Theology in the Raw - 826: Voting, Politics, Kingdom of God, Inerrancy of Scripture: Dr. Greg Boyd

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Editors note: We had some technical difficulties during the recording. The audio is not to our standards, but we felt the podcast was too good to throw away. Greg and I recorded this conversation in late August but I deliberately wanted to have him speak into our current cultural moment--on the eve of the election. Because sometimes you can think a little more clearly when you’re not pressed in a moment of frantic urgency. Anyway, Greg and I discuss how Christians should think through issues of voting, politics, Christianity, and how to view fellow believers as...fellow believers, even if they vote differently than us. We also talk about his most recent book: Inspired Imperfection: How the Bible’s Problems Enhance Its Divine Authority. Greg doesn’t believe in “inerrancy” (a certain brand of it, anyway) but absolutely is committed to the Bible’s infallibility and authority. We talk about the difference in this episode. Greg received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary (summa cum laude 1988), his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School (cum laude 1982), and his B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota (1979). He was a professor of theology for 16 years at Bethel University (St. Paul, MN) where he received the Teaching Excellence Award and Campus Leadership Award. Greg is the co-founder of in St. Paul, Minnesota where he serves as Senior Pastor, speaking to thousands each week. Greg has authored or co-authored 22 books and numerous academic articles, including his best-selling and award-winning and his recent books and . His apologetic writings and public debates on the historical Jesus and the problem of evil have helped many skeptics embrace faith, and his writings and seminars on spiritual transformation have had a revolutionary, freeing impact on thousands of believers. Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw support the show for as little as five bucks a month, or you can support me through Venmo and all that info is in the show notes. So please check it out if you have been challenged, encouraged, or angered by this podcast. I have on the show today, the one and only Dr. Greg Boyd. Now here's the thing. If you know anything about Greg, you know why I'm laughing.

He's awesome and so unique. And the guy has so much energy and his mind just goes and goes and goes and goes. And he just always has thoughtful things to talk about. We pre-recorded this podcast back in August. He didn't know that I was going to release it on November, well today, November 2nd. But I'm so excited to have this kind of conversation about voting, politics, the kingdom of God. And then we do get into his recent book on scripture. But I wanted him to come on the show because he's thought a lot about the intersection between Christians and politics. And I wanted him to talk about things like voting and politics, not on the eve before the election, but I wanted to hear, I wanted others to listen to

this conversation on the eve of election day. I wanted to engage this conversation with him without the kind of urgency of, okay, the world's going to end tomorrow. What are we going to do? So, yeah. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with me and Greg Boyd. Info on Greg is in the show notes. I'm not going to introduce him.

He really is one of those guys who doesn't need any introduction. Don't always agree with him. You'll see us even get into some disagreement in this podcast. But it's all it's he's such a great sparring partner. And so, yeah, I'm super excited for you to listen to this podcast. Again, as I've mentioned in the last couple of podcasts, I do have a book coming out February 1st. It's called Embodied Transgender Identities, the Church and What the Bible Has to Say. identities, the church and what the Bible has to say. If you want a, um, a theological, biblical,

Christian overview of the trans conversation with a lot of, uh, relational pastoral concerns and, uh, an awareness and survey of the latest scientific research surrounding, um, various aspects of the trans conversation, then, uh, would invite you to go check it out. It's available for pre-order right now. Um, you can go to Amazon and check it out. It's available for pre-order right now. You can go to Amazon and check it out. Again, the book is titled Embodied. All right, let's, for good or for ill, here is my conversation that I had a couple months ago with Greg Boyd. If you don't know who Greg is, he is an internationally recognized theologian, preacher, teacher, apologist, and author. He's been featured on the front page of the New York Times. Is that right? Front page. You mean front page.

Yeah, one time. Greg got his PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. He's MDiv from Yale University. BA in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota. The author of... Oh, I saw it somewhere.

Over 22... Author or co-author of over 22 books. And the book we're going to talk about, Greg, in just a few seconds, is your most recent one called Inspired Imperfection, How the Bible's Problems Enhance Its Divine Authority. That subtitle, that's something else, man. I can't wait for you to unpack that. I didn't try. But before you do that, I didn that's something else, man. I can't wait for you to unpack that. I didn't try. But before you do that, I didn't tell you this, Greg. We were bantering around just briefly about politics.

This podcast, I'm actually planned. I've planned it for a while. It's going to be released on Monday, November 2nd. Wow. So the day before. So right now, I mean, you and I are not, it's not, I hope you get a bunker. So if the world is still around, uh, yeah, by the time this thing releases, a lot of Christians are going to be, um, I think they're going to be scrambling around on Monday looking for just like, give me some last piece of advice.

What am I supposed to do tomorrow? What's going to happen? So, Greg, I mean, you've been a pastor, theologian for many, many years. Many, many, many, many years. No, I'm just kidding. Anything to do. Goodbye. I mean, we've weathered the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement.

That last dinosaur rock killed us. How should, honestly, though, I mean, if you could put yourself in the shoes of somebody who's just like, they're shrugging their shoulders, they're looking for some kind of piece of advice. They may be looking at the right thinking, nah, I don't know about that, but then looking at the left and thinking, I don't know about that either. How should a Christian think through election day tomorrow? Well, you know, it's four years ago,

or maybe five years ago, if you were to ask me that question, my first answer would be, well, you're premised on the idea that we're supposed to be doing something about that kingdom. And I'd call into question that. In fact, I still do that. Like, are you supposed to vote? There are some people who shouldn't vote. And the reason is because it's hard to vote and not get completely sucked into the

toxicity of the whole system. So I, for three elections, did not vote. And it was hard for me to abstain from that because I have opinions and of course they're right. All of them are right.

