedipal theology, we need a more nuanced and relational approach—one that honors the diversity of spiritual experiences without defaulting to rebellion as the primary mode of transformation. This means recognizing that not all relationships with the divine have been traumatic or authoritarian, and that for many, spiritual maturity is not a matter of rejecting a dominating Father-God but of deepening an already intimate relationship with a loving Presence. Growth beyond Oedipal theology invites us to shift from reaction to integration—from defining ourselves against what we reject to embracing a fuller, more inclusive vision of God and community. This involves listening across theological lines, attending to the variety of ways people have encountered the sacred, and discerning the healing that each path might offer. It also means recognizing that terms like Abba can be reclaimed, not just rejected—that transformation can come not only through protest, but through love, gratitude, and trust. In this way, we move toward a theology of relationship rather than resistance, shaped not by what we escape but by what we are becoming.
We see glimpses of this Post-Oedipal maturity in the prayer practices of those who speak to God as a close companion—neither rejecting nor idolizing divine power, but relating with honesty and openness. We find it in worship that celebrates divine presence in nature, community, music, and the small joys of life, where the sacred is not projected onto a distant sky-father but experienced intimately in the here and now. Thinkers like John Cobb, who freely uses familial language for God without authoritarian connotations, or Marjorie Suchocki, who emphasizes God’s nurturing and persuasive presence, model this approach. Even liturgies that welcome lament and vulnerability—rather than assert doctrinal certainty—offer spaces where God is encountered not as a figure to be overthrown, but as a fellow sufferer and source of hope.
Post-Oedipal theology thus doesn't abandon critique; it transcends it. It moves beyond the shadow of the Father—not by erasing God as Father, but by reimagining the metaphor in ways that are healing, inclusive, and life-giving. It leaves room for those who need to reject harmful images of God and for those who never had to, making space for a richer, more varied theological landscape.
- Jay McDaniel