Theology in the Raw - An Apocalyptic Christmas, part 2: Militarism and Violence, Dr. Greg Boyd

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Dr. Greg Boyd is the primary teaching pastor and vision-caster for Woodland Hills Church and is the author of many books including my favorite: The Myth of a Christian Nation. Greg is also known for his love of yoga, running, drumming, dancing and going on long walks with Gracie, his pet Morkie. -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The next era of Logos is here. The world's most powerful Bible study platform is now more affordable than ever. I personally don't know where I would be without Logos. I literally use it almost every single day. It's become an essential part of my writing and research. So if you've always thought of Logos as out of reach, then you'll want to go to Logos.com forward slash theology to start your free trial and start digging deeper into the Bible today. Find out why millions use Logos to dig deeper into the Bible by going to logos.com forward slash theology. Welcome back to part two of an apocalyptic Christmas, where we are exploring themes of empire, militarism, and money through the lens of the book of Revelation.

We normally use the birth narratives contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to remember Christmas, and we sometimes forget that the book of Revelation also contains a birth narrative, namely in chapter 12. Revelation's birth narrative is not a different story, but an unveiling or an apocalypse of the same story, one where Satan is empowering an empire to destroy Jesus and his followers by demanding their allegiance. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Greg Boyd about the theme of militarism and violence. While the book of Revelation is often thought of

as a violent book where believers are commanded to take up arms and fight against evil, the opposite is actually true, as Greg and I point out in our conversation. I wanna thank Evan Wickham again for allowing us to use songs from his latest Christmas album called Christmas Music Volume 2 throughout this series. So without further ado, please welcome back to the show, the one and only Dr. Greg Boyd. How are you this morning? I'm doing just spiffy. Greg Boyd's like you're always doing spiffy. Whatever you're on. I want some of it. Is it caffeine?

Is it just natural adrenaline or yes, coffee. And I always have to have a caffeine. Are you still drumming in a, in a speed metal band? Well, I never was in a speed metal band. I am in an old rock and roll band. I like speed. I'm always trying to become a speed metal drummer because I like the drumming is so awesome. And so I began to teach myself that about 10 years ago and I'm still pretty bad. But it's because they're doing stuff with drums these days that when I was learning drums, we had one bass drum and it was a boom chick, boom chick. Now they have double bass and they are as fast on their feet as they are with their hands. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I went to see him in concert in eighth grade. My band teacher took me to see him and I was about 10 yards away from him and I just sat there. I was right in the front row, right next to the drum. I was like, Oh, I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the drum. I'm going

to go to the drum. I'm going to go to the him and I was about 10 yards away from him. And I just sat there. I was right in the front row, right next to the drums and just staring. I was just, I was mesmerized. So, all right. Well, we're going to talk about that music. We actually have another future podcast coming up on that, but we're starting or we're doing a series on an apocalyptic Christmas. And I would love for you to help us think through how the book of Revelation speaks to, and in many ways, disciples us in these themes of violence, militarism, maybe even just aggression as a whole. So yeah, let me just begin with the question. What, what, how should we think about the book of Revelation and violence? Let me just start 30,000 foot level and I'll take it however

you want. Yeah. Well, let me first commend you on having an apocalyptic Christmas. Usually the book revelation and Christmas aren't usually put together. It's, it's have yourself, have yourself a pocket Christmas. Let the end times come. Well, see, you know, I'll admit, I didn't like the book of Revelation for most of my life. I, well, I first became a Christian in 1974 and we just were steeped in the book of Revelation because the late great planet Earth had just come out, you know, and we studied it meticulously and we had figured out who the anti-rist was and what the beast is all about.

We had it down, man! And I kind of burned out on all that. And after that, because we lived in this idea that we were sure that Jesus was going to return by 1975. I mean, it was just, I forget how we figured that out, but we had it figured out. Turns out we were wrong. But after that, I kind of steer clear of it. And then when I really began to understand, and this is like in the 90s and early 2000s,

I got clearer and clearer about Jesus' call to nonviolence, his love your enemies, turn the other cheek, don't retaliate. Paul says the same thing. And the clearer I got about how central nonviolence is to the teachings and the example of Jesus, the more distance I had with the book Revelation, because it just seems so opposite that. It just seems so violent, you know? And I just couldn't make any sense out of it. And then I began to, I guess around 2010 or so, really began to find some authors who showed me a different way of reading Revelation. Richard Balkam was one, and Michael Gorman, whom you're going to have on, he has a great book on Revelation. And really, I had not noticed the

subtle ways in which John takes violent imagery. He has really some really horrendously violent imagery there. Blood up to the horse's mouth and going for 200 miles. It's just a slaughter fest. But if you pay close attention to it, he takes these violent symbols and he turns them on their head to mean the opposite. And so, as And so I, as I've been exploring that and right now I'm, I'm actually preaching through the book revelation. We've been at it for a year and a half and I'm up to chapter six. Oh gosh. Oh, we just go in verse by verse, man. I'm just going through loving it. Yeah. So they seeing it, the subtle ways in which John takes his violent imagery, turns it on head to mean the opposite.

It's just brilliant. It's just, uh, can you give it, can you give it, can you give a couple examples or one example? Yeah, yeah. The best one is, um, in revelation 19, which is, I have read when author said that this is the most violent chapter in the Bible and, um, and it, you know, on the surface, it seems like it's, it's very gory. But in Revelation 19, this is the great battle of Armageddon when Jesus and all his army is going to come down and he's going to confront the beast and the false, the prostitute, and they have all their armies and all the kings of the earth and all their nations and all their armies and they're all going to fight the the lamb and and so there's this big battle scene although no battle is ever described interestingly enough but when Jesus shows up he's got an army all dressed in white they're not wearing military fatigues they're all dressed in white and no one's

carrying any weapons which is kind of interesting the only weapon that's mentioned is a sword that comes out of Jesus's mouth. And so with the single sword coming out of his mouth, it says he slaughtered the kings of the earth. It was a slaughter fest. And then John says, and the birds of the air came down and devoured their bodies. You know, it's a really gory scene. He pulls right out of the Old Testament and some other apocalyptic works. And so there's this feast, the birds feast on their bodies. It's John's way of saying they're really, really, really dead. But what's interesting is that if you read it closely, Jesus is covered in blood. He's soaked in blood. He's pulling in some imagery out of Isaiah 63, where Yahweh returns from battle, I think it's Isaiah 63, where Yahweh returns from battle and he's got blood splattered on him.

