Controversial evangelical paster, Greg Boyd, has written a book entitled “Myth of a Christian Nation.” This book has caused some controversy, even within his own church where he lost 1,000 members as a result. The New York Times published a front-page article about Greg’s recent book Myth of a Christian Nation, the sermon series “The Cross and the Sword” and Woodland Hills Church. This story was syndicated around the country to newspapers and web sites, including AOL. As a result, his book sales have increased significantly. A subsequent interview details much of his views on the kingdom of God in relation to politics, abortion (and particulary, how to go about engaging the problem from a kingdom pariticipant point of view), civic engagement, etc.. Check out this interview. It is definitely very thought-provoking. What do you think of his conclusions? I really want to get some good feedback on this from some of you out there. I am trying to solidify some of these issues myself. Your thoughts would be very helpful!
(Charlie Rose interviews Rick Warren during the first half of the interview…if you want to watch it, good. Otherwise, fastforward the interview to about half way through to see Boyd.)
SUMMA PHILOSOPHIAE 
Here is my site, Clint dawg.
I mean… here it is: evangelicalconservative.blogspot.com
I had trouble viewing the video but will keep trying.
I read the article and it was very interesting. Here’s the thing though: I am an evangelical and I am also a republican. I can see how many people like me vote the way I do or think the way I do or take the stances the way I do because of their upbringing or, as the article pointed out, what they see and hear in their churches. But the article kind of gives the impression that it is wrong to be both evangelical and republican. Why? It’s the same kind of hypocrisy when people in my camp say you can’t be both a politically and theologically liberal christian. It’s almost as if the article was saying that to be an evangelical republican is the new sin of the 21st century, whereby being a liberal christian was seen as the sin of the 20th century. I am an evangelical because, in short, i believe in the evangelical statement of faith as my foundation of beliefs. in the same way, i am a republican because i believe in many of the ideals of the republican party. not to say that god is a republican, but many stances that the republicans hold dear to are traditionally also evangelical stances. then of course, god is neither a democrat and neither was jesus just because he was “progressive” in thought and action. i’ve heard that claim which is why i’ve brought that up. all this to conclude that i think the religious right has been come down on by secularists and liberal christians because of our strong stances on important social issues. these same two camps persecute us to stay out of politics. why? because they think they are right and we are wrong, simple as that. it’s a matter of the gold key. whoever has the gold holds the key. they assume we should “turn the other cheek” and be good little christians and mind our p’s and q’s and stay out of politics where the big boys play. and then they get mad when the religious right takes a stance that opposes them, because of course they say “we’re right they’re wrong”. sounds an awful lot like “us vs. them”. okay now for sure, my conclusion is this. the left makes the claim that the religious right is just wrong and should not deserve a stance or a position on an issue. sounds a lot like hypocrisy to me. two sides to every coin.
Clint,
Thanks so much for posting this link. I listened to both the Warren and the Boyd interviews.
I think this would make a great topic of discussion for the Christian Though Student Fellowship!!!
Susan,
I would absolutely love for this to be discussed at the Fellowship! How can we make this happen?
Send and email to or talk directly to Dr. Buschart! Email him the link! Offer to moderate it! : ) I am not sure whether the rest of the topics for this semester are in stone yet or not.. so we may be able to do it in one of the upcoming sessions. ..
I’ll qualify my comments up front that I don’t have time now to comment fully on this and haven’t had time to read thru the NYT article, but would like to go ahead and throw out a few things…
Overall, Boyd’s argument strikes quite a few chords with me. I have felt very uncomfortable with evangelicals getting in bed with the Republican party. Like Boyd, I agree with many social issues that the Republicans support, namely anti-abortion. However, I think the position that voting Republican is the only right Christian action one could take confuses issues. I don’t think (nor did it seem that Boyd thought) that we should not take strong positions about social issues, but to so strongly support one party allows those outside the church to easily condemn the church along with the Republican party when they (the Republicans) when they act as any secular groups that “lords it over others”. How often does one party or the other stall important legistation for the sake of playing politics. Also, do the Democrats not also have positive social programs related to poverty, etc. that Republicans often ignore. I am not anti-Republican, but I believe in a church that is supra-Republican or Democrat.
Being in another country also makes me think differently about American nationalism that is also bound up with much evangelical preaching. Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society comes to mind. How can we be nationalistic and yet truly bear the cross for those outside our borders?
As a Baptist, it also seems interesting to me that some of those at the forefront of this movement is some of the Baptist leadership. But Baptists historically have been some of the strongest proponents for separation of church and state.
Based on his interview, I’m right there with Boyd. But I’ll reserve my full judgment until after I read the stuff directly.
What I am not sure is how to implement the views that Boyd holds to. This will take a lot of thinking about what it means to be kingdom agents. I think that he is exactly right about the kingdom of God needing to come up under the kingdom of this world and try to serve them. The kingdom of God should never try to set itself above this world and rule by force. That is exactly the problem with the Muslim community at large (though not true of all) that Pope Benedict so eloquently pointed out (by the way, their response only confirmed his point). Change does not come from external persuasion or force, but from within!
Clint,
I think it comes down not to changing one’s party-affiliation or the way one votes one one issue or another necessarily but changing the motivation behind our vote. This might result, on occasion, voting contrary to “party lines” and I think that issue right there is why there has been such a push to marry religion and politics. If a party can achieve such sancitmonious status that any vote must be, say, pro-republican lest one be “unchristian” (implied: sinning!) … they can leverage that to the max! I think this is what Boyd is getting at: we can have our convictions (and he obviously has them!) but they must be carefully held separately from our party-affiliation. This frees us to work with and among and within both political parties for biblical, Kingdom ideals.
That’s why I vote Libertarian — less gov’t interaction, more into international peace.
[my daughter has written] about the so-called founding of a Christian nation. While a student at SBC, she wrote a paper on the topic.
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I just watched the interview and greatly admired both Warren’s and Boyd’s ability to articulate their passion for Jesus so well.
I remember seeing pro-life supporters picketing outside abortion clinics during my college days and wondered: wouldn’t the time be better invested if they had set up a crisis pregnancy counseling center? Instead of telling people not to abort their babies, we should be helping them cope with an unplanned pregnancy. I think Boyd expressed that point really well.