But I had to abstain because if I started, you have to care to vote for it and to give a vote, and it's hard to care and not get sucked into. And that's exactly the problem that's going on here, is that we're being siloed into our own echo echo chambers and losing the capacity to talk to one another. And we want to talk to each other. The divide is incredible. You know, a discipline that I've used for this whole election, the last year, actually I've been increasingly using it since Donald Trump got elected. And I try to watch MSNBC and Fox equal time.

But what's interesting to me is that even in the last four years, the news reporting are getting, on the whole, they're over, but they're tending to get farther and farther apart. And the other side is more and more demonized. So I'd be very careful about that. Keeping the kingdom holy, distinct, not being compromised by getting caught up in that is really important. Now, having said that, I've got to immediately add, and this is what makes this very, very

complex, is that I had no idea how much I was seeking from a white privileged perspective in saying that. So it's easy for me to, like, I have trouble not getting sucked in, but it's easier for me not to get sucked in because it doesn't hurt me as much. Other people are going to have deep consequences for what happens. Those who are at the top of the totem pole don't get affected by the flood. Other people are going to have deep consequences for what happens. Those who are at the top of the totem pole don't get affected by the flood. So I try to encourage folks to think this way about voting. What is going to help the people who are those who we're called most to care about, the marginalized, the French people, the people who are most living in the system.

How will – if you win this election, how will the need, the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the foreigners, the immigrants, what impact will they feel from it? And it's not going to be you be the criteria. What's going to pocket my wallet or whatever? American narcissism, individualism, king people, all of our thinking should be other oriented. Self-sacrificing is the essence of the kingdom. So think about those that were called to care most about.

So how would you, I see where you're going with that. I can probably read between the lines a little bit. So I'm the gospel brother. Do you feel, and first of all, I in the last few years have been on a similar trajectory as you. I've been way more explicit about not being involved in, let's just say partisan politics.

I think the gospel is political. Jesus is king is a political statement. So I don't like to say that the know the gospel isn't political it's profoundly political i just don't know if it's partisan and yet like you said um to not involve yourself in american politics traditionally conceived sure yeah it certain people with certain privileges can do that it doesn't affect them as much. I guess I would still wonder, is there, because I've heard both sides, you know, on the more Democratic side,

they would say Trump is a racist. He is intrinsically harmful towards, everything about him is harmful towards the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, anybody of color, the immigrant. Look what's going on at the border. All this stuff. But then, I mean, on the right. I can see a counter argument saying, what about he is tougher on crime and, you know, black on black crime is through the roof.

Look at all the violence in the street all the stuff with the riots happening is that hurting people of color businesses that have started absolutely and it does seem to be people on the left who aren't as strong on crime that say no these are peaceful protests and you know like it's not it's it's not that big of a deal like this is just the pain of the people speaking out. But at the end of the day, it does seem that, you know, there's been a lot of innocent black people killed in the last few months. And someone on the right could say that's because of bad policies for those on the left. And I'm honestly sort of into this. I don't know where it lands. Where I would speak from my own personal opinion is I don't know if the clarity between who is better or worse for the poor and marginalized – I don't know if I have a lot of clarity on that. Am I missing something there?

I didn't offer any clarity on that. It was interesting to me, Preston, that all I did is say we're going to be careful of the needy, the oppressed, the hungry, the poor, the homeless. Matthew 25, that's the criteria of the judgment. It's just that you interpreted that as an endorsement of the Democratic Party. I would note that whether Republican or Democrat or Greenpeace or whatever, you would agree

that we are asking people called to do that. And whatever states that we have to use on their behalf. Now, having said that, that can be translated in a lot of different ways. I mean, people can have very different perspectives about what will, well, you know, like what helps the poor. Well, people have fundamental disagreements that we have

from the beginning of America. You know, do you help people, people who are we have from the beginning of America you know, do you help people people who are able to climb the top and earn their wealth and keep on rewarding that and then it will create more jobs down or do you emphasize that we need to have safety nets and

that's the whole, you know, so to say care for the poor, I hope you can all say yes and the oppressed and the marginalized all those, because that's the whole biblical motif right but i have to allow the ambiguity of the political system yeah this faith can translate into a very different vote because it's a very complex manner how you put all these things together and that's why i always tell people to reset the ambiguity uh but and see that gets all the more important as we get more and more polarized. We're no longer respecting the ambiguity.

Everything is black and white, and we're living in different worlds. It's a frightful thing. So one thing I would think if you want to ask a question is what will help us to be unified again? What can bring us together? What will help us to be unified again? What can bring us together? Because as of now, there used to be a shared medium between people, whatever your opinions were. You'll get your news from like three stations, right? And those three stations, it was all in their best interest to play to their – to be neutral.

But now we're being so siloed that we can't even agree upon facts. Who's ahead in the polls? What is – is there a steep state going on? Can we trust the post office? What about the Food and Drug Administration? There's no longer trusted institutions of any kind. And I don't know what democracy can survive of that. I do see, I've been doing the exact same thing as you.

I've been doing I typically do AP News. What's the NPR and Fox News? Sometimes I do CNN, but I feel like CNN has gone so far to the left. It's almost it just does feel more like propaganda than any kind of news. Fox is obviously on the right. But the difference is, though, like, when I read Fox, if Trump does something stupid, they'll call it out.

Maybe not as hard. But I've never seen MSNBC or CNN say anything positive. I mean, he could sneeze, and they would say it's a racist sneeze. So I just... But I'll have to say, I do see the siloed nature – exactly what you're saying.

The role that the media plays in the polarization and disruption and ultimately violence in our country, that's a book right there. I mean that's – it's more and more I see that as so persuasive and perverse. It's very scary. It's very scary. But I'll tell you, though, that to my surprise, I found on the whole, when you get to the kind of news entertainment on both sides, that's where you

can find the most extremism. But in terms of news reporting, I find, on the whole, Fox to be more open-minded. They have guests with other opinions on much more frequently. In fact, I recall last time MSC had a true opponent come on and have a civil conversation. You find that a lot more in Fox News. I was surprised at that.