Returning from battle with blood on you was a badge of honor in the ancient Near East because it showed that you slaughtered them, but they didn't slaughter you. And so John pulls that scene, but Jesus is covered in blood before he goes into battle. And what John is saying there is that this lamb, the slain little lamb, he fights not by shedding other people's blood, but by letting his own blood be shed for them. He fights with this self-sacrificial love. And the sword, well, it's a sword that comes out of his mouth, because you find this four times in the book of Revelation, because he speaks the truth.

He speaks the word of God. And so, what he's slaying here is not actual people. He's slaying these folks insofar as they're deceived, and that's a major theme throughout the book of Revelation. They're deceived by the ancient serpent. They're false identities. The truth, the one who is faithful and true, and he's got a banner on him that says the word of God, he lays them low, slaughters them, they slosh them with truth. So this

is, and this is the dynamic throughout the book of Revelation. It's about truth confronting lies and deception. And that's why these kings are really, really dead at the end of book Revelation 19. But in chapter 21, we find them resurrected. And these kings now are bringing the glory of their nations into the heavenly city. And so in the process of being slain, slaughtered, they've been redeemed because the truth has exercised the lie. It's cast out the lie and the great deceiver and freed them to now do what they were always created to do. And they actually now the lie and the great deceiver and freed them to now do what they were always created to do. And they actually now are in, and the Kings are the bad guys

throughout the book of revelation, you know, that they're always the ones that are working for Babylon and all the rest. And, um, uh, but now they're transformed and they bring their, their, uh, the glory of the nation into the heavenly city. So there's, there's, there's a battle, but it's a battle, not of physical bodies, but of truth and lies. That's interesting. I didn't notice the Kings aspect here. So yeah, he defeated. This is verse chapter 19, verse 17, come. And you know, the, the angel says to the birds flying come gathered together for the great supper of God so that you may eat the flesh of Kings generals and the mighty so that he's fighting against Kings generals

and the mighty slays them with truth, not with the actual sword. And you said four times in the book of revelation or the every other time sort of it's not a literal, it's not a literal sword. It is the truth or word of God. Well, if it's a literal sword, Jesus has got some real good Nick muscles commanded to slaughter all the Kings of the earth with both hands tied behind my back. Maybe he's swallowing. Maybe it's a circus and he's swallowing a sword. No, it's putting in the other, the other direction. Yeah. Yeah. I have a line about that. It was a bit of a comedic relief in my book on nonviolence where I talked about this past. I can't remember what I said, but it was something like that. Like either this is a circus act and you know,

Jesus is a sword swallow or there's something else going on or something like that. So, so then, so you actually threw a, you opened up another cat of worms. We're just going to talk about violence, but now you're opening up some hints of universal reconciliation. I think by talking about the potential of these Kings will bring in their, yeah. I don't know if you want to go there. I don't know if you were hinting at that, or if that was not what your point I, that was not my intent, but, but we can go there. It's, because you find there is a strong universalistic motif running throughout Revelation. There's all these scenes where all the people, all the nations, all the tribes, every time gathers around the throne.

And so you have this vision of universal reconciliation. However, the book doesn't end with tying a night's bowl around it and everyone looks happily ever after. The book ends with the gates of the city are open day and night. They're never closed. So there's always an invitation there. But there are still people outside the heavenly city, still practicing their abominations. And they can come in whenever they want to, but they don't want to. You have to give up your abominations to go into the heavenly city, because nothing unclean, John says, can come into that city.

God will be all in all in the end. His love's going to define every square inch of the cosmos. And so everything that's going to be in that eternal kingdom in that heavenly city has got to be compatible with that love and reflective of that love. And so until we're transformed into Christ-likeness, we don't go in. And if we don't want to be transformed, we stay out. So the way I always, not always, in the last 10 years have put it is that I'm a hopeful Universalist. I really have hope for everybody, but I can't say I'm confident

or that, hey, don't worry about anything, you know, it's all going to come. In my view, it has to be chosen. Love has to be chosen. And until we're ready to choose that and be transformed by that, well then, God won't coerce us into his kingdom. I do like, I mean, hopeful universalism. I think a lot of people, if they're honest, I think would be a hopeful universalist. And I think you and I both would agree that there's, it's not just that we hope that that's the case or wish that that was the case, but there's, there's actually some, some strong exegetical evidence for it. Now I'm not going to, I do think that exegetical evidence in favor of annihilation is stronger. And from my vantage point, annihilation sort of cancels

out universalism. But I love what you said that the book of revelation, I agree with this. It doesn't put a tight bow on it. The way it ends, it's just, you had this lake of fire and everything's thrown into it. And then all of a sudden you got people showing up in the next chapter and they're hanging out outside and still living in sin. And, and the book of revelation, even to chronologically, it's just hard to, I don't know. I haven't really nailed it down. Some people have nailed it down too much in my opinion, but I mean, it's, I think it does create these tensions and, and, um, Rob, Robin Perry, who is a Christian universalist or ultimate, he plays an ultimate reconciliation. He's got a, I edited a four views book on hell and he wrote the universalist

chapter and, and look, unless, unless you turn your brain off, you have to admit that he, he makes some really, really compelling, actually, that it's in there. It is, it is a, and he, I didn't add them. So all of you made alive in Christ. Romans five 18. Yeah. First Corinthians 15. And, but he makes a strong case even from the book of revelation. Basically what you said that, that every time you see the nations appear here, they're always the bad guys. So when you see the nations flooding into the new creation, those are bad guys being redeemed, you know, and the Kings of the earth, which you hinted at, but

