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.[1] 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 was raised as a
Roman Catholic but became an
atheist as a teenager.[11] 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.[12]
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.[16] 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.[17]
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.[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-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.[23] 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.[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 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.[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 exploring
Anabaptism and the possibility of affiliating with
Mennonite Church USA and the
Brethren 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's The Naked Anabaptist, and the church has met with Anabaptist groups.
Boyd in 2017
He is also a notable figure in
New Testament scholarship and the
Quest for the Historical Jesus.[30] 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.[31] 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).[32]
He has written on, and advocates for, the doctrine of
Christian conditionalism or
annihilationism.[33][34] He was also one of the most prominent supporters of
Rob Bell's controversial book Love Wins, offering an
endorsement on the back of the book.[35][36][37] Boyd appears in the 2012 documentary film Hellbound, 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 book God 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 of
Satan, the
problem of evil,
spiritual warfare, and the
demonic.[41][42] 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. Boyd is also a contributor to the 2012 book Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views (eds. J. Beilby and P. R. Eddy, Baker Academic). Related to this, Boyd supports the
Christus Victor model of the atonement.[43][44]
Personal life
Boyd is a
vegetarian and plays the drums.[45][46] Boyd has grown children with his wife, Shelley, to whom he's been married for over thirty years.[47]
Books
Trinity and Process: A Critical Evaluation and Reconstruction of Hartshorne's Di-Polar Theism Towards a Trinitarian Metaphysics (1992)
ISBN0-8204-1660-6