Anabaptist Pastor Challenges “Violent God”

Greg Boyd has been trying hard to explain a violent “Old Testament God.” (Photo credit:Eastern Mennonite University)

Renowned Minnesota megachurch pastor Greg Boyd, controversial for his “open theism” and unique brand of neo-Anabaptist pacifism, is producing a 450-page book laying out the former, now entitled Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Previously, Boyd had envisioned the book as Jesus versus Jehovah. He has outspokenly denounced other evangelicals for allegedly idolatrous patriotism and commitment to American “empire.”

Boyd explained his views to a Canadian Anabaptist megachurch in 2010, a video clip of which is circulating on the internet as a promotion for his impending book. Boyd, senior pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, was invited to The Meeting House in Toronto to speak in its sermon series, “Inglorious Pastors: Waging Peace in a Time of War.” With its Brethren in Christ roots, the congregation under the leadership of Bruxy Cavey boasts that it is a “church for people who aren’t in to church.” In its laid back and hip atmosphere, the goateed Boyd felt right at home. The long-haired Cavey opened with Jesus’ command to Peter to put away his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane: “[Christ] didn’t tell Peter, ‘Put away your sword; save it for later.’ He didn’t say, ‘Don’t use it to advance my cause; use it for another one.’ He gives a universal maxim and says, ‘No, this is not the way.’”

Cavey brought in his Minnesota pastor and theologian friend to address the most nagging question for biblical pacifists: “What do you do with the God of the Old Testament? The God of the Old Testament seems to take credit for a lot of violence. Why the shift if Jesus is supposed to be our paradigm?” Boyd described a wrathful God as “one of the greatest conundrums thrown our way.” Boyd hoped to assuage these concerns since “there is no idea [like nonviolence] that is so foundational to the New Testament…[and] that is so commonly ignored.”

Although the “Old Testament God” is also merciful and loving, He also has an uncharacteristic “violent strand,” Boyd explained. He claimed: “[This] picture of God is very very different than the one we see in Christ.” According to the pastor, although a sacrificing Christ called for nonviolence and love, Jehovah was “positively hateful” and “merciless” at times. “Here we have a Bible that is divinely inspired and yet here we have these contradictory pictures of God,” Boyd observed.

The Princeton and Yale-educated author expressed a stark dispensationalism, asserting, “Jesus trumps all previous revelations” and “not all the Bible is equally authoritative for all time.”  Boyd discouraged his audience to “synthesize” the Old and New Testament pictures. “Unfortunately, in history, ever since the time of St. Augustine at least, Christians have had this tendency to take this violent God of the Old Testament and fuse Him with the God revealed in Jesus and on Calvary,” he complained.   “Whenever Christians want to use violence for nationalistic ends, they quickly jump over Jesus and look to the Old Testament.”

Boyd made claims that would make even premier dispensationalist Charles Ryrie shudder, such as “[past revelations] never revealed God’s true character nor His true heart.” The Minnesota pastor also failed to delineate among the moral, political, and ceremonial aspects of Old Testament laws and customs, merely noting, “Sometimes Jesus repudiated aspects of the Old Testament,” giving “a different vision of God.” He further opened a soteriological can of worms when he reported, “The behavior of the people of the Old Testament disqualifies them from being called the children of God.”

With these assumptions established, Boyd progressed to his actual deconstruction of Old Testament violence. First, he proclaimed, “Jesus reveals that God has always been incarnational. He’s always been a God who steps into our humanity and sin.” Although some stringent theologians could claim that “immanence” or “divine intrusion” are more fittingly broad terms than “incarnation,” Boyd’s point remains clear. Jesus is not the exception: “He reveals what God is really like.” Pushing rebellion to the extreme hurts people, including the rebel himself. When entering human affairs to redeem men, God shows how that happens, becoming fearsome to human eyes. Boyd clarified: “God in his love appears as ugly as our ugly hearts require Him to be, and as beautiful as our redeemed hearts allow Him to be.” He added: “The heat of that love is experienced as hot wrath for those that stand against it.” He concluded, “God takes on our ugliness so that we can take on His beauty.”

More narrowly, Boyd understands God’s covenants, declarations, and actions as “a strategy to deal with the people where they’re at.” In His burning condemnations of idolatry and other wickedness, Jehovah “looks more like warrior nationalistic Canaanite deities. This speaks to the kind of people God has to work with.” Boyd went on to teach “God takes responsibility for what he permits wicked humans and angelic beings to do.” Many Old Testament brutalities, ranging from the Angel of Death in Egypt or Job’s cruel predicament, came from God permitting other free forces to work out His will. Christians need to focus on this to answer the problem of violence. Rightly pointing to Galatians and Romans, Boyd showed how the Law acts as a schoolmaster to drive men to Christ. As such, it is not binding as it was in the Old Testament, bolstering his argument. “All of the violence in the Old Testament is wrapped up in the law,” he intoned. In short, God’s violence is both chronologically limited and depends mostly on other free agents. His nonviolent nature as expressed in the life of Christ should take precedence for Christians.

This argument and Boyd’s relaxed communication style prove to be potent and winsome. With his more exegetical approach and Woodland Church’s active evangelism, Boyd remains an ally of Christian faith on many fronts. But some may level the accusation of soft Marcionism against him because of his seemingly reductionist view of the Old Testament.  Pacifist neo-Anabaptists, as they struggle to explain away God’s summons to violence, are often vulnerable to this charge.

As Boyd’s book Crucifixion of the Warrior God approaches publication, traditionalists who affirm the state’s divine vocation for force will need to be prepared to respond.