I don't want you too far into this. I, hopefully I just enough worms I've opened up in this can that people can chew on over this Christmas season. Let's, let's go back to this idea of John turning violent imagery on its head in revelation 19. Do you remember, is he alluding back to that scene and Ezekiel's 38 and 39 about Gog from the land of Magog? And I know there's some imagery there that if all we had was Ezekiel 38 and 39, it would be just stick. Yeah. This is just a violent battle. So the original context does seem violent, but how the book of revelation is, how the author revelations reading that he's interpreted it differently than what we'd expect if he just had the original

context is, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. The other thing that I'd say about the book revelation is that, and this is more controversial. A lot of scholars wouldn't agree with this, but all the violence that comes on the earth, you know, a third of the humankind is slain or whatever. Often people assume that it's God or the lamb that's doing all of this. But I'm making the case and as I'm preaching through this series, this kind of motif I hit on all the time, that it's the powers of darkness that do all of that. When the living creature says, come, and then the first horseman appears,

and then the second horseman appears, that come isn't, I don't take it as a command of God talking to his servants saying, I want you to do this. It's rather, it summons to show yourself, come forth, show your true colors, come out from hiding. And when they do that, and that's when there's this destruction that's brought on the earth and things like that. But I think it's demonic, demonic agency. And it's always important to remember that you're dealing with an apocalyptic book where there's,

everything's symbolic. If you take it literally, I don't know how it makes any kind of sense, because you have the stars falling from heaven three different times, you know, and you've got all these cycles of judgment to get repeated over and over again. People, you know, a third of the earth gets slain and the rivers turn to blood, but then later on, you know, they seem to be all back again. And a third, you know, in Revelation 8 and 9, when the unsealing of the scroll, it says that it repeats like 13 times, a third of the trees and a third of the water and a third of humankind was destroyed, whatever. Sigmund Tonsted, in his commentary on Revelation, he argues that that one third is, if you look at in Revelation 12, the dragon wipes out

a third of the stars from the sky. And that's, he argues, kind of the symbolic signature of the ancient serpent. He's the three wannabe, you know, the one who says, I will ascend on high, Isaiah 14. And Isaiah 14 lies behind a lot of what's in the book of Revelation. I will ascend. So he wants to be, the's in the book of Revelation. I will ascend. So he wants to be, the three is the number of God, the perfect number. But he's a three wannabe, one third. All that is to say that when you read about one third, don't think that God's up to measuring, okay, we got 8 billion people, so we got to kill 2.372% of them.

You know, you got to measure, just make sure it's a third. It's a symbolic way of saying this is signed and delivered by the ancient serpent, the great deceiver. It's a signature. Interesting. Well symbolic. Well that whenever we encounter a number in the book of revelation, our assumptions should not be, this should be literal unless proven otherwise. It's the opposite. It's this is symbolic unless we can really find a good argument to say, this is actually intended to be literal. I don't know a single number in the book of revelation. It's intended to be literal. Now people might say, well, the millennium, well, 144,000. I'm like, yeah, exactly. I mean, these are clearly we're scholars. They're not supposed to say clearly, right?

But I think it's kind of clear that these numbers are drawing on something really robustly symbolic. But that third I've not, yeah, I haven't dug deep into that. That's super interesting. Okay. So I absolutely love to eat. I think about food all the time. It's kind of a problem. Okay. But while I try to eat healthy, most of the time, I definitely don't eat healthy all the time. This is why I need to take a nutrition supplement. And I've tried many different kinds of supplements,

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does say blood in verse 20 and 14 at the end of chapter 14, the wine press scene that the angel swung a sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great wine press of God's wrath. They were trampled in the wine press outside the city. The blood flowed out of the grapes rising as high as the horse's bridles for a distance of a 1600 stadium, whatever, whatever the heck that is. It's about 200 miles. I think, is it? Okay. Wow. There you go. Most people take this as a wrath judgment scene. I'm going to guess you don't, but I don't, I actually, I don't think I did in my book on this. I should go back and check because I didn't member. I think NT right does not

in a couple. It's a minority view, but some people still don't take this, the blood as the blood squirting out from the people being trampled. That's not what is intended. Now again, I think that is a minority view. It might be a little more difficult if you just read it at face value, but how do you, how do you understand this passage? Yeah. You know, I, I had wrestled with that a couple of years ago and now I'm trying to remember how I, it's been a while since I looked at that, but it seems to me that it was something like, it was another thing where John does this funky move. Isn't it the martyrs that are

being trampled on? That's, that's the view. I, that, that is the view I took that it is the, it's not God trampling his enemy. It's just a martyrs. Yeah. And that, that the, they were pictures because they were ripe. So it's kind of a first first rich imagery. And so it's about, it's about martyrdom. It's about these folks who follow the lamb wherever he goes. It says in revelation 14 and they do what the lamb did and what the lamb did was lay down his life. And, and, and so they followed his way, but I don't recall the details of it. And I probably should shut up. Yeah. That's fine. It's the all general. We can, we can, we can be raw. We can be raw

and just say, Hey, I know I've dealt with this elsewhere. I think I took this interpretation and please go fact check my own. I don't know how, no, no, but that, I mean, if you take grape imagery, that's usually positive. Usually, usually enemies are not described. I don't think in old Testament imagery that, that the harvesting of the grapes, that that would be used to apply to enemies. Usually that would be a very positive thing. So the vine and also, like you said, in the book of revelation, you do have this idea that well, he is at chapter six when he says, when they're crying out, how long Oh Lord, until our blood is redeemed, whatever. And he says, hang on a little more until the full

