I’ve commented previously on pastor/theologian Gregory Boyd’s celebrated and allegedly “apolitical” evangelicalism. Biola University’s John Mark Reynolds notes his disturbance with Boyd’s recent foray onto Mars Hill, on a regional NPR radio interview.
Reynolds points out Boyd’s response to a caller who is concerned that people who “believe in the hereafter” aren’t really competent to decide issues such as global warming or the Middle East crisis. Boyd responds to the caller by offering a critique of the Religious Right, specifically Pat Robertson.
Reynolds sizes up the situation this way:
“The most sympathetic, generous read of this exchange is that Boyd has in front of him a list of talking points, and is just waiting for callers’ questions as excuses to make his own prepared statements, obliquely related at best. Or maybe he’s groggy. But whatever the explanation (and more cynical ones are readily available), Boyd missed the chance here to put in a good word for the Christian faith. In fact, he let it be mocked and used the occasion to score points against people he disagrees with.
“Extreme condensed paraphrase:
Caller: Religious people cannot be trusted with real world issues, because they believe in heaven and that makes them irresponsible about earth.Host: Nyah nyah nyah, if you love heaven so much why don’t you go there?Boyd: Let me tell you how bad Pat Robertson is.
“It seems to me that when a Christian pastor agrees to go on public radio, he should be thinking about ways to recommend and defend Christian ideas like, say, heaven. When a caller serves up a good old-fashioned village atheist taunt that sounds like it came straight out of Bob Ingersoll’s handbook, a pastor or theologian ought to recognize it and think about how, much as he may hate Pat Robertson’s politics, this would be a good moment to say that there are some things that are basic to any version of consistent Christianity. After all, who could possibly care if Boyd and Robertson disagree about prophecy, if in fact this whole “heaven” thing is a big fairy tale? Host and caller agree that these superstitious folks are a funny (or is it scary?) lot, but the guest chooses this moment to score points against an easy target.
“Apparently, thinks the NPR interviewer, there are some evangelicals you can have a decent conversation with. Let’s book this guy for a lot more shows. Memo to Greg Boyd: While you have the attention of the press (and anybody volunteering to help generate an evangelical left voting block is sure to have the undivided attention of the media until 2008), please stay alert and try to put in a good word for mere Christianity. Remember, on one side you have a world that thinks your God is imaginary, and on the other you have evangelicals you disagree with politically. You just wrote a whole book which ostensibly argues that we shouldn’t let politics undercut Christian witness. Better luck on the next few interviews?”
I probably would not be as hard on Boyd as Reynolds is. It is easy, after all, to forget to say the right thing in an off-the-cuff moment on the radio. But Reynold’s point is well-taken. How often do we, and I am implicating those of us who are evangelical Right as well as evangelical Left, forget the point of the gospel and identification with Christ in order to win an argument?
Greg Boyd’s not apolitical, no matter what he says. And neither are any of us. But let’s hope that as we engage a lost world we remember that the ones who are “on our side” are not, first of all, those who agree with us about the relative merits of Pat Robertson’s politics.
