SORRY!

Sorry. Sorry. Sorrrrrry! I know I know I know. Dr. Boyd is a bad bad blogger.

I've been completely and totally and unequivocally SWAMPED this week. Honestly.

Here's quick update for today and I promise to blog again tomorrow.

My daughter Alisha ran the Twin Cities Marathon last Sunday. Yeh Alisha! Shelley and I are so proud of her! Her knees started aching by mile 8, but she just kept going. Never walked. What a trooper!



Most of our small group came out to cheer Alisha on. Isn't that sweet! What a family!!



I've been running the last six months attempting to get my gut down, so I jumped in the race for a few miles to cheer her on. I was planning to run 3 miles, 6 tops. The energy of the moment got the best of me and I ended up jumping in at the 14-mile mark and running to the 26-mile mark. OUCH! There's just something about sharing pain together that bonds a father and daughter. I was thinking, "If Alisha is in pain, then I should be in pain too!" I loved it and we both agreed it was a great father-daughter experience.

My back, however, disagreed.


Also, the day before the marathon, Alisha informed Shelley and me that we will be GRANDPARENTS for the second time! Yeh Tim and Alisha! We're (again) so proud (and old)!





I'm now in Milford, Connecticut. Tomorrow I'm part of a Faith and Politics Conference at Yale. I just got back from a wonderful dinner with my new friend David Kuo (author of the book Tempting Faith) and we had a great time and great conversation. David and I will probably be the two odd ducks in this interface of faith and politics conference. We don't think there's much of an interface AT ALL. I'm on a panel discussing the theological foundation for Christian participation in politics, and my argument will be that there IS NO theological foundation for Christian involvement in politics. Our call is to build an entirely different kind of Kingdom.

It ought to be interesting.

I have thoughts on the topic of JUSTICE that I plan to share tomorrow.

Psalm 139 and David's "ordained days"

Heh folks,

Just a reflection for the day.

One of the passages most frequently cited in attempts to refute the open view of the future is Psalm 139:16. Here David says that God viewed him while he was being formed in the womb (vs. 15) and then adds...

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be (TNIV).

It is argued that this suggests that "our days are numbered" before we're born. God knows exactly how long we're going to live, in other words. So, when someone dies, by whatever means (even murdered children!), people says, "It was their time to go." Moreover, since there are a trillion variables affecting how long a person lives, including the free decisions of other people, if God foreknows the exact time of our death he must foreknow everything.

The argument initially looks impressive, but there are, in fact, a number of strong objections against it. In this blog I'd like to address what I think is the most important one (for others, see my book, God of the Possible). In a word, the Hebrew in this passage is notoriously ambiguous, rendering a number of differing translations possible. The King James Version, for example, reads:

"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. "

To modernize this translation a bit, the KJV is saying, "Your eyes saw my body when it was yet unformed. You recorded in your book all my body parts which eventually came to be fashioned, and you did this before they existed (as formed body parts).

The Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation in essence agrees with the KJV. It reads:

Your eyes saw my unformed limbs;
they were all recorded in Your book;
in due time they were formed,
to the very last one of them.
How weighty Your thoughts seem to me, O God.

So the Hebrew is obviously sufficiently ambiguous to allow experts to disagree on what was pre-recorded in God's book. The issue of whether David's "days" or "unformed limbs" were pre-recorded in God's book must thus be settled on other grounds, the most important of which is the immediate context of the passage.

Given that this whole passage is about God's intimate knowledge of David when he's growing in the womb -- not about God's foreknowledge of David's life -- I would argue it's more reasonable to favor the translation that has God pre-recording David's body parts. If so, David is simply expressing God's loving care in making sure all that's supposed to eventually be part of David's body is in fact being formed in the womb. (By the way, it's important to remember that we're reading poetry here. It's thus a mistake to try to draw out metaphysical conclusions about what this implies for folks who are born with body parts missing or deformed!).

In any event, Psalm 139:16 clearly provides no objection to the open view of the future.

There's my reflection for the day.

Blessings on you

Greg

High Priests in Caesar's Court?

Hello fellow thoughtful bloggerites,

Well, I'll just start by saying I'm delighted Marcia has decided to unilaterally disarm. She has put down her swor... uhr... camera and taken up the cross. Admirable. But it was just getting fun! (If you bloggers could eavesdrop in on our small group for a typical 10 minutes, you'd see that bantering like Marcia and I have been doing is our "Love Language.")

Ok. Moving on. Here's something to chew on.