number comes in, meaning there's going to be more martyrs. Are you going to come in? And that is almost framed as a, as a good thing. Well, it is framed because Jesus was the ultimate martyr. As you said, you follow Jesus wherever he goes. And in the book of revelation, you have this upside down idea that being killed by the empire is way more powerful to fight the dragon than trying to kill the dragon. So yeah. And that's why, you know, and you have going on in revelation is you have two perspectives. There's the perspective of the heavenly throne room, which is the perspective of truth. And then there's a perspective of the earth, which

is under the deception of the great deceiver. And so from the perspective of the folks on the earth under deception, they say, oh, the beast defeated them in Revelation 13. Right. It looks like they won, because they got killed. The Christians were killed, and so it looks like the beast was victorious. But it turns out that in the process of getting killed, that was their victory. So from the perspective of the throne room, they're cheering us on, you know, because you were faithful. You did not, as it says in Revelation 12, they didn't love their lives, but rather follow the lamb wherever he went. And they overcame by the word of the testimony and by the blood of the lamb. And Richard Bachman argues that when you have that idea

of they overcame by the blood of the lamb, it's not talking about atonement theory, it's talking about the way of the lamb, the shedding, this other oriented self-sacrificial love that would rather lay down its life for the sake of the other rather than to kill. And so these don't participate in the violence that characterizes Babylon.

You know, the horse that goes forth to conquer with the intent to conquer. It's endless conquering, endless more, gotta get, you know. It really describes that I will ascend mindset is the Lucifer mindset. Yeah, I will ascend on high. I will be like God. I will be, you know, I will go to the mountaintops.

Isaiah 14, 12 through 15 says. And that's the same lie that the serpent gives to Eve. You can ascend, you can be more. Transgress the boundary, God's trying to box you in, transgress those boundaries, eat of that fruit. So they get infected with this I will ascend mindset. And that's kind of the affliction of humanity. It's why we're turning this world

into a war zone, because everyone's trying to ascend. And when everyone's trying to like King of the Hill, well, you know, it's gonna have a lot of conflict. The way of the lamb is the way of descent. You know, because we follow Philippians two says this word Jesus, he emptied himself, he divested himself, though he was equal with God, he didn't grasp onto equality with God as something to be clung to, but he released it and he became a humble servant and then he was obedient to the death on the cross. And so, he's coming under us to lift us up. That's what love does.

He's sacrificing on our behalf in order to reconcile us to the Father. And so, we have the way of ascent versus the way of descent. And the way of ascent always involves violence because you're trying to get your way. You're trying to climb up the way of decent disavows violence and, and models. We model our life after Christ. That's good. That's so good. You see that everyone revelation. One of the images that I love so much that is another one of these examples that you, the way you described it, like turning violent or military image on its head is just the word Nikao, which is often translated conquer, or there's other English translations that

might be used, but the lamb has conquered and that Nikko is it's a military term. It's where we get Nikkei the, the God of something God of what is Nikkei? I don't know. Somebody can Google it. That's something to do with the conquering or military or I used to know. And I'm finding that, you know, you hit a certain age and you forget more than you ever learned. It's just, but it may be the God of war. I don't know, but you're absolutely right. That's a cornerstone of the book Revelation. It's another example of how John turns things on its head. It starts

in Revelation 5 when they were asking, who's worthy to open the scroll? And the scroll I take to be just the scroll of truth, the scroll of who God really is, and what's God's up to in this world, and how God will defeat evil. Now it's going to be revealed. It's been concealed because we were deceived. We bought the I will ascend lie and when you buy that, you can't correctly understand who God is. But now he's going to reveal it. So who's worthy to open the scroll? And John, here's someone say the lion of the tribe of Judah. And that is a military kind of messianic concept, this lion that can riff its enemies to pieces, you know, and it's real triumphalistic, whatever. But then John, so he hears a lion of the tribe of Judah, but when he turns and looks, he sees a slain little lamb.

And that's a thing that John does a lot. He hears one thing, but then he turns and he sees something else. And what he sees reinterprets what he heard. So yeah, there's this mighty lion, but actually the lion turns out to be the slain lamb. And so John's saying with this composite picture that, yeah, God fights and he's aggressive and roars, but he does it by laying down his life, by giving his life for others. Yeah. So it's just complete turns on that said, Speaker 0.(1h 1m 5s): Richard Baca. I think he was deferred. I think he was the original

one to really point that out. Cause a lot of people, yeah. But I think everybody is like, Oh yeah. So this makes total sense that when John hears something it's interpreted by what he ends up seeing. We had to see, yeah, this. So, so he sees this powerful lion and then, and that doesn't mean, Oh no, Jesus isn't a powerful lion. He's a slaughtered lamb. It's like, no, the means by which he conquers as a lion is by laying down his life. So this idea of laying down your life and as you put it, descending and serving and sacrifice yourself and maybe even being a martyr. Like that's not defeat. That's actually true power in God's world. Though it looks like defeat from the

world's perspective. Yeah. From a natural point of view, the cross is weakness and foolishness. But to those who are being saved, it is the power and the wisdom of God. First Corinthians 1. And that statement, I think, is just so incredible because in the wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1. And that statement, I think, is just so incredible because in the history of religion, no one said anything that crazy, that God's omnipotence looks like Jesus getting crucified. We have a whole history to determine, you know, what do human beings do when we make up our gods? Well, what we do is we project ourselves onto the screen of heaven and call it God. And so the kind of power we've always described to the gods

are the kind of power that we are always lusting after. The power to conquer, the power to get our way, the power to ascend. And so the gods become simply a blown up version of ourselves. And then the way religion works is we try to make a deal with that powerful God so that he'll use his extra power on our behalf.

