If you are reading this as a conservative, evangelical, this will get your undies in a twist.
This article is about the guy who wrote "Letters from a Skeptic." The site will request you get a sub to the NYTimes online before you read this (if you don't already have one). It's free and quick.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?hp&ex=1154318400&en=f0cf63e262a9a896&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Comments....PLEASE!
Great article...I sent it to a few friends and have received some interesting responses...these issue seem to be very sensitive...I love the fact that Boyd is willing to challenge his church to think and wrestle with issues such as these...all of evangelical-dom (is that a word?) needs to be asking these questions.
Posted by: Jason Breda | August 02, 2006 at 10:42 AM
I saw this too, and forwarded it to David. I was very encouraged by this article, and admire Boyd greatly for taking a risk he felt God was calling him to take, one that cost him on the numbers side in terms of the congregation, and put some services at a disadvantage (children's ministry). Yet his move wasn't about power, it was about love and the mission of Jesus. We are in danger of making the same mistake folks did in Jesus' time, thinking that having him on our side will make a difference in temporal politics, as some of the Jews thought he would rescue them from Rome in a political/military sense. I say "we" as all folks involved as citizens, conversative, liberal or in between. I think Jesus is above (or below?) this tug-of-war.
"Power under" is an interesting way to put it. If we are not to be of the world yet in it, we cannot help but respond to policies and laws made by our government. But there is a clear way we are supposed to act: caring for and bringing comfort to the poor, sick, aging, lonely, etc. Sometimes it seems like we are supposed to do this within a governmental framework: working for better policies, supporting government agencies who do health and human services, etc. But is this not much more removed that what Jesus is calling us to do? He wants us to get involved, to clean feet, to actually feed people.
Having been involved in a peace activism group in recent past, and slowly becoming disillusioned with it, I have become increasingly convicted that I am supposed to be doing radical things in this regard, not operating on a policy-level. I am wrestling with this as a so-called "progressive Christian", fan of Jim Wallis, regular voter, etc. It's risking loving people as deeply as Jesus did and calls us to do. Anyone who thinks this is easy with comfortable chairs and good music signed up for the wrong thing.
Politics is divisive, and this article shows it. I like what our church has put on some t-shirts: Love Wins. That should be uniting us.
(Is that the kind of comment you wanted?) ;)
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