Me too. I haven't watched Fox News in 15 years. I only recently did because all my other news sources seemed to be drifting so far to the left. And I was expecting nothing but MAGA hats and all this pro-right stuff. And I was like, I found it to be obviously on the right, obviously conservative, but a little more balanced and wanting at least on some spaces to engage in a conversation and have people accept what you said. There's several interviewers on Fox and reporters who are just as objective as you can get.

They're even mine. It seems to me that they call it out when there's a trap going on at either side. That's an important thing. Even apart from the particularities of this situation where I think it's so important that we

just have to acknowledge that we're going to have disagreements here, but as team people, how we hold our beliefs are at least as probably more important than the particular beliefs that we hold, and how we treat others, how we dialogue about this. My church is now we're

preparing for a series we're going to start in october um uh on this polarization uh here and what's the gospel approach to it and we're inviting in uh a person of they they have a ministry called brave or no not our more courageous angels they They had named it bravery angels, but then that was already Oh yeah, is that John Wood? Yeah. No, this is Bill Doherty. Oh, okay.

But he holds seminars on this and bringing the red and blue together and can we find common ground and talk about each other's humanity, the things that we share, and just try to understand each other's perspective? So I think if the church – like the kind of conversation we're having here, if we could just talk about why we believe what we believe. Let's say you're a strong Republican and I go Democratic. And do you have a civil conversation?

Because we're in Christ. And we're called to be ambassadors here. So our main job is to represent the kingdom of God here. And so the most important thing in our dialogue in here is that we're manifesting the kingdom of God rather than convincing one another. Yeah. You know, I...

You know, the other case is that my desire to express love towards you, because I was supposed to do everything in love, that that should be a much more important, you should walk away from my conversation feeling like you have been loved. And that should be a much more prominent goal than me convincing you that I'm right. That's right. I always tell people, if you ever are in a debate and you find that winning the debate is more important than manifesting God's love for the other person do the team a favor and shut up

would you say your congregation where are they at politically are they apolitical, are they lean left, lean right is it all over the place and how do you navigate that I wish I could say it it all over the place? And how do you navigate that? I wish I could say it's all over the place, but I suspect it leans left. I know we have some solid Trump supporters in our congregation. In fact, a few of them have explained to me why they felt it was both that way.

They said they had to hold their noses, you know the unborn take priority over you know all the others so that's just that's how they work their system out i respect that um but i i found that too frequently um all right at least i wish it wasn't this frequently but uh i'll say something like um jesus calls calls us to love the immigrant, the foreigner. And they hear that. Everything's not so politicized. They hear it in political categories just like you heard it in political categories. It looks like that's the language of the gospel. And I try very hard not to weigh in on either side.

try very hard not to weigh in on either side. Though I think it comes out that I have inclined more towards the left politically. But sometimes I'm thankful for them. We need dialogue partners on the other side

to stay objective on things. Yeah, no, that's it. I just wonder how much because, I don't know, in the last six months, everybody's paying attention to world events in America. They're watching the news a lot more. And what I've been doing, I've been watching the news more than I ever have the last six, eight months. Even just keeping up like in the pandemic, are we going to be alive tomorrow? You know, what's that? Is it mask? No mask? You know, are we all going to die? Is it mask, no mask? Are we all going to die? Kids going to school? Yeah.

So I've been trying to keep up, but then now I've been sucked into this vortex of polarization. Even though I'm very aware of it and very much against it, I find my own soul getting sucked into it. When I read MSNBC, I get angry at the right, and then I read Fox News, I get angry at the left. It's like, what am I doing? Jesus is my king. And like you said, there's – At least you're pissed off in both directions. You're objectively pissed off. Then I'm all disoriented.

I'm like... But like you said, and this is something I wish people... Look, you want to side with one or the other. You want to lean Republican, lean Democrat, whatever. I would want to have a conversation about the healthiness of any kind of

tribal allegiance. But I would want to have a conversation about the healthiness of any kind of tribal elite allegiance, but I would hope we would all be able to admit that there are values typically promoted on one side or the other. They're found in scripture. Like you said, you know, caring for the poor, the marginalized,

whatever the immigrant and all these are strong biblical themes that do seem to come up more by those on the left um i i do think it's the sanctity of life is a biblical value and and other things on the right that i'm like yeah that would resonate with scripture too and um i i if if all you do is let the secular news outlets shape your worldview you're not going to see it that way you're going to be so sucked into your tribe you're not going to see it that way. You're going to be so sucked into your tribe, you're not going to see any kind of biblical values being promoted by the other side.

Yeah, we all have confirmation bias, and we've got to be aware of it. Oh, I think it froze. I can hear you. Just keep talking. Oh, yeah. It froze a second there. All right.

Can you see me? Yeah, you're good. We just keep going. Oh, froze the second there all right you see me yeah you're good we just keep going oh yeah yeah yeah it froze we have a storm that's that's it looks like it misses but it's screwing up the it's jamming the frequencies if you know what i'm saying uh yeah so what was uh what were you saying when you froze oh? Oh, gosh. I don't know. You threw me off. I was going to ask you, though. Are you – so, again, this is coming out the day before election. And maybe you'll change your mind. Are you allowed to say who you vote for or do you try – or are you going to vote? You haven't voted the last three elections or do you know?

You know what? See, the thing is I'd rather have that – my point is that that should be irrelevant it ought to be in the kingdom irrelevant if it was irrelevant see our church is trying to move to where we're good at having we used to try to

show that we transcend politics by not talking about it but I realize now that we would do a better job at manifesting the kingdom if we did talk about it but in loving kind ways um it's just that i i we're not there yet and i don't want to right now i think it'd be more of a distraction than anything yeah but but yeah so to avoid the siloing is i think the number one thing if care about this country, then we have got to find a way to bring it together. And here's where the church could lead.