Someone e-mailed me with a question worth wrestling with. He said he heard a well known preacher recently call his church to take a stand against the injustice of his local government that had cut funding for inner city recreational facilities. This e-mailer wanted to know what I thought about this. How could a Christian not be against this sort of cut? And so, shouldn't churches "take up arms" and fight for such causes?

As understandable as it is to get angry about inner city funding being cut, I honestly think this preacher is misusing his Kingdom authority in giving this charge to his church. I'm very concerned about any pastor using his or her spiritual authority for any reason to tell his church to tell Caesar what to do.

When did Jesus ever do anything like this? And remember, our job is to mimic him (Eph. 5:1-2).
Some readers may have just gotten angry, but I ask you to hear me out.

Think about this. If the American church wasn' t fragmented into a million isolated units (churches), hardly any of them talking with each other let alone working together, and if the average American Christian didn't spend (according to George Barna) 97% of their income on themselves, we Christians could build our own inner city recreational facilities -- and many other things. And this would be done to the glory of God rather than to the credit of Uncle Sam.

Sadly, instead of confessing our greed and ungodly divisiveness and sacrificially pooling our resources to serve the poor, we tend to rather point the finger at government while positioning ourselves as people who are smarter at spending public funds and solving tough issues and more righteous in caring about the needy. I suspect the American Church has been so divided, so influenced by American greed and thus so impotent for so long, most can't even imagine it being otherwise. Related to this, we've relinquished so much responsibility for caring for the poor to the government for so long, most American Christians can't picture the Church itself, without the aid of government, taking responsibility for this.

Due to this impoverished imagination, we sadly assume our highest calling is to be the high priests of Caesar's court, telling it how God allegedly wants it to spend its money.

Of course, being the high priests of Caesar's court means you've got to get into the messy complexity of this court. How do we know that fighting for money to go to recreational facilities is the right thing to do? Maybe fighting for more funding for schools, or housing for the poor, or for more and better public transportation is a better fight? And what about the unlivable low minimum wage, or the lack of adequate shelters for the homeless, or the increasing number of people who lack basic health coverage, or the inadequate presence of police in dangerous neighborhoods? As the high priests of Caesar's court, we have to make these tough decisions -- and there's only so much money to go around.

Not only this, but every action creates a reaction, and as Caesar's wiser and more caring counselors we have to be experts about all these. For example, it certainly feels wise and righteous to insist on higher wages for workers. But are we sure this won't force many small business owners to fire workers, thereby harming the poor more than helping them? And it certainly feels wise and righteous to insist U.S. troops pull out of Iraq right now. But are we sure this won't result in a greater bloodbath than we already have over there?

It's all very complex and ambiguous, but once we position ourselves as Caesar's high preists we have no choice but to wade through it all. And so, inevitably, we'll disagree about many of these matters and have to fight each other over which are the "right" battles to fight and what is the "right" way to be fighting them. The Matthews (conservatives) and Simons (liberals) in our churches will inevitably start wondering if the other "really" cares and is "really" Christian.

And now we've invited the polarizing ambiguity of the political realm into our Kingdom fellowships -- as if we needed further dividing!

And I haven't even mentioned the REAL divisive issues of abortion and gay marriage!

And notice this: all the while we're wading through these issues and fighting over what we think Caesar should do, we're still spending 97% of our wealth on ourselves and not getting anything done for the Kingdom.

Folks, as citizens who get asked your opinion about what Caesar should do, you can express your opinion as best as you see fit. Try to understand the issues surrounding poverty and everything else and make the best choice you can. But as citizens of the Kingdom of God, this isn't where our hope is to be placed or where our time or energy is to be spent. (Of course, God may call some to political offices, meaning much of their time and energy will inevitably be spent in this realm. But even they shouldn't place their ultimate hope in this area). As citizens of the Kingdom, our job isn't to tell Caesar what to do -- as though we were wiser and cared more. Our job is to just do it.

Lets start by confessing that, for the most part, we aren't getting the job done at present.

Maybe if we stopped blaming government and started to do what we're called to do, after 100 years Caesar would be ASKING us for advice on how to address issues of poverty.

If I was asked by this preacher what I think he and his church should do about the funding cut for inner city recreational facilities, I'd advise him that, if God has indeed called he and his church to take up this cause, they should partner with whatever other churches were willing to catch this vision, call on believers to make radical sacrifices, put together a volunteer work force, and build their city the best inner city recreational facility anyone has ever seen.

And now the glory would go to Jesus instead of Caesar.

And now even Caesar might take an interest in learning a thing or two from the Church.

