Religion
Greg Boyd: The Myth of a Christian Nation
Religion and politics don’t mix.
Greg Boyd is a Christian pastor and theologian from my home state, Minnesota. I saw him talk once. He really cares about people. And he’s a sharp thinker.
To get a sense of his compassion for people, listen to his 1998 sermon, Whose Neighbor Am I? [page | mp3]. Seriously, atheists: listen to it.
In 2006, Boyd preached a sermon series about how the Christian church should avoid politics, not try to take it over. He lost 20% of his tithe-paying members because of it. But he kept preaching. Big props for that, Greg.
In 2007, he condensed the sermon series into a book: The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church.
As a Christian, his main concern is a spiritual one, not a historical one. He says the way of Jesus is different from the “way of the world.” The world comes with power over people, forcing them to do what is “right.” Jesus came with power under people. Jesus served them, befriended them. His love was so magnetic he inspired them to do good of their own choice.
Boyd says Christianity in politics is power over people. Christians shouldn’t force their beliefs or values on other people. Rather, they should serve and befriend them and show them the joy and goodness in that way of life. That’s the way of Jesus, not Christian politics.
Boyd spends most of the book quoting the Bible to back up his view. Okay. Whatever. We all know theologians can make the Bible say whatever they want it to say. That he thinks the gospels are reliable historical sources is a big problem in the first place.
But let me focus on the points where Boyd and I agree.
Boyd says that religion and politics is an ugly mixture. Every time the church gets involved in politics, it’s bad for the church and politics.
To show this, he walks us through the history of Christian politics. He cites the violence of Constantine and the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, and just about every time the church saw itself as “The Church Militant and Triumphant.”
He responds to Christians who want to “take America back for God.” He asks, “When was America ever for God?”
Were these God-glorifying years before, during, or after Europeans ‘discovered’ America and carried out the doctrine of ‘manifest destiny’—the belief that God (or, for some, nature) had destined white Christians to conquer the native inhabitants and steal their land? Were the God-glorifying years the ones in which the whites massacred these natives by the millions, broke just about every covenant they ever made with them, and then forced survivors onto isolated reservations? Was the golden age before, during, or after white Christians loaded five to six million Africans on cargo ships to bring them to their newfound country, enslaving the three million or so who actually survived the brutal trip? Was it during the two centuries when Americans acquired remarkable wealth by the sweat and blood of their slaves? Was this the time when we were truly ‘one nation under God,’ the blessed time that so many evangelicals seem to want to take our nation back to?
I oppose Boyd’s irrational theology, but we agree on two things:
- Religion and politics don’t mix.
- Christianity is ugly when it gets involved in politics.