I'm in dialogue with some pastors about this. But to have open conversations where we model decency. We've lost decency in this country. And where we teach people how to, in a loving way, empathize, get on the inside of each other's skin. No one else is doing that. So if the church did it, now we'd be a light on the hill. And that's my message right there. I feel like the church has a wide open lane to embody healthy unity across differences,

because it's not happening in society, right? We have a wide open door to say, we are going to love each other. We're not going to, just because a congregant say votes for Trump, we're not going to call him a racist and think he's evil, vice versa. We're not going to accuse people who vote maybe more left.

Oh, you're just killing babies in the womb. You know, like those are just unhelpful accusations. Like you can hold strongly to your opinions. You can lean one side or the other, but ultimately let's see the good in each other and be able to like have a conversation about it not just lead with demonizing somebody who disagrees with who we're going to vote amen amen this is a a great opportunity for the church to show a third way and and and the beauty of that would be attracting people towards the kingdom and that is our number one job

if you're fine as an ambassador you gotta ask yourself just how deeply involved in that do you want to get now I think you need to care enough to be an informed voter if you're going to vote but I met a person recently who is so

into this, have you heard of QAnon yeah people think this hat is that this is this by the way for my audience so they've gotten a few messages this hat is from q ideas the organization it's not at all related to what's it called q what is that i just heard about that recently well this it's, it's a conspiracy theory of magnificent proportions. There's a source, supposedly, who's deeply embedded in the government and

who reports things that are top secret. And it's said that the Democrats have a sex trafficking ring that involves Hillary Clinton and others and they're always involved in a conspiracy to get Trump out of office.

The Mueller report was all a fabrication. It's all fake news. It's fake, fake, fake. And he's so deeply involved in this. And, I mean, to me it was mind-boggling how much is woven out of virtually no evidence. But the more important thing I said to this person is this, because he's a Christian, a real passionate Christian. And I said, what if it's true? Is that supposed to be your primary objective to protect the world from that?

Look, we already know that the principalities and powers are, you know, over authority. So there's corruption everywhere on both sides. OK, so just assume So there's corruption everywhere, on both sides, okay? So just assume that there's corruption. Now let's get out with kingdom work and show a different kind of kingdom, rather than getting sucked into the very same kind of kingdom and putting a Christian label on it. Didn't it have some cannibalism in it? Like,

all the Hollywood stars and Democrats are, like, eating... No, I'm serious. I heard, like, eating children because it helps make them younger or something? Or did I mishear something? No. I've heard that they take young blood infusions, okay, to keep themselves youth. I haven't heard about cannibalism.

Okay, maybe that's what it was. Okay, I heard some wacky stuff. Yeah, yeah. The sex trafficking with Clinton, apparently on Jeff Epstein's island, I don't know how conspiracy that is or if that's just like – I don't know. Is that a – I think that's – Preston, don't you get it? Everything's connected to everything else. You got to follow the clues, man, the Q clues.

Yeah, it's just – same thing with 9-11 being an inside job. Oh, yeah. It job. That shouldn't surprise you. The kingdoms of this world are all governed by the powers. I'm not saying it's all equal. They're more efficient than others and blah, blah, blah. From a kingdom perspective, our point is

to contrast with that, not to be sitting in the middle of it and having a gospel. Once you invest yourself into one side of that, not to be sitting in the middle of it and having a gospel cult. And once you invest yourself into one side of that, the second a Republican or Donald Trump comes out seen on Epstein's Island or whatever, then your whole then you put your allegiance

in a wrong tribe and your faith stands or falls with you're putting your faith in a secular tribe and that's going to be torn down at some point, right? Yeah, yeah. So there's a balance here where I had to own up to the reality that I have got a power that I'm in a privileged position. And I have to use that, whatever power I can, to help those that I'm called to help.

These are primarily for the outside of the media and all that. And so I now do vote. But having said that, I can't, my hope is not in that. That's a little band-aid, but my hope is found in Jesus Christ. Hope is nothing less than Jesus Christ and his right relatedness. That's what's going to save the world. And so that's what our primary focus should be. And if we're doing that, we will ourselves be taking care of the poor, the outside of

the needy, feeding the hungry. That's our job. And instead of fighting over how government should be doing it. And for every ounce of energy investing into how government should be doing it what if we did that as the kingdom of god you know like wouldn't that be just um and you see we are you didn't say uh go have the right opinions about how the government should address the weak the homeless the poor the outsider what he said was go out and feed the hungry give a you know welcome in the stranger you know show hospitality radical hospitality uh that you know, show hospitality, radical hospitality.

That's, be the good Samaritan who notices the person who's bleeding on the side of the street. That's our job is to do it, not to have

all the right opinions about what government should do about it and then dividing over it. Oh, what a travesty. Yeah. We divide over something

that we weren't called to do and it keeps us from doing the one thing we were called to do. It's such a sneaky plan from Satan, right? I can picture the enemy just loving this. As much as the church gets wrapped up in all these divisive, political, partisan stuff, it ends up doing nothing but stunt the actual work of the kingdom, and he's winning.

And this is what it is. It's like the whole theme of the Old Testament of how folks fall into idolatry. It's hard to live passionately for the invisible God. We like the concrete ones. And it could be the greed, or it could be the sex, pleasure. It could be fame and fortune, power and possessions, or whatever. We can make an idol of anything. But right now, the market that is the hottest tamale on the planet is the rightness of your political opinions.

We get from how right we are, and that robs from us the worship that's due to the one true God. We begin to ascribe ultimate worth to our rightness and then the rightness of our tribe. to ascribe ultimate worth to our rightness and then the rightness of our tribe. For most people, once you have an idol in your hands and it's meeting a core need in your life, now you're incapable of thinking objectively

about it. You're on the inside. A great book I would recommend people to read before the election. It is really so insightful. It's called, John, it's called The Righteous Mind. Wow.