You know, we'll sacrifice our firstborn son in return. He'll help us defeat our enemies. And that's kind of been the role of religion, at least much religion throughout all of history. But here comes Paul and he says the opposite. And John says the opposite. The real power is in the slain lamb, this slaughtered little lamb. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's too crazy by the world standards and too beautiful

for humans to make that up. So I, I gotta believe it's divinely inspired. It's a, okay. So here, here's where the rubber meets the road as a pastor. How long you been pasturing for now? 30 years, 20 years. We started with in Hills 33 years ago. How do you instill that upside down view of power in the people you're shepherding? Because I mean, we're both agreeing with each other here on, on this really important theme. So, so we're, we're there mentally. I find it hard. I find I have to like preach this to myself every single day. Cause at any moment, you know, I can encounter something there today. It's it's it's a, it's a, it's a jerky neighbor.

It's it's somebody cut me off. It's it's anything. I mean, I just walk out my door or stay inside my house. Cause I got people live in my house and the temptation to overcome adversity with power is, it's just so in deep in my bones. And I believe this stuff. How do you do it with a congregation of a thousand or so people, whatever a couple of thousand that they may not even believe it yet, or they're, they're not there. Their nose isn't in a text every day for 30 years. Cedar with this theme. Like how do you do this as a pastor? Well, you know, that is, you keep coming back to it. You keep trying to come in and you try to model it. Um, that's, and you pray that and, and some get it and some don't, you know, I just recently had a guy who's been at my church for almost from the start.

I know him as a guy who a lot of things just don't go through. It's always kind of amazed me like, have you been listening to anything I'm saying? But he revealed to me that he carries a gun to church with him. He's packing when he comes to church because if there's an intruder, then he wants to be the one to save the day. And I said to him that if you ever killed someone because they were going to shoot me, that he was trying to protect me because I'm the target here. And I said, if you killed a person to save my life, I would be so pissed off at you. Don't ever do that. Plus, there's all these studies that show that when you bring a gun into the situation,

more often than not, it backfires. You do more damage than not. And so they don't make it safer. And once in a while, you have a person who heroically takes out the bad guy with a gun, but what you don't hear as much about as all the folks. We had a person a couple of years ago here in St. Paul, who, uh, kid broke into the house and when it was going to steal some electronic equipment, the father comes down and the husband comes down and sees the kid. And he's got a gun. Well, the kid immediately goes for the gun. They have a tussle and the rustling around.

The wife comes downstairs to check out what's happening. The gun goes off. Boom, she's dead. I think the guy would have rather have let the kids stole his TV or whatever he was stealing than to have his wife dead. But yeah, so that's one of the myths that we have is that more guns will make us safe. We should arm all the teachers. Well, then we'd be safe. And it just turns it into the wild, wild west, which is kind of what we have going on in America right now anyways. Yeah. Yeah. There's the, that's the effective piece.

I think there's a, yeah, I agree. And there's, I think there's a large FBI study done on active shooters. How they are, how they are, they stopped with a good guy with a gun or, or I think they even said like through an unarmed person or more nonviolently. I don't know if these exact term, but, and I, and again, I have to go back and double check, but the, the statistics were at least very complicated. If not, uh, the, they were most likely to be stopped by somebody without a, a gun. Um, and yeah, you bring a gun in situation and yeah. Well, I know it, cause the, the active shooter is is, they have the upper hand because they're

probably going to be more trained on using this gun and they've been thinking about it ahead of time. Whereas my friend here who's just packing, bringing it to church, bringing a gun to a pacifist church, what's wrong with this picture? But you know, he's not going to be as he said, he told me he's had some training, but yeah, you know, he's not going to be as he said, he's told me he's had some training but in a chaotic situation, what are the odds? I mean, you could hit a bystander with it. You could all sorts of things.

We actually just wrote our policy about how to respond to an active shooter. The way I phrased it was in this policy statement is that if someone is to come in, we have these steps you go through, you know, first try to flee second, la, da, da. But if worse comes to worse in your corner, well then act aggressively, do everything within your power to stop the shooter treating them as though they were one of your own, like a loved one. So if my son were to go insane and break into my house and want to kill me and my wife, I will do everything possible

to stop them from doing that, but I'm not going to kill them. I, you know, I, I, and so I use that as kind of the criteria, because we're supposed to love our enemies. So if you really love this person as though they were your own child, well, you still will do everything you can to stop them from harming others, whatever, but a fatally killing them, that's, that's not an option. Pete That's interesting if you put it like, this is my son who went crazy, because it's somebody's son. So, it's somebody who bears God's image. I mean, yeah, wow. Jarrick Someone for whom Jesus died.

Pete Yeah. All right, going back to, yeah, I would love to keep teasing out this intersection between nonviolence in the book of Revelation, this upside down nature of confronting evil and pastoral boots on the ground. What are some, maybe some general tendencies you see very common that come up in as you're trying to shepherd, disciple your people? What are some things with regard to militarism and violence that you find yourself having to address pretty often? Well, we're just steeped in a culture that has normalized violence.

We're getting used to school shootings. Another school shooting that first started happening with Columbine, we were all shocked and aghast. Oh my gosh. Now it's kind of like a regular thing. We get so acclimated to it. And so our common sense is adjusted to violence. And so the call to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you and to never retaliate, but turn the other cheek and all of that, it's

so counterintuitive that for a lot of folks, they can hear it, maybe on some level they'll accept it, but they have a hard time conforming their life to that. And that's like the major thing you confront. It's like, it just doesn't make sense. The guy who brought a gun to our church, it's like, yes, we're supposed to love our enemies, but you got to also be practical. Yes, we're supposed to love our enemies, but you got to also be practical. You know, common sense. And you know, I think actually, because of the dangers that accompany bringing a gun to church and carrying a gun all around, whatever, that it is practical to be nonviolent, but it doesn't seem so when you're swimming in water that is just saturated with violence

and normalizes it. And so it's just assumed that of course you would kill if you had to, because we assume it's better to kill than it is to be killed. But to follow the lamb, I think is the opposite. I, I, I, I really came to come to the point where I believe that to follow Jesus, I have to be willing to say I would rather die than kill. I, I, I, I don't want to live in a world where I got to kill to stay alive. And so you don't cling to your life. This is a prelude to the real show anyways.

