Greg Boyd (theologian)

Gregory A. Boyd
Born June 2, 1957
Residence St. Paul, Minnesota
Nationality American
Education University of Minnesota (B.A.)
Yale Divinity School (M.Div.)
Princeton Theological Seminary (Ph.D.)
Occupation pastor, author, theologian
Influenced by Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jonathan Edwards, Vernard Eller, Jacques Ellul, Soren Kierkegaard, Dallas Willard, John Howard Yoder[1]
Religion Christian
Spouse Shelley Boyd
Website
http://www.gregboyd.org/

Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd (born June 2, 1957) is an American theologian, pastor, and author. Boyd is Senior Pastor of the Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and is President of Christus Victor Ministries.[2] He is a leading supporter of the Christus Victor atonement theory and a prominent advocate of open theism.[3][4][5][6][7] He is also a noted Christian anarchist and is well-known for his writings on the relationship between Christianity and politics, including his best-selling book The Myth of a Christian Nation.[8][9][10][11][12]

Early life, education, and teaching career

Boyd was raised Roman Catholic but became an atheist as a teenager. In 1974, at the age of 17, he became a Christian.[13][14] After earning a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota he attended Yale Divinity School, graduating cum laude with a Master of Divinity degree in 1982. He then attended Princeton Theological Seminary, earning a Ph.D. in 1987, graduating magna cum laude. While at Princeton he was a classmate of Bart Ehrman and a student of Bruce Metzger.[15] Boyd was then Professor of Theology at Bethel University for sixteen years, where he continues to teach on an adjunct basis.[16] In 1992 Boyd co-founded Woodland Hills Church.[17]

Thought

Boyd's Princeton dissertation (published as Trinity and Process) was a critique of the process theology of Charles Hartshorne. Here, he attempts to construct a philosophical theology that retains the positive features of a process worldview, while avoiding its unorthodox implications.[18]

He is widely known for his award-winning book Letters from a Skeptic (1994). This book is 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.[19][20]

Boyd is also a former Oneness Pentecostal, and wrote the book Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity (1992), critiquing the movement's anti-trinitarian view of God and other doctrines.[21]

Boyd is also known as an exponent of open theism, which he explores in the book God 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 or traditional view of God within the Baptist General Conference, such as John Piper, tried unsuccessfully to have the rules of the denomination changed to exclude Boyd and other open theists.[22][23][24][25]

Boyd was featured in a front-page New York Times profile in July 2006, after losing 20% of his congregation because he refused to lend his public support to conservative political causes and directly challenged the highly politicized nature of American evangelical Christianity.[26] In his view, the Kingdom of God always looks like Jesus Christ. Jesus did not seek to maintain control or power over others, but instead sought to self-sacrifically serve and love them.[27][28] Therefore, according to Boyd, the gospel cannot be associated with any particular political or nationalistic ideology. The congregational loss stemmed from a 2004 sermon series that he spoke called "The Cross and the Sword." As a result of the sermon series he authored the book The 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 the CNN documentary God's Warriors, which aired in August 2007.[29] 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.[30]

Boyd is well known for his academic work on the topics of Satan and the demonic, the problem of evil, and spiritual warfare.[31][32] He is authoring a series of books, titled "Satan and Evil" (produced by InterVarsity Press), two volumes of which have already been published: God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict (1997) and Satan 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 titled The Myth of the Blueprint, which is now planned as a two-volume work with roughly 1,000 pages to each volume. Related to this, Boyd is a leading exponent of the Christus Victor model of the atonement.[33][34][35]

He is also a notable figure in New Testament scholarship and the Quest for the Historical Jesus.[36][37] He is critical of liberal scholarship as typified by the Jesus Seminar as well as the individual work of scholars like John Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack. He has participated in numerous public debates, most notably with friend Robert M. Price and Dan Barker on the historicity of the New Testament and related matters.[38][39] His first book in this area was Cynic 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).[40]