It is so, can I give you a two minute summary? Okay. You can go ahead. I advertise this book probably every other podcast. So I want to hear it from you because they're thinking it's the most pastorally necessary book in the last 10 years it's just totally but in which you learn how the brain operates and we have a 200 million years of developing an intuition brain and only a couple hundred thousand years of developing the higher

cognitive brain the writer of the brain the writer of the elephant right that uses that image and so so for the most part our reason does not drive the elephant the elephant drives reason we we feel something should be true so then we find reasons for it and there's an evolutionary explanation for that but it just means we we're not nearly as objective as we think right things are so obvious to us uh you know and if you're smart you find clever ways of justifying it but on the whole the reasons you give others for why you believe what you believe are not the reasons that led you to that belief

not usually I read that book that was one of those eye opening books I read in just a long did you read it when it came out or just recently I read it just like a couple years ago I didn't see its great significance until I really began to notice this polarization is getting worse and worse and worse. And it's just like – and then I went back and read it again in light of that.

It's like this is so important. This explains what's happening here. Because it's like you have riders of the elephant and they intuit and they go in different directions and what happens is but every step of the way your reason is going good job, oh what a way to go that was smart, oh yeah did that and the reason's job is to help us get it

so we talk ourselves into our own self certainty and at that point the other person can't be a rational being who sincerely disagrees with me, they're a blanking idiot because it's your certainty i mean you're a philosopher did you find that mess i remember i've never actually asked a christian philosopher about that book because you know i i take i mean it made sense to me i was

like this makes it just anecdotally as i talked with people over controversial topics everything you said made sense to me from a a philosophical perspective, though, did it? I mean, does it match up from what you know from an epistemological standpoint? You know, you froze for about 30 seconds there. Hey, are you able to just put up like this or how are you going to? I will figure. The video on my end is fine. I think it's freezing on your end.

But, yeah. So my – let me go back to the, just for the audio. So from a philosopher, you're a philosopher. You're a philosopher. So, I mean, well, more, more than most. I mean, did, did, did John Heights book, did it resonate from a philosophical perspective with what you know about epistemology and how we know what we know and well yes but it it challenges you know some things uh as well um yeah i mean a secular person could take you know if you just go on the basis of science

uh well then you know you could argue your way right out of having a soul or how are we made in the image of God? And the book had made an impact on me. I have to kind of do more work than I thought I had to do to integrate an evolutionary perspective into my Christian perspective. How does this relate to the fall, this hub that we're all sort of have that i'm right and this temptation to get life from a rightness you know how does that relate to eating the tree of knowledge of good and evil and some interesting connections there that that i haven't all worked out but but uh the book impacted me that way okay but it could also challenge you know elving planiga um argued this i forget what the the name of the article was, but it was, or the name of the book was, but

you could argue, if all we are is products of evolution, then how can we know truth? Because every step of the way has simply been for survival. So you could say that this, you know, your view of reality is what helps you to survive, and your brain's capacity to reason, which you think is so logical, it simply is that which is helpful to survive. And so how do you get from expediency of survival to truth? There's a gap there. I don't see – I'm not sure you can get there unless you believe that there was a mind at the start of the whole thing. An intelligence that's been guiding this. Now I think there's been warfare, and now I get into other things about what,

all the animal pain and whatever, and that takes us off track. But yeah, so the book scratched a lot of itches, but created some more. Okay, that's good, that's good. Well, speaking of books, let's move to your recent book here. Again, it's Inspired Imperfection,

How the Bible's Problems Enhance Its Divine Authority. Did you come up with the title and subtitle or is that the publisher? I don't know. I'm in a personal deep dive study on the historical Adam, whether Adam was a historical person, whether Genesis 1-11 is myth,

or is he a composite person an archetype whatever because apparently genesis 1 to 3 in its most literal interpretation just blatantly contradicts some pretty basic scientific stuff that we now know um uh and i don't know if that's even true or not that's just that those are the claims to be made so i'm kind of like been wrestling with you know ancient biblical cosmology to me it's obvious the biblical writers didn't believe in around earth like they believe in an ancient cosmology i don't think that interrupts divine authority i know some people would say it absolutely does because now you have biblical authors lying. I'm not sure if there's pillars that hold up that, or if, yes, they hold up that stuff. So anyway, I would suspect that your book deals with this,

but I don't want to put words in your mouth. What's the gist of your book? What are you arguing for? Well, the gist of it is this, that first of all, it's important to remember that the Bible, it's not a theological text that would come down from heaven. It's a story. And it's a story that centers on Jesus Christ crucified and risen.

And so as we process this, we have to do it from a centered perspective and read everything through the lens of Christ. So what was my point in bringing up that? Oh, yes, a Christocentric hermeneutic. Oh, here's the thing. On the cross, Jesus bore the sin of humanity and the consequences for that sin. And on the surface of the cross, it looks profoundly ugly because it reflects the ugliness of the sin, the injustice of the sin, the abuse of the sin.

And yet we look at him and we consider him to be the definitive revelation of God. This is the fullest revelation of God's character. You find that throughout the New Testament. So on the cross, God revealed his most perfect revelation of himself through the embodiment of all that's broken and wrong and erroneous and sinful in humanity. So if God could breathe his fullest revelation through that, why would anyone think that God needs an inerrant book to breathe a revelation through? And I would argue that that logic just goes against the very nature of the incarnation, which the whole book is supposed to point to. The point is God stoops down and uses people where they're at,

even in inspiration. When God breathes through them, and I believe the Bible is fully inspired, but when God breathes through people, he doesn't lobotomize them and turn them into robots who does not roll or repeat what he says. He leaves their personalities intact. You see that? Every author has their own writing style, their own perspective, whatever. He even leaves their fallibility intact.

So, for example, in 1 Corinthians 1.13, Paul is at one point, he's talking about the divisions at Corinth, and people are taking pride over who they were baptized by. And so Paul says, I thank God that I didn't baptize any of you when I was with you at Corinth. Well, except for the household of Christmas and Gaius. And then he goes, well, I also did baptize the household of Stephanas. Yeah, I don't know who I baptized and who I didn't baptize. So he ends up, so Paul's got a faulty memory.

He has to correct himself. And that alone just topples the thing of inerrancy, I would think. He admits he made an error. It's like, I don't know who I baptized. But God leaves that in place. God's got a perfect memory, but God doesn't translate that to Paul. He uses Paul in his fallibility.

And that, I think, is one of the major motifs of the Bible. He uses the weak things of the world, the ugly things, the ordinary people like us. And so I think the fallibility of the Bible. He uses the weak things of the world, the ugly things, the ordinary people like us. And so I think the fallibility of the Bible in terms of historical details, all that, that is

something to be celebrated. I think it more perfectly points to the cross where God took on all of our brokenness and sin and errors. It has kind of an incarnational flair to it. And, you know, we look at Son of God

born in a manger as the beautiful thing, even though it's a very kind of, you know, yeah, I mean, He teaches the headpiece of us to confound the strong and the foolish things to confound the wise. So what about, so, I'm just going to throw out

just a basic classic arguments I'm sure you've addressed probably 45 years ago in your ministry, but, I guess I'm pretty emphasizing my age. Well,

I am, so should be. It's wisdom, man. I'm praising your wisdom. What about when a historical statement, which you say can be erroneous, is tethered to a spiritual truth?

You know, a classic example might be, oh, I don't know. I mean, last Adam, first Adam, you know, analogies. If there wasn't a first Adam, then what's the spiritual truth of the last Adam falls apart. So the argument goes. Or what about, you know, we don't need to talk about sexual ethics, but I mean, in, in the work that I do, I've seen people say, yeah, Paul had a certain sexual ethic, but he was flat out wrong. You know, like just, no, we, we can't obey that today, you know? And, um,

and I don't want to, I'm nervous about slippery slope. It's a slippery slope. I think that argument was abused, but I can't see somebody in this case say, well, wait a minute. If there's mistakes in history and cosmology, then how do we know there's not a mistake in ethics? Or is there mistakes in ethics? So it's a very good question, Preston. It's a very good question, Preston. But see, that slippery slope fear is, I think, what has buttressed up the whole idea of inerrancy.

You need to have this impenetrable fortress. Once you admit one mistake, well then, what about that, what about that? The pastor of the church where I got saved a trillion years ago in 1974, he taught if Adam and Eve are literal and the earth was created in six literal days, then the entire Bible might as well be a book of lies. So I think my first class in science at the University of Minnesota was on evolutionary biology. And I took it on purpose because I had read three whole books, three books, all from a creationist perspective, but they slammed evolution.

And so I had note cards on how I was going to refute this professor to keep the class from believing this heinous heresy. And I go in there every day. If there's any opportunity to criticize something, I raise my hand. Well, what about the second law of thermodynamics, huh? Like the guy never thought of it before. And this guy, I was expecting some evil kind of corrupt young mind, but he was the nicest guy

in the world, and he just carved me up. I was just... And the class would giggle a little bit. And I'd come back the next day, and I had my note cards. At one point, some of the students started saying, will you tell him to shut up? We're trying to learn here. And he actually defended me. He goes, no, it's good to have a person who's calling into question fundamental assumptions

of science. In some ways, that bugged me because he was so nice to me, and I wanted to not like him. I ended up liking him, and I ended up becoming convinced that there's something to the theory of evolution. And you know what? The whole Bible must be a book of lies, and I probably had to get rid of the whole thing. One of the reasons I wrote I eventually came back to the faith, clawed my the whole thing. One of the reasons I wrote, I eventually came back to the faith, clawed my way back, but one of the reasons I wrote this book was because I see so many young evangelicals leaving

the faith for the dumbest reasons. But they make perfect sense if you're going to try to defend in your Bible. It's a very vulnerable doctrine to try to defend because it's pretty easy to refute. I give you an assortment of examples in the book. And sometimes you can explain them by this, that, or the other thing.

But at some point, those explanations really get to grow thin, and people leave. So I'm very wary of that slip-through-slope argument. So here's how I establish things. It's in my brain. My faith is anchored not in an inspired Bible. My faith is anchored in Jesus Christ, and I believe in an inspired Bible because I believe in him. I've got, I think, really compelling historical reasons and philosophical and spiritual existential reasons for believing he really is Lord. We don't have to get into all that now.

And so I trust that the – I think I've got good reasons to trust that the way the Gospels present Jesus is more or less generally like the way Jesus actually was to the point where I'm confident enough to base my life on this. And so now I believe the whole Bible is inspired. And I'll read it as the Word of God. But when I read the Bible as the Word of God, I'm not reading it, I want to read it for whatever it has to teach me. And to do that, I can't be always questioning it,

like what's behind the text. In the Enlightenment period, when we developed the critical historical method, the goal now is to get behind the text. What's the reality to which the text applies. But Jesus wasn't thinking that way when he endorsed the text. He just endorsed the text. The story is authentic, word of God, regardless of how it corresponds to history. Some stories, I've got reasons, I think, correspond pretty closely, but others not so closely.

Now, when it comes to to Gospels, well, I have taken the time to do the historical critical research to prove that it is reliable, because on that, everything hangs. That's my reason for believing in the Bible. And so, I don't worry very much at all about

the historical Adam. I do want to try to integrate as much of that as possible, but I don't worry if I can't. It doesn't have its authority because of the way it corresponds with history. It has its authority because Jesus gives it that authority, and then it's God breathed.

That, I think, is the defensible faith. I appreciate all that. I have not worked through this on any in-depth level, so I'm really... I was just talking to one of my kids today about it. You know, she was asking, was Adam really a historical figure? I'm like, hey, I'm actually reading a book on that right now. And I said, look, my assumption is the Bible is true. How it's true, I'm open.

Maybe Genesis 1 to 11 is a myth. If that's true, then that's true. And my faith isn't shaken by that maybe it's a lot more literal than some people say i i don't know but i'm not going to let my faith hang on some assumptions about what the bible must do but what god wants to teach you through it is unchanged regardless of how you estimate its genre of history or partly myth or whatever right carl bart said at the end you enter the Bible, enter into the reality of the text. The Spirit draws us into it so that it is literal. I take it literal, but from the perspective of the story, on the inside of the story.

Like you enter a virtual reality, if you will. And a virtual reality is the means in which God teaches us the truth that he wants us to know. What do you think about this, though? Because you've used the word inerrancy a few times. And I see inerrancy kind of a broad concept. There are some within inerrancy. And I would still claim inerrancy, but I want to define it the way I – I don't want somebody else's definition of it. Sure.

So, like, obviously there's a lot of people who are inerrantists that are highly literal you know six day creation young earth no adam must be his whatever but then there's a more broader camp i think that um you know the bible is true and what it intent in what it says and how it intends to say it so like you can say jonah was it was a parable and you can still believe in an heresy because you can say the author of Jonah intended it to be a parable. It wasn't intended to be.

Like I would take Job, I think, there probably was a historical person named Job, but the whole book itself is just saturated with poetry and all kinds of images. And it's not like a, Job's three friends didn't speak in ancient poetry. Like, but I can say that from a now some people on the hardcore maybe literal side would say no no no that's not taking it literal i'm like well that's not that's not the goal of inerrancy

inerrancy just says it's true in the intention shoot did i cut out? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Anyway, you kind of know what I'm getting at. Is that fair to say that there's kind of a more strict kind of inerrancy versus a more flexible? Yeah, so look, when I – the word inerrancy has now been so broadly defined that I'm not sure it means anything distinct at all. That's one of the problems. But as long as it was to my advantage, as long as it benefited me, I could use the word inerrancy. It's an inerrancy of purpose, you know, but it can err on all sorts of other things. And so I did.

I now purposely don't use that word because I think the word is dangerous. It sets some kids up for a fall. Not just kids, but other people for the fall. Or at least to people feeling the need to go into these great extensive defenses of things. So I purposely don't use the word. I don't think it's a helpful word anymore. I like the word infallible. It has more of the sense that it will not fail you. If I go to the Bible for the purposes for which God

intended it, it will never let me down. I can count on it. Inherent, I just don't think it's a helpful word. But I don't look down on you for still using it. No, I don't.

Actually, I'm the same way i prefer infallibility but like if i go to ets i can sign the statement on the intercity because i'm defining it the way i am i can believe that you know jonah's and i don't know i'm not saying jonah was a myth i actually don't don't know but um you know i i can be you know because i'm defining it very carefully i can agree agree with that statement, even though I might agree with something different than what they're intending by it. I don't know. But no, I never purposely front load that term because I do think that people equate inerrancy with literalness, with a particular reading of Genesis, a particular reading of certain passages in the Old Testament or even new, a certain interpretation of Revelation, you know, there must be a dragon, there must be all this stuff.

And it's like, that's just not how apocalyptic language works, you know, in the first century. And there's all those genre issues. But even with all the qualifications in the world, there's like some cases where I, like the conquest narrative, there's just no archaeological evidence that it went down the way that the scripture says it went down. But see, your position is that you're saying, well, that's irrelevant. And I think it is irrelevant. The story is the story. That's the authority, not its relationship with history. Wait, wait, wait. I've got to back up this truck just for a second.

What do you mean that there's no historical evidence that the conquest went down the way to – do we need to go there? I'm just curious. We don't need to spend a lot of time on this. So the vast majority of Old Testament scholars, and in archaeological evidence you have to see up front, is notoriously difficult to interpret. It can be, you know, in the age,

there's different ways of looking at it. And I haven't looked at it, honestly. Seriously, well, I did look at it some while I was writing Crucifixion of the Warrior God, but not that extensively. But it seems to me the majority of Old Testament scholars argue that the Israelites got into the Promised Land through a process of migration over a long period of time.

The evidence suggests a gradual sort of thing. And while there were skirmishes and fights and stuff, there doesn't seem to be this mass extermination thing that you read about in Joshua. Most scholars think that it was an idealized political ideology that was kind of retroactively spoken. They idealized the past as a way of calling Israelites to their own identity in the present. And I'm not sure – I'm inclined to think that the evidence is in their favor, but I don't have any horses in that race. Because the book will stay the same for me whether it corresponds with history or not. Now, if things get shaky with Jesus, now all bets are off. We've got to go back to ground zero and look at that.

But as long as I know why I believe in Jesus and trust his authority, then I'll have a submitted attitude towards the Bible that he had a submitted attitude towards. And I'll affirm it as the inspired story. Yeah, I think there's more evidence for – I agree with the dating. I think the dating is tricky. I mean most people point to kind of an Iron Age 2 destruction level. But you do see – I don't know, there's mixed evidence. I mean, Hotsor has that massive burn layer. Jericho has cataclysmic destruction.

Every city that says, in Joshua, that says that they didn't just beat the army, but they actually burned the city. We have burn layers. The dating's tricky. But I don't know. Kevin Kitchen, Edwin Nemuchi, Brian Wood, lots of archaeologists who... I will gladly just... You're saying you don't have a dog in that fire. I want my audience to know, though. It doesn't cause me to celebrate

or just like that wasn't true, it wouldn't cause me to despair. That's interesting. I probably should read up more on that. That hasn't been something... I've been more worried about the violent depiction of God in the book of Joshua

than I am the historicity of it. Okay. Well, yeah. We don't need to keep kicking the deck. I think, to your point, there is a genre of recording military victory that's filled with hyperbole that would allow for the ancient

biblical writers to be to be portraying it's it's at least possible within the infallibility of scripture for the biblical writers to be using a militaristic conquering genre where there are lots of hyperbole overstatements and that's just the way they wrote just like today we might do a news you know have a genre that's just well known to our people. And that's how we're conveying, you know, an idea. Yeah. But the, and I, I love this topic.

So if you don't mind, let's keep on talking about it. I mean, this is, I think it's so important, you know, but the, that hyperbole,

the military bravado thing. Yeah. My reservations about that is that for one thing, God has depicted as using it. And it's a way of beating your chest. I slaughtered every man, woman, child. Even if you regret that humans use it, why would God

feel the need to do that? They always use it to boast about themselves. Here's how violent we were. The second thing is that there's some characters that can't be subjected to that. For example, in Numbers 31, when Moses believes that God told him to go out and he says, go and slaughter the Midianites. Well, they go and do it, but they bring back

the women and the young girls. I mean, the young boys, which tells you that all the other folks were actually slaughtered. And so the hyperbole thing. And then Moses says, well, spare all the virgins and keep them for yourselves, which is the ancient. You get to have some spoils of war. You get to enjoy spoils of war. So keep the young virgins, but kill all the non-virgins and the boys. Yeah. So no hyperbole is going to get you out of that mess.

Number 31 is gnarly. No, there's no way around that. number 31 is gnarly no there's no way around that but trust me here it comes full circle because see this is a great case in point when I can look at that

through the lens of Christ if I resolve that Jesus Christ crucified is the definitive revelation of God everything in the Bible is supposed to point to him right? everything

he says it's all about me Moses wrote about me and so you've got to ask is the definitive revelation of God. Everything in the Bible is supposed to point to him, right? Everything. He says, it's all about me. Moses wrote about me. And so you've got to ask, how do those accounts of the Israelites slaughtering men, women, children, and even the babies, even the animals that they spared the trees, how does that point to Jesus? And see, here's where it does. If I look at the cross where he bears all the sin of the world god reveals himself by taking on our sin by coming down to our level by meeting us where we are at and therefore taking on an appearance that looks as ugly as where we're at so if that's the way god revealed himself in

christ shouldn't i read the bible since god is that same god inspired the bible shouldn't read the bible looking for where has god stooped to bear the sin of those people and taken out an appearance that resembles the arduousness of that sin? And I just mentioned, when I come to portraits of God saying slaughter them all, which look remarkably like the ancient and Eastern gods.

In the Old Testament you find some magnificent depictions of God that have no parallel in the ancient and the Near East. And they look Christ-like. And those are indications of where theictions of God that have no parallel in the ancient Near East. And they look Christ-like. And those are indications of what the spirit of God rode through. But you find others that are just horrific, macabre, as bloodthirsty as what you find in the ancient Near East. And now when I read those things,

I see that as pointing to a God who was not, he always respects the personhood of his people. He doesn't lobotomize them into believing truth, which means that at some point he's going to have to accept them believing falsehoods and staying in covenant with them as they believe falsehoods. And since they're writing this story, their depiction of God is going to be the one that gets written. Those depictions to me just show how far God is willing to stoop to stay in a covenant relationship with His people. And He's willing to bear their sin and

take on that ugliness. And so I think the ugly stuff in the Old Testament points to the ugliness of the cross. But all the ugliness points also to the beauty of a God who's willing to step into that ugliness. No, that's good, man. I totally agree with that

conclusion i'm not yeah i know we're on different um we have slightly different takes on on the old testament narratives if the reader's interested i've got a short treatment in my book fight a christian case for non-violence on the old testament of violence greg has a much longer um how many pages did you devote to just all the Old Testament violence? I mean, is that like half of your book? No, no. Oh, to this. Inspired in Perfection.

I don't get into that at all. No, no, no. The other one. Crucifixion of the Warrior God. Crucifixion of the Warrior God is about 1,800 pages. Then I did a popular version of it called Cross Vision. Oh, right. Okay, yeah. Oh, 250 pages. It's all about a. Oh, right. Okay, yeah. It's one of 50 pages. It's all about a cruciform, Christ-centered, cross-centered reading and interpretation of the Bible. Okay.

Okay, cool. So if you guys want to check out some more of that, we don't have time to get into it. I've already taken Greg almost an hour. And my audience doesn't even know what it took for me to get Greg Boyd on this recording. We had computer issues. We had storms. We had dogs that were on walks and all kinds of stuff. But even now, I realized halfway through that my good microphone, this thing isn't working.

So I'm just using the computer audio. But we got it. I think we got most of it. I hope so. You got a couple of freezes along the way there. It's first warfare, baby. It's real. It's absolutely real.

Yeah, yeah. So I encourage you guys to check out his book, Inspired to Perfection, How the Bible's Problems Enhance Its Divine Authority. One thing I love about you, Greg, is, man, whether the reader is going to agree with everything you say in the book, you's, you, you never have a thoughtless where everything you write is just super challenging and thought out. I just, to me, that's, I,

I, I love everything you write. So you're, you're writing that same genre and appreciate, uh, all that you're doing for the kingdom. Uh, thanks man.

Most importantly, you see, we, we, I love it when we can model, uh, fun, loving, and even fun disagreements and talk about stuff without needing to, you know, you idiot! Well, I just, yeah, going back to where we can bring it back full circle.

Like if we truly respect the fact that everybody's on a journey, everybody's seeking the truth on some way and we're all getting it wrong on some way. And we don't want to sit in an echo chamber and just surround ourselves with people that agree on every jot and tittle. That's not interesting nor is it even healthy. Thanks for coming on. Can I say one more word? Yeah, go for it, man.

Explain to folks why I'm sweating so badly. My air conditioner broke. It's hot out there. It's so humid out here in the storm right at our edge. And so, yeah, I'm kind of turning into a sweater. I apologize. You're like a sweaty old preacher, man. Get all worked up.

Love it. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Fire of God, shut up in your bones. Thanks, man. Appreciate you. All right, take care.