Saturday, March 2, 2013

I might like Greg Boyd more if I were still evangelical

When I left my old church one of the prominent long term members gave me a couple of Greg Boyd's books as a parting gift. He mentioned to me that most of the pastoral staff disliked him and that should have been a clue that I might have enjoyed reading his stuff. The books are still collecting dust and I have yet to read them. Fast forward to today and I read on Rachel Held Evans blog that he is considering moving his church to the Mennonite denomination.

I give him kudos for researching the roots of evangelicalism back and identifying what is wrong with it today. He was also able to find an often looked over post reformation branch of Christianity and find good in it. If evangelicalism has any roots prior to the tent revival era it would be in the anabaptist tradition.

In my studies, I found I have a lot in common with the anabaptists. I am not a fan of partisan politics, I think what is on tv anymore is garbage, I dont want any glory for anything I do and I think war is a waste of money and human life. I also disagree with them on enough issues not to join that tradition but I was pleasantly surprised by them.

I downloaded the channel on Roku for Greg's church and watched the sermon where he introduces the idea to his congregation. I kinda liked his sermon style as it is more like an academic history lesson even though the goggles he has on are evangelical. None of the guys I encounter want to acknowledge the Catholic church and he made it sound like the anabaptists were around from day one after Christ's ascension to heaven.

Even though from a historical persective I thought his fact checking was shoddy at best sometimes and he does correct some mistakes after the sermon. I would have loved this guy when I still was an evangelical. He has really tried to give legitimacy to the movement and connect it to the past.

I just wonder how the Mennonites will accept this guy who is trying to carve out a new niche and be a spokesperson for a group that a concept like that is foreign to.

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