Book: Myth of a Christian Nation

Post by **Surlethe** » 2006-12-29 09:52am

Some of you may remember a thread some six months ago about a pastor who preached out against the identification of Christianity and the Republican party and, as a result, lost a thousand people from his church. He wrote a book based on his preachings titled The Myth of a Christian Nation.

I picked the book up for Christmas and finished it two days ago, and I must say it's a very good read if you're a Christian. Even if you're not, I would recommend it to both understand the mindset of a liberal evangelical; I expect it would provide invaluable assistance if you wish to convince a conservative evangelical that he is a hypocrite, or if you wanted the intellectual exercise of debating from the position of a liberal Christian.

Essentially, the author, Rev. Gregory A. Boyd, propounds and supports the thesis that no government can be a manifestation of the "kingdom of God". To do this, he draws a distinction between kingdoms "of the world" -- that is, institutions which coerce behavior through the threat of force -- and the "kingdom of God" -- which he claims changes behavior through transforming the heart and mind. Whether it does or not is immaterial to his main point, which is that no government can claim to be a form of the kingdom of God, because they do not change behavior through transformation, but rather coercion.

Further, he points out, and scripturally supports his claim, that Christians ought to be in the business of living as servants with sacrificial love (like, he says, Christ did) instead of forcing people to live morally. I actually noticed some similarities between his book and The God Delusion, which struck me as fascinating: namely, Boyd's blatant rejection of the medieval Church as a "kingdom of the world", and his recognition of the claim that people tend to divide themselves up tribally, and religion helps this division. His reaction to the second fact, though, is that Christians should not be dividing the world into tribes, but rather transcending that through love and service.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, and it will prove invaluable as a resource in combating conservative Christians who insist on legislating morality. I would recommend it to every Christian here, and even to those who are not Christian: it provides detailed insight into how liberal Christians think, and its citations and interpretation would be, I think, helpful in pointing out errors in the position of conservative Christians.

I don't have the book with me, but when I get home I'll post a more detailed summary of his argument.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-12-29 10:05am

Not exactly the most logically sound reasoning, but this does seem like an interesting approach to staunch evangelicals that refuse to acknowledge America was not founded as a Christian nation.

Soldier of Entropy · Post by **Soldier of Entropy** » 2006-12-29 04:04pm

This person deserves to be highly praised. These are the people who are preventing the total destruction of the reputation of evangelicals in the eyes of athiests, agnostics, people who don't want to impose their views on others, etc.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-12-29 04:20pm

Soldier of Entropy wrote:This person deserves to be highly praised. These are the people who are preventing the total destruction of the reputation of evangelicals in the eyes of athiests, agnostics, people who don't want to impose their views on others, etc.

I wasn't aware evangelicals had a reputation left to destroy.

Gaidin · Post by **Gaidin** » 2006-12-29 04:44pm

General Zod wrote:
Soldier of Entropy wrote:This person deserves to be highly praised. These are the people who are preventing the total destruction of the reputation of evangelicals in the eyes of athiests, agnostics, people who don't want to impose their views on others, etc.
I wasn't aware evangelicals had a reputation left to destroy.

With how many threads we see that start with "And I thought doing XXX was as low as you can get, but I was wrong." you know theres always reputation left to destroy.

Master of Cards · Post by **Master of Cards** » 2006-12-29 11:52pm

Gaidin wrote:
General Zod wrote:
Soldier of Entropy wrote:This person deserves to be highly praised. These are the people who are preventing the total destruction of the reputation of evangelicals in the eyes of athiests, agnostics, people who don't want to impose their views on others, etc.
I wasn't aware evangelicals had a reputation left to destroy.
With how many threads we see that start with "And I thought doing XXX was as low as you can get, but I was wrong." you know theres always reputation left to destroy.

they start getting negtive rep for unforsoseen "good acts" so they can keep it nil