Conservative evangelical pastor steers clear of politics, and pays

Laurie Goodstein / New York Times

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. -- Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing -- and the church's -- to conservative political candidates and causes.

Eventually, Boyd said he finally became fed up.

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 U.S. military campaigns.

The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul was passionate. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Boyd, who said he himself is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God's ideal.

Sermons like Boyd's are hardly typical in today's evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

At least six books on this theme have been published recently about the issue.

"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.

"More and more people are saying this has gone too far -- the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right," McLaren said.

In his six sermons, Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek "power over" others -- by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have "power under" others -- "winning people's hearts" by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Boyd said.

"America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he said. "America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

"I am sorry to tell you," he continued, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."

Boyd lambasted the "hypocrisy and pettiness" of Christians who were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public. "Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act," he said. "And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed."