Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

It’s too early, and entirely inaccurate to declare Rev. Gregory A. Boyd as someone who has given up conservative politics. The New York Times article “Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock”, elaborates that Mr Boyd has been preaching to politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals about how the church should steer clear of politics, and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

Whereas these could be true, they are neither sufficient nor even necessary grounds for rejoicing. The current Middle East crisis has generated some strong emotions among conservatives. Even Mel Gibson’s alleged anti-Semite sentiments have been highly publicized already. Whether the preachers are taking a stand against the Israeli state or against the Jews should be an emerging question.

We need to evaluate if the preachers give up their core worldviews, not just their temporary stands on certain world events, before hailing them as progressives. For example, in the World War II, the Vatican stoically maintained indifference during Holocaust. One credible theory pointed that it was because the Pope was inclined more to contain Communism than to hear plights of Jews.

In the current scenario, we know that Mr Boyd is still holding onto every basic tenets of conservative church. He is still anti-LGBT, and he is still against women’s rights to choice. He still says “The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.”

This time, he may just be getting higher approvals in the Europe by saying America is no Christian country, and probably from the Democrats for not supporting Israeli occupation. But as long as the Church continues on its path of reformisms of various kinds, what we shall see possibly will be certain change of stance depending on circumstances –for example, what should be Christianity’s role in a fight between Jews and Muslims?—which may be merely opportunistic from a critical lens, but never a whole hearted radical rebirth –for example, how about supporting LGBT communities, caring for pro-choice, and getting rid of the One-God-As-Hope theory?

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