And now the Kingdom would be advancing.

Think about it.

And Keep the Kingdom holy.

Greg

bless him...

many are asking if this is an all out friend war, what will be my next step?

all I can say...
I have the camera...
I'm committed to truth with my lens...
but this is not the time...
this is a time to put down the camera and pick up the cross!

I bless you Greg. Bless you!

love from one of your faithful admins,
marcia

Marcia the Lard and Revolting Beauty

Hi Folks,

Thanks for blogging in.

First want to express my profound appreciation for my dear FRIEND Marcia (the lard) Erickson who kindly showed the entire WORLD what a slob I am. ( : My therapist says it will take time, but I may recover.

You know, if I had a camera, and if I knew how to use it, and if I knew how to put the pictures on the internet once I figured out how to use it, and if I could sneak over to Marcia's house when she didn't know I was coming so she wouldn't have time to clean it up like I'm sure she always does when she knows company is coming ... boy, then I'd get her back really good. For sure! Wow! Wouldn't that be great!

But I don't know how to do any of those very technical things. So just take my word for it. Marcia Erickson is a total pig!!! Folks, her house is so messy, the cockroaches get lost! Her house is so messy, no one could remember what color carpet she had. So someone dug down through a pile to find out, and they still couldn't tell. You know why? Because it was so full of coffee, wine, food, vomit and cat pee stains!

One good thing did come of this, however. They found the kitten they thought they'd lost several months back. It was pretty badly decomposed. But still, closure is a good thing.

Maybe I can't prove any of this like Ms. Fancy pants techno-wiz Marcia lard. But who cares. I'm a preacher. And people believe preachers. For sure!

Okay, I feel vindicated. Felt good. I don't care what Jesus says. Sometimes retaliation is a good thing. Sorry Jesus.

Now onto something only slightly more important.

As some of you may know, I've taken another short little break from working on the massive ten (or twenty) year project called The Myth of the Blueprint in order to work on a little book on the Kingdom called Revolting Beauty: A Theology and Practical Guide For Kingdom Revolutionaries. (Well, it was supposed to be little, but it's up to almost 300 pages, and it's getting less little by the minute). I've got two more chapters to go (out of 14) and it's due in 3 days. But Zondervan graciously gave me a one month extension -- which is STILL going to be brutal to make, especially because I have about a zillion speaking engagements in October.

To make matters worse, I just accepted an invitation to participate in a conference on Politics and Religion at Yale University in two weeks. There's a lot of theological and political celebrities showing up, but I probably would have said "no" except for the fact that I learned that my new friend David Kuo (love ya dude!) is going to be there. (He wrote a great book called Tempting Faith, which all of you have to read). He shares my view that we need to keep the Kingdom separate from politics. (He actually called on Evangelicals to "fast" from politics for two years. Love it!) So at least I won't be the only odd ball out there telling everyone on the right AND LEFT that they're both wrong.

Anyway, back to my book Revolting Beauty. It's basically the prequel to Myth of a Christian Nation. In the latter book I said what the Kingdom isn't (namely, the "right" set of political options). In this book, I'm saying what the Kingdom IS. And what it IS, I argue, is a giant Jesus. Insofar as we individually and collectively look like Jesus, we manifest the Kingdom of God. Insofar as we don't, we don't. It's that simple.

The title of the book is rooted in the fact that the cross --which is the quintessential expression of the Kingdom -- is both revoltingly ugly and supremely beautiful. Not only this, but the beauty of love revealed on the cross revolts against all that is ugly (viz. all that opposes the Kingdom). So, our main job as Kingdom people is to live in a way that manifests a beauty that revolts and that looks like Jesus, dying on Calvary for the people who crucified him. This, my friends, is the revolution he unleashed into the world.

Shoot! I was now going to get into an issue on racial reconciliation and politics that I'm struggling with in chapter 12, but I have to go. I spent too much time lying about Marcia. So I'll blog about it tomorrow, or whenever.

In the meantime, why don't I just give you a little teaser about the book by sharing with you the very tantalizing TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Here it is. See ya later!

Revolting Beauty A Theology and Practical Guide for Kingdom Revolutionaries

Very Important Up-Front Stuff

Part I. The Kingdom Revolution

1. Cosmic Hitler and the White Rose Rebellion

2. The Conquest of the Trojan Horse

3. A Tribe of Deepest Magic

4. Giant Jesus

5. Future Tribe

Part II: The Kingdom and the Individual

6. The Beautiful Mind: Revolting Consciousness

7. Invoking Your Spiritual “Say-So”: Revolting Prayer

8. Leap of Faith! Revolting Wholeness

9. The Exorcist: Revolting Freedom

10. The Triune “We”: Revolting Community

Part III: The Kingdom and Society

11. Unto the Least of These: Revolting Generosity

12.The One New Humanity: Revolting Reconciliation

13. A Tribe Without Class: Revolting Equality

14. Warring Against War: Revolting Peace

cool? heh?

I was going to include a chapter 15 on Revolting Dominion, but my next book-break from Myth of the Blueprint will be on The Corrupted Creation (my Satan-in-nature hypothesis) and will include a chapter on the call to exercise loving dominion over the earth and animals, and since Revolting Beauty is already getting longer than it was supposed to be, I cut it.

bye again

Greg

Greg Boyd and the Very Bad, No Good, Messy Study

I'm really glad Greg professes to be non-violent...he won't hurt me for posting this picture of him working from home. I had a photo shoot with Greg for a project we're doing and as Shelley and I went up to the study I "snapped" him in true form. He was embarrassed. Oh well.

~marcia

In the Valley of Elah

Hello bloggers,

Went out with my small group Friday night and saw the movie, "In the Valley of Elah," starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon. This is a great movie, mainly because of the incredible acting of these three stars. All three pull you into their characters in a way only great actors and actresses can.

Based on a true story, the plot revolves around a young Marine who returned home from Iraq, went missing from his military base and then turned up dead -- grotesquely dismembered and charred. So on one level, the movie is a "who done it?" detective story. And on this level it's good. From a series of badly damaged phone videos that are only gradually decoded throughout the movie to a mysterious package sent by the Marine to his parents before he arrived home and not opened until the last scene of the movie, this flick creates that level of intrigue that is necessary for gripping detective stories.

But the detective plot, as good as it is, is really only the occasion to drive home the real point of the movie. This is ultimately a story about what war does to people. In the process of trying to discover who murdered the young Marine, the players in this drama each discover something of how war can ruin the souls of soldiers (as well as something about how their own souls have been dulled by war as well as the pervasive violence in our own society).

I left this movie reflecting on how each act of violence we engage in, however small, dulls our capacity to experience and appreciate the sacredness of life, while each act of self-sacrificial love, however small, increases our capacity to experience and appreciate this sacredness. This, I believe, is the true meaning of ethics. It's not that we are tallying up an account of good deeds verses bad deeds, as though God were some sort of ethical ledger-keeper. Rather, the importance of ethics is that each one of our behaviors (which, remember, includes each of our thoughts) moves us forward in becoming a certain kind of person. God wants us to experience abundant life, and each act we engage in either increases, or diminishes, our capacity to do this.

And now for a left turn (but it's really not).

This morning I found a spider in my sink. Now, I happen to not like spiders very much. It would have been easy -- some would say "natural" -- to just wash this bug down the drain. But instead I got out my handy dandy bug-suction gun (a toy for kids to collect bugs alive), sucked it up, then released it outside.

Now, I know this may sound like a perfectly silly thing to do. But think about it. Why should this bug die just to spare me the 25 seconds it would take to allow it to live? Consider that GOD made that little spider -- and in doing this, he made something humans with all of our ingenious technology can never replicate. Doesn't that give the spider some worth -- at least a worth that warrants 25 seconds of inconvenience?

The reason I don't kill bugs or anything else unless I have to is that four years ago I took a vow to always try to place life -- all life -- above convenience. I have over time discovered that this vow has increased my capacity to experience and appreciate the sacredness of life. Because I chose not to kill the spider this morning, I enlarged my capacity to appreciate the element of the sacred in the life of the spider -- and ultimately, of all things.

You may think I've gotten a bit off track from my movie review, but I actually haven't. For "In the Valley of Elah" is all about the sacredness of life and how violence dulls our capacity to see it, experience it and appreciate it. This detective story makes the point as powerfully as I think I've ever seen it made.

One warning: The movie is very realistic about military life. So there's A LOT of vulgarity and a bit of nudity, made all the more offensive because it's in strip bars that dehumanize both the women who dance and the base men who watch them like cattle at a meat market. But in its own way, even this element of dehumanization contributes to the profound point the movie is making.

As to why the movie is entitled "In the Valley of Elah"...well, it's not obvious. But it too is, I think, profound.

But you'll just have to check the movie out for yourself to find the answer.

Blessings

and consider not taking life simply because its convenient for you to do so. You might find this does something beautiful in you.

Greg