{"id":8070,"date":"2006-07-31T09:10:25","date_gmt":"2006-07-31T13:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8070.html"},"modified":"2006-07-31T09:10:25","modified_gmt":"2006-07-31T13:10:25","slug":"when-you-put-your-trust-in-the-sword-you-lose-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/when-you-put-your-trust-in-the-sword-you-lose-the-cross\/","title":{"rendered":"‘When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The growing push-back against trying a conservative partisanship and [tag]Christianity[\/tag] is hard to miss. Earlier this month, for example, progressive religious leaders such as Bob Edgar, Tony Campolo, and Jim Wallis argued<\/a>, “We are furious that the religious right has made [tag]Jesus[\/tag] into a [tag]Republican[\/tag]. That’s idolatry. To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus’ image is what’s wrong with politics.”<\/p>\n

It’s important to remember, however, that we’re not just talking about Christian leaders with liberal worldviews. Conservative [tag]Christians[\/tag] are coming to the same conclusion. Consider the Rev. [tag]Gregory A. Boyd[\/tag]<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A fifth left, but Boyd was also encouraged by congregants who were relieved to have their pastor defend the notion that the Christian church need not be an extension of the [tag]Republican Party[\/tag].<\/p>\n

The Woodland Hills isn’t yet common, but it’s hardly an isolated incident.
\n<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not surprisingly, those who prefer to combine the GOP and Christianity are less than pleased. At Woodland Hills, one angry church volunteer told a family pastor, “You’re not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way.”<\/p>\n

Obvious idolatry notwithstanding, there seems to be a perceptible shift in what serious Christians are willing to tolerate with regards to the politicization of their faith.<\/p>\n

“Most of my friends are believers,” said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, “and they think if you’re a believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps, but it’s getting a little less scary all the time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The growing push-back against trying a conservative partisanship and [tag]Christianity[\/tag] is hard to miss. Earlier this month, for example, progressive religious leaders such as Bob Edgar, Tony Campolo, and Jim Wallis argued, “We are furious that the religious right has made [tag]Jesus[\/tag] into a [tag]Republican[\/tag]. That’s idolatry. To recreate Jesus in your own image rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}