[lit-ideas] Re: Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

I found the following news article surprising in view of what I personally
know about the certitude of most Christian fundamentalists but ...

 

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

 

Excerpt

"Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential
election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which
he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on
sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and
stop glorifying American military campaigns. 

"When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses," Mr. Boyd
preached. "When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put
your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks
homosexuality is not God's ideal. The response from his congregation at
Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul - packed mostly with
politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals - was
passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the
time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992,
had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

.....

And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, "The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the
Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church," which is based on his
sermons. 

"There is a lot of discontent brewing," said Brian D. McLaren, the founding
pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in
the evangelical movement known as the "emerging church," which is at the
forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.

"More and more people are saying this has gone too far - the dominance of
the evangelical identity by the religious right," Mr. McLaren said. "You
cannot say the word 'Jesus' in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage
going along with it. You can't say the word 'Christian,' and you certainly
can't say the word 'evangelical' without it now raising connotations and a
certain cringe factor in people. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?_r=2
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slog
in&oref=slogin> &th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Other related posts: