Gregory A. Boyd (born June 2, 1957) is an American theologian, pastor, and author. Boyd is Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and President of Reknew.org. He is one of the leading spokesmen in the growing Neo-Anabaptism movement, which is based in the tradition of Anabaptism and advocates Christian pacifism and a non-violent understanding of God.
Boyd has also long been known as a leading advocate of open theism. In addition, he is known for his writings on the relationship between Christianity and politics, including his best-selling book The Myth of a Christian Nation, which was written after The New York Times published a front-page cover article on Boyd's criticism of the Christian right. In 2010, Boyd was listed as one of the twenty most influential living Christian scholars. In addition to The New York Times, Boyd has also made appearances on CNN, NPR, the BBC, and The Charlie Rose Show.
Early life, education, and teaching career
Boyd was raised as a Roman Catholic but became an atheist as a teenager. In 1974, at the age of 16, he converted to Oneness Pentecostalism, but later began questioning the movement's teachings. Finally, in late 1979, he became an orthodox Christian. 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 PhD in 1987, graduating magna cum laude. While at Princeton he was a classmate of Bart Ehrman and a student of Bruce Metzger. Boyd was then Professor of Theology at Bethel University for sixteen years. He resigned after there was a dispute between himself and some of the professors there over his open theism advocacy. Greg Boyd now teaches at Bethel University on an adjunct basis. In 1992 Boyd co-founded Woodland Hills Church.
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. 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.
Boyd is also known as one of the leading supporters 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.
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.
Boyd was featured in a front-page New 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. In his view, the Kingdom of God always looks like Jesus, whom Boyd describes as not seeking to maintain control or power over others, but instead self-sacrificially serving and loving them. 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 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. 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.