Boyd is also a contributor to the BioLogos Foundation and has written extensively about reconciling Christianity and evolution.[41][42] He has also written on, and advocates for, annihilationism.[43][44] In addition to the New York Times and CNN, he has been featured on National Public Radio, the BBC, and The Charlie Rose Show.[45] In 2010, Boyd was listed as one of the twenty most influential Christian scholars alive today.[46]

Personal life

Boyd is a vegetarian and plays the drums.[47][48][49] He has been married to his wife Shelley for over thirty years and has grown children.[50]

Books

References

  1. ^ http://www.gregboyd.org/page/3/?s=ur
  2. ^ Woodland Hills Church website
  3. ^ http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Atonement-Four-Views/dp/0830825703
  4. ^ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2012/02/29/a-better-atonement-christus-victor/
  5. ^ http://blogs.nsb.org/jonathanalexander/files/2011/10/Christus-Victor-Boyd.pdf
  6. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6UA1bToI7U
  7. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p94AAODg2fc
  8. ^ http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2008/01/call-to-christian-anarchy.html
  9. ^ http://www.jesusradicals.com/theology/greg-boyd/
  10. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWs_G4oJaA
  11. ^ http://www.barclaypress.com/311
  12. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html?pagewanted=all
  13. ^ http://www.doesgodexist.org/MayJun08/LettersfromaSkeptic.html
  14. ^ https://www.facebook.com/gregoryaboyd/info
  15. ^ http://firstbreath90.tumblr.com/post/13147785856/greg-boyd-q-a-how-do-you-respond-to-bart-ehrmans
  16. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Gregory-A.-Boyd/e/B001IODKRM
  17. ^ http://whchurch.org/about/more-about-woodland/history
  18. ^ http://www.equip.org/articles/dr-gregory-a-boyd-letter-
  19. ^ http://www.closertotruth.com/participant/Greg-Boyd/14
  20. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Skeptic-Wrestles-Questions-Christianity/dp/1564762440
  21. ^ http://www.dwaddle.com/focus/Pages/oneness.html
  22. ^ "Did Open Debate Help The Openness Debate?" Christianity Today, February 19, 2001
  23. ^ http://www.galaxie.com/article/12860
  24. ^ http://www.opentheism.info/pages/publications/openness_perspective.php
  25. ^ http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/february19/3.42.html
  26. ^ "Disowning Conservative Politics" New York Times, July 30, 2006
  27. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ApnyF8JyeA
  28. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So093nA-L5Y&feature=related
  29. ^ "God's Christian Warriors". CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/23/cp.01.html. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  30. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaPDiMGadxg
  31. ^ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2009/08/01/recommended-resources-spiritual-warfare-series-by-greg-boyd/
  32. ^ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2011/03/walter-wink-and-greg-boyd-on-the-problem-of-evil/
  33. ^ http://blogs.nsb.org/jonathanalexander/files/2011/10/Christus-Victor-Boyd.pdf
  34. ^ http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2012/02/29/a-better-atonement-christus-victor/
  35. ^ http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2008/01/23/book-review-the-nature-of-the-atonement/
  36. ^ http://www.tektonics.org/books/jesusbooks.html
  37. ^ http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20-TrinJ-Cynic-Sage-or-Son-of-God.pdf
  38. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0pg-MBLl9M
  39. ^ http://www.ffrf.org/legacy/about/debate_opponents.php
  40. ^ http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/april/10.28.html
  41. ^ http://biologos.org/blog/author/boyd-greg
  42. ^ http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2008/04/evolution-as-cosmic-warfare.html
  43. ^ http://ekklesiahellweek.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/the-case-for-annihilationism-by-greg-boyd/
  44. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCibySGAMzU
  45. ^ http://www.baylor.edu/pr/news.php?action=story&story=52846
  46. ^ "The 20 Most Influential Christian Scholars" SuperScholar, 9th September 2010
  47. ^ http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2008/02/why-im-vegetarian.html
  48. ^ http://www.revelife.com/732507829/why-i-am-a-christian-herbivore/
  49. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iIrX82wgzo&feature=watch_response
  50. ^ http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2008/03/let-me-tell-you-about-my-beso.html

External links