The Evangelical the LWM Loves

Gregory Boyd, the new darling of the Old Left:

BOYD IS A PRINCETON and Yale-trained minister who founded Woodland Hills Church in suburban St. Paul in 1992. Formerly a "oneness Pentecostal" who denied the Trinity, Boyd eventually rejected that view in favor of orthodox Trinitarianism. But he embraced another heterodoxy while teaching at Bethel College in St. Paul, where he advocated "open theism," which denies, or minimizes, God's foreknowledge of the future. The website of Boyd's church declares that "we . . . recognize the current disagreement among evangelical Christians about the biblical data regarding the content of the future that God perfectly
knows" and describes Woodland Hills Church as not having a "single position" on this issue. An effort by some in Boyd's Baptist General Conference to oust him from the denomination failed.

Beyond "open theism," Woodland Hills Church appears to be a conventional evangelical mega-church, whose theology is orthodox, and which disapproves of homosexual practice and abortion. Supposedly after years of pressure to distribute conservative voter guides and endorse anti-gay marriage rallies, Boyd exploded with his 2004 sermon series on "The Cross and the Sword." He intoned: "When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses." Boyd accused the evangelical church of exchanging the Gospel for political power and American nationalism.

Although supposedly shunning both political left and right, almost all of Boyd's fire is aimed at conservatives, mostly fellow evangelicals. "I am sorry to tell you," he preached in one 2004 sermon, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world," a view that he ascribes to his targets. He chastised the "hypocrisy and pettiness" of evangelicals who dwell on "sexual issues" like homosexuality and abortion. American evangelicalism, he said, "is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry."

Boyd is blunt in his critique of America. "Our country was founded pretty much as most nations were founded--thru barbaric violence," he recently told a radio interviewer. "It was a conquering kind and 10 to 20 million Native Americans were killed [which was followed by] the enslavement of African Americans."

But because too many Christians propagate the myth of Christian America, "many now hear the good news of Jesus only as American news, capitalistic news, imperialistic news, exploitive news, antigay news, or Republican news," he complained. For many, "the American flag has smothered the glory of the cross, and the ugliness of our American version of Caesar has squelched the radiant love of Christ."

Cause God knows if Jesus were preaching today he'd be advocating gay marriage, abortion, organic produce, and communism.

After all, he'd have little else to do given that all the mortal sins he fretted about have fallen by the wayside in this more enlightened age, no?

One wonders which seminary cranks out such phony theologians who have neither eyes to read nor minds to think. They must have a hard time keeping the production line of anointed atheists humming along.