Don't get too fixed on this prelude. We're just getting warmed up. The good show's coming. And so don't cling to it. That self-preservation instinct is just so deep. It's part of our animal nature. And that's what we have to die to. Paul says I die daily. And you said every day you got to remind yourself that

the way of the lamb is the way of descent, not ascent. And that's being transformed by the renewed mind. That's how we grow in Christ's likeness to put off all that. But common sense is the thing that we're most against. And that's what we need to just remember that the cross looks weak and foolish. It does look weak and foolish. You have to be an idiot to allow someone to kill you rather than killing them. Right. And that is the way the lamb. So it's almost like, I mean, pastorally, you're probably sympathetic with somebody that's just using their common sense. It's like, Hey, I get it. That's, that's our natural default. And then you throw common sense into a, a, a, a national identity that's profoundly militaristic and has a, a very unique gun culture and individualism and my

rights. And I mean, yeah, it's, I mean, of course we're going to be swimming uphill. And that's, you know, Preston that and that, the sad dimension of church history, which is a major dimension of church history, is all the ways in which the church has sanctioned violence. Because it just made sense to do that. And so, in the first three centuries, the church held to this abstain from violence position. It was pacifistic. Some would argue, in some sections it wasn't by

the second, third century. But in any case, things fundamentally change once the church inherits all that power from Constantine in the fourth century. And now the church has got to help run the Roman Empire. And you can't run an empire unless you're willing to use violence to protect the borders and violence to keep law and order inside. And so we find ways of justifying it, because it makes sense to do so. Because, hey, we're better than you have, you know, since Christians should run the empire because we're God's people. And then we're going to conquer the world in Jesus' name. And all that that does is, I mean, it just guts the whole gospel.

Christianity becomes, I mean, Christians become sort of the high priest of the empire, you know. We bless our troops so that we fight for God and country, you know, and all the rest. You get caught up in that, and that is not the way of the lamb. That is the way of Babylon. In the last days, he will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace. They will be no end.

Well, would you say, when you preach like this and you talk like this with the pulpit, are most people a many in an agreement or do you find that your congregate, even, even Greg Boyd's Congress, it's Jesus congregation, but the, the church that you've been entrusted to help lead, do you find that there is still people that are pretty militaristic? And when you talk about nonviolence, like, yeah, this is the part about Greg. I don't really like, but I'll go her anyway. Or have you kind of persuaded most of your, your people about this? You know, I, I think what happens is folks that don't like that message end up leaving. And so we're always kind of thinning out.

I've had people come that I love the church. I can't, oh, this is great. But you can't be serious when you say, you know, and for some that that's just a deal breaker. But we don't have any Christian nationalists in my congregation, I'm quite sure, or if they are, they sure are keeping under hiding. But I come back to this message so often because I really do think Martin Hangold said that the love your enemies was like the most signature thing that Jesus taught. It's like, it's, it's, it's most distinctive thing.

You don't find too many parallels to that in the ancient world or even in the modern world. And so I come back to this a lot. I think that this, if you can tame, tame that, that's animal self-preservationist instinct. I mean, that's what discipleship is. And so holding that up all the time is sort of what we aspire to the way of the lamb, the way of descent, the way of humility, either people are going to be getting it or they, they revolt against it and leave. It's not a popular message in America. It really is not. And I mean, was it like 20 years ago when you really got on board

with this vision of reading the scriptures and you started preaching on it and you, a lot of people left your church. Wasn't there like a specific time in woodland Hills when the great Exodus, it was a series called the cross and the sword. I think it started in 2004. And it was a six week series. It became my book, the myth of a the Sword. I think it started in 2004 and it was a six-week series. It became my book, The Myth of a Christian Nation. I just, you know, I was receiving so unprecedented amount of pressure from people to steer my flock in the right direction as it comes to voting, you know, who you're going to vote for. And the right-wing Christian machine was really working overtime on radio, television, whatever, telling

people, tell your pastor to make sure that they, you know, so much hangs in the balance on this election. We want the godly candidate to win. And so I just took it as an opportunity to lay out why we are not going to endorse candidates, why we don't have a flag in the church, you know, why we don't celebrate veterans day and you know, all the rest and, and just to make it clear. And, and, yeah, we, we lost about a third of our congregation. That 2004, that was back when we, most people still believed all the lies about the Iraq war. That was, I think that was still, or I forget when all that

came out. Like, yeah, I'm not sure I'll release with the events were surrounding it, but yeah, but yeah, there was a, and it's only gotten worse now. I mean, I really, that's about, okay. So that was my question. I want to know like in the last 20 years, have you seen it get better or worse? That's a big question. And the last 10 years, it's just gotten so much worse. It's, it's this last election, you know, what I think it reveals Preston is, is that we have got two, our population is divided into, and we don't just disagree, but they were living in different realities, different with a different set of facts. And this is thanks to the internet. Everyone can kind of go down their own little echo chamber and, and, and so we, we, we talked amongst ourselves how bad those other people are.

