NYT: Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for an Evangelical Pastor

[lindisfarne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?ei=5094&en=fc81bfdd0ee7feb1&hp=&ex=1154232000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
July 30, 2006
Disowning Conservative Politics Is Costly for an Evangelical Pastor
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, 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.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share.

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[beam me up scottie]

1. Yup.

“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.

“Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ ”

Discontent.

That's one word for it.

[Metta]

2. "Better to die following your own path than find fame and fortune

following someone else's." The Buddha. This guy gets points in this life and in lives to come and in heaven.

[Pugee]

3. but, he kept 4,000 members

doesnt that mean that most agreed? Everyone seems to act as if the 20% who left were more important that the 80% who stayed. This story could also have been written as Pastor takes a stand and most parishiners stick with him.

[nemo137]

4. Seriously, he's getting at least a B.

I'm glad he stuck to his guns.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. said this in the LBN thread, but here it is again...

I hope everyone notices what exactly this pastor is doing. He's not preaching "Jesus was a liberal" or "Democrats can be Christians, too" or in any way trying to replace Republican Christianity with Democratic Christianity. He's articulating a theological basis for the separation of church and state. That voice is largely missing from the debate today.

Perhaps people who continue to attend his church will come to realize what secularists already know, that a religiously neutral government is the only way to guarantee religious freedom.