Gregory A. Boyd (born June 2, 1957) is an Americantheologian,Anabaptistpastor, and author. Boyd is Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church inSt. Paul, Minnesota and President of Reknew.org.[1] He is one of the leading spokesmen in the growingNeo-Anabaptism movement, which is based in the tradition of Anabaptism and advocatesChristian pacifism and a non-violent understanding of God.
Boyd was raised as aRoman Catholic but became anatheist as a teenager.[11] In 1974, at the age of 16, he converted toOneness Pentecostalism, but later began questioning the movement's teachings. Finally, in late 1979, he became an orthodoxChristian.[12]
Boyd's Princeton dissertation (published asTrinity and Process) was a critique of theprocess theology ofCharles Hartshorne. Here, he attempts to construct a philosophical theology that retains the positive features of a process worldview, while avoiding its unorthodox implications.[16] Boyd is also a formerOneness Pentecostal, and wrote the bookOneness Pentecostals and the Trinity (1992), critiquing the movement's anti-trinitarian view ofGod and other doctrines.[17]
Boyd is also known as one of the leading supporters ofopen theism, which he explores in the bookGod of the Possible (2000). In essence, open theism is the view that the future is partly open, and therefore known to God partly as a realm of possibilities. Proponents of the conservative ortraditional view of God within theBaptist General Conference, such asJohn Piper, tried unsuccessfully to have the rules of the denomination changed to exclude Boyd and other open theists.[18][19][20]
He is widely known for his 1994 book,Letters from a Skeptic, a collection of letters written by Boyd and his father Edward, who was an atheist at the time. Through the course of their correspondence, Boyd addressed many of the perennial intellectual challenges to the Christian faith, which led to his father's conversion.[21][22]
Boyd was featured in a front-pageNew York Times profile in July 2006 after losing 20% of his congregation, which Boyd attributed to his refusal to lend his public support to conservative political causes and his claim that American evangelical Christianity was too politicized.[23] In his view, theKingdom of God always looks likeJesus, whom Boyd describes as not seeking to maintain control or power over others, but instead self-sacrificially serving and loving them.[24][25] Therefore, according to Boyd, the gospel cannot be associated with any particular political or nationalistic ideology. The congregational loss came after his 2004 sermon series called "The Cross and the Sword." As a result of the sermon series he authored the bookThe Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church (2006), in which he argues that a commitment to non-violence and to loving one's enemies lies at the heart of the teachings of Jesus. Boyd further discussed these views in theCNN documentaryGod's Warriors, which aired in August 2007.[26] In a more recent book,The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution (2009), he presents his understanding of what the Kingdom of God is.[27]
In 2012 Woodland Hills Church began exploringAnabaptism and the possibility of affiliating withMennonite Church USA and theBrethren in Christ. Boyd stated that "we've really been kind of growing in this direction since the church started, without knowing what Anabaptism was."[28][29] During the exploration, leadership asked the congregation to read Stuart Murray'sThe Naked Anabaptist, and the church has met with Anabaptist groups.
Boyd in 2017
He is also a notable figure inNew Testament scholarship and theQuest for the Historical Jesus.[30] He is critical of liberal scholarship as typified by theJesus Seminar as well as the individual work of scholars likeJohn Dominic Crossan andBurton Mack. He has participated in numerous public debates, most notably with friendRobert M. Price andDan Barker on thehistoricity of the New Testament and related matters.[31] His first book in this area wasCynic Sage or Son of God? (1995). More recently, his book (co-authored with Paul Rhodes Eddy),The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition (2007) won the 2008 Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (Biblical Studies category).[32]
He has written on, and advocates for, the doctrine ofChristian conditionalism orannihilationism.[33][34] He was also one of the most prominent supporters ofRob Bell's controversial bookLove Wins, offering anendorsement on the back of the book.[35][36][37] Boyd appears in the 2012 documentary filmHellbound, encouraging Christians to have a more open mind about heaven, hell, and salvation.[38]
Boyd has argued that if we assume that the Christian God is not absolutely all-powerful, it becomes logical that he is all-good. In his bookGod at War, he elaborates on this God. Boyd contends that God is at war and sometimes fails, which explains outcomes that are calamitous for humans.
Boyd is known for his academic work on the topics ofSatan, theproblem of evil,spiritual warfare, and thedemonic.[41][42] He is authoring a series of books, titledSatan and Evil (produced by InterVarsity Press), two volumes of which have already been published:God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (1997) andSatan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (2001). In between numerous other projects, he has been at work on the next installment of this series, tentatively titledThe Myth of the Blueprint, which is now planned as a two-volume work with roughly 1,000 pages to each volume. Boyd is also a contributor to the 2012 bookUnderstanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views (eds. J. Beilby and P. R. Eddy, Baker Academic). Related to this, Boyd supports theChristus Victor model of the atonement.[43][44]
Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne's Di-Polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics (1992)ISBN0-8204-1660-6
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