And they're talking about how bad those other people are. And they're reading, they're reading completely different narratives and news outlets and the farther we get, the less we can understand one another, the less we can work together, the more we just hate each other. And the farther we get, the less we can understand one another, the less we can work together, the more we just hate each other. And then what happens if you let yourself get solidified in these positions is that not only do you not understand how the other folks are putting it together, they're just evil, right? But you don't even want to understand. I just recently had, I was having a discussion with some friends and I got pounced on because they were saying, Trump is an existential threat to our country and we have to stop

him. And I was saying, yeah, he may be an existential threat, but the greater existential threat in my opinion is your attitude. Because this idea that, you know, we have to win, it's that I will ascend, we must ascend, we must beat them. It's not like we have to learn from them or dialogue with them. So I was saying that we ought to be trying

to bridge this gap, having dialogue, learning how to talk to one another, regaining some civility. And if the church could model that to the culture, whoa, what a testimony that would be. Yeah. And if the church could model that to the culture, whoa, what a testimony that would be. Then they're saying, you don't negotiate with terrorists. You don't try to get on the inside of the head of a person who's a serial sexual assault person and whatever. And the alternative is civil war, which is kind of the direction that we're heading right

now. We've done a lot at our church about workshops, and we had a whole series on politics leading up to the election about the need to dialogue and to be civil. Let everything you do be done in love, 1 Corinthians 16, 14. And that would include having very difficult political discussions. Can you do it in love in a way that you are ascribing, you're agreeing with God that the person that you're talking to has got unsurpassable worth as is evidenced by the fact that Jesus died for him, paid an unsurpassable price for them. Can you reflect that in the way that you're talking? Now you can still have your political opinions and feel passionate about it, but make your case in a loving way and see that's the only way you ever change anyone.

The only way arguing is that that tends to solidify people in their positions. They double down. Whereas if you can dialogue and you can be in relationship, who knows, you might influence them or they might influence you. But that's how people change. It's not through hollering and all the rest. Oh man. I don't, I don't envy your love. I was built. I mean, I'm wired to having a minority opinion. It's never bothered me and taking shots. It's never bothered me when I was younger. I think it bothered me some, but now I really don't care. What you're saying is so obviously biblical. I mean, it's like, yeah, you don't need to second guess your approach at all. Yeah. The people that I mean,

but even on a pragmatic level, like the, the both, and this is what I love about my political position is I'm so far removed from investing in the system. And I think there's two sides of Babylon. One's blue, one one's red. And so I can kind of watch from the stands and people say, Oh, you're checking's red. And so I can kind of watch from the stands in a sense. And people say, Oh, you're checking out society. No, I am profoundly political. It's called being saying Jesus is Lord and being a member in his global kingdom. That is the most political thing I could ever, ever say. Yeah. And my, and that, that fuels me to engage society and want to, you know, embody grace and truth in the world

towards my neighbor and my enemy. So, so I am, I am more political than your flag waving whichever side person. So that's not what I mean by on the stands. I mean, I am, I am removing myself from Babylon's silly little power game that they call politics. I'm like, no real, real political, a real political position starts with saying Jesus is Lord. Anyway. Something's political if it affects the polis, which is the mistake. And following the lamb affects the polis. We're supposed to be affecting the polis. So yeah, we're political. But your metaphor while standing in the stands is, I think, brilliant, because we are our identities in Christ and we're ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven.

An ambassador to a land, you don't get that immersed in the affairs of the land. Your job is to represent the interest of the kingdom that you're ambassador of. And so our primary job is to put on display the character of who God is and what God's done to redeem the world and all the rest. That's our primary objective. So we shouldn't be, well, you can, we're in a country where they ask your opinion and you get to vote, yay, wonderful. Have your opinion, but we shouldn't be identifying with that.

Right, right, right, absolutely. And that ought to give us, be able to step out and not get in an echo chamber and to have a more objective assessment of things. If you're seeing it from a third party perspective with a different identity, Speaker 0.(1h 1m 39s): I think that echo chamber people that are so appalled that anybody could possibly vote for that candidate. And you see it on both sides. I'm like, okay, that let's just stop there. Let's just, let's just linger there for a second. I would encourage you to go hang out with real embodied humans that have kids, grandkids that did vote for

that candidate. You think is either a communist or whatever. Go get to spend, spend a month offline outside of your echo chamber and in the lives of real people, and then come back and let's talk. You'll see that all these, the reasons you think they voted, how could you do all? They must be a sexist racist. They must be a communist. They must be woke. All this stuff. No, no, no, no. They're just not in the same echo chamber. You are. They're not spoonfed. That's like warped view, this narrative. And you know that you've bought into and they're doing the same thing. So, you know, if you're really shocked by this election, I think it means that you're in a bubble.

You're in an information bubble. And, you know, each side accuses the other side of being in the information bubble. But you know, when you're talking about over half the country voted for Trump, if you're the minority position, I don't think you can say, oh, we have the objective truth, they're in an information bubble. We all got to be careful that we don't get caught up in those echo chambers and get sucked into all that, you know, kind of venom that's going on there. Especially since more people of color, women and younger people voted for Trump than they have in the last like 10, 15 years on that side.

That at least should raise some questions. That did surprise me, which tells me that I must have been in a bubble. Because I was a little surprised by that. You know, there's a, let me plug in here. For folks who want to see if they're polarized, there's a guy in my church who had started, his name is Bill Doherty. He's a remarkable man. And he and this other guy started this organization in 2016 called Braver Angels.

And they started because they saw how our country is just going farther and farther and farther apart. And so what they do is they host debates, discussions, and where they have a blue and a red come together and they talk about all these really difficult topics. And you can get videos of these debates on the website, braverangels.org. And it's really helpful to watch that

because what you'll see is that you have represented the best of the other side. Instead of looking at the worst of the other side, the ones who are the extremes and whatever, you see intelligent, smart people defending positions that you thought were absolutely, you know, indefensible. And maybe you won't come to agree with them, but at least you can understand how somebody could hold that position. And so it's very helpful to do that. Having a friend across the aisle is even better because you can be in dialogue and being a person is always better. But this is the next best thing. So Republicans, if you don't have any Democratic

friends and Democrats, if you don't have your Republican friends, check out Braver Angels. That's fantastic. Hey, we got a question here from my Patreon community here. This comes from Eric. He wants to know, this is another pastoral question. You're going to love this question, Greg. In light of cross vision and crucifixion of the warrior God, how would you summarize God's wrath, God's judgment and hell to someone who struggles with that aspect of the scriptures? Well, what I basically say is this, that I take God's wrath to be what happens when God lets us go. You know, God is always trying to hold on to us and draw us closer to Him and whatnot. But if we are obstinate and if God sees that His grace towards us is simply enabling us

in our sin, then He has no choice but to let us go and to experience the consequences of our decision. Romans 1 is the classic case of this where Paul says, now the wrath of God has been revealed. Here's what it looks like. And then he talks about how these people who they knew God, but they chose to worship the creature more than the creator, and so on and so on. So God gave them over, says he got three times he says that verse 24, 26, and 27, I believe, I got gave them over, and then they begin to experience the consequences of that. That's the judgment of God. You want to go that way?

Well, I've tried to hang on to you, but I have to let you go because it's very much like if you've ever had a loved one who becomes a serious alcoholic or drug addict or whatever, you try to help them and save them from themselves and pick them up from the bar and whatever you do to keep them from experiencing the destructive consequences of what they're doing. There can come a time where you realize that you're just enabling them. And sometimes love has got to be tough. You say, I love you, but if this is how you want to go, I'll let you go that way, but it's going to be terrible. And then they keep hitting bottom, refining where bottom is. But you pray that at some point they'll get it and they'll wake up and they'll turn around.

I think that's very much the case with God. We're addicted to sin and God's trying to wean us off of it. But there can come a point where God says, if you're not going to learn it the easy way by following my ways, you'll have to learn it the hard way. And that is the wrath of God. I'd also add that throughout the Bible, you find that when God brings a judgment, the ultimate, it's never just to get even. He's, what is it saying, Isaiah, where he says, God strikes Egypt, but he strikes to heal. There's always a redemptive motive in this.

That's why the kings of the earth in Revelation 19, they're judged, the truth slaughters them, but it slaughters them for the purpose of the earth in Revelation 19, they're judged, the truth slaughters them, but it slaughters them for the purpose of freeing them. Or the metaphor that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians is that we're refined by fire, that we all go through the fire, which I take is the real us coming into the presence of the real God, and that love of God burns away everything that's inconsistent with it. He talks about how the fire purifies gold,

silver and precious stone and it burns away wood, hay and stubble. So whatever is not compatible with God in our life gets burned away and whatever it is gets refined and perfected so that we can now enter the eternal kingdom. I forget the point I was making with that, but I think it was no, no, no. Well, it's about the God's wrath being God handy, handy and handing them over. Well, I guess, and this is right over, we're getting close to time here, but there is, right there. There are other, maybe even many other passages where God does seem to have actual like more agency in the judgment. Second Corinthians one, I think I need to go back and read it. And there's, yeah, I think many others. And this

was the biggest hurdle, right? In your work trying to separate God's agency from final judgment. Is that an over-reading of what you're trying to do? The only thing I'm really concerned with is I want to separate God from the violent aspects of any judgment we come under. The violent aspects, okay. It's not God up there like pounding us, but I think God still is going to be active orchestrating things to... Okay.

And Terence Friedheim argues this in his book on the Old Testament, where he argues that the perspective is that God turns people over to their judgments, but he's also working to ensure that that takes place. So there is, so there is some agency. Okay. Yeah. But I just don't, whatever's compatible with love. God does. I don't think that violence is okay. Okay. Well, Greg, do you have any Christmas wishes to our audience in this Christmas season? Any pastoral challenges or encouragement along the lines of our apocalyptic Christmas, which we've been teasing out here? Have yourself an apocalyptic Christmas. No, you know, I guess what I'd say is, um, it,

as a government of the season, it's just kind of ironic that the Christmas season is the most carnal season of the year here in America. It's commercialism, consumerism, and all the rest on steroids. I really encourage people to celebrate Jesus' birth in a Jesus kind of a way. Think about how much do we really need for you and yourself and how much maybe can you spend giving it to others who are in need? You know, display generosity during the season and display kindness in the season. We need, we just need kindness. Our world, our country and to some degree the whole world, is getting so mean. It's just

getting mean and nasty. And the news and the rhetoric is getting so, you know, violence isn't just what we do with our physical bodies. It's anything that violates another person. That's how I would define it. And our words can be violent. Our attitudes can be violent. And you know, but the darker the world gets, the more the church has an opportunity to offer the alternative. And so this Christmas, be offering the alternative by how you live and by how you spend your money and by how you spend your time. And be open to the Lord leading you to become maybe more generous than you were before. Maybe the kids don't need 17 pretlins. Maybe they can get by with three and then you can take the others to kids in homeless shelters or whatever. However, the Lord leads

celebrate Christmas in a Jesus kind of way. Love it, Greg. Thank you so much for your ministry, your writing and just for being a fun hang here on the all general. I got you. You're a fun hang. I forgot to mention you are going to be at exiles in Babylon this year, April 3rd to 5th, a kind of more of what we've been talking about, a political reading of the book of revelations. So would encourage people to check that out. Here's the final word is the final word. There's never a final, but you know, Babylon is the symbol of empire. And you'll be talking about that that I think in subsequent podcasts but but we are in Babylon this is Babylon we are so used to it fish don't notice the water they swim in that we don't

even notice how this whole culture is built on this I will ascend mindset and conquer you know and more and more and more insatiable that's that's nature of the deceiver, it's insatiable. What God has given me is not enough. I must ascend and it's everywhere. And when you wake up to it, well, first of all, we have to wake up to it if we're gonna get out of it. And to follow the lamb is to leave Babylon.

But waking up is sometimes the hardest part. And even after you wake up a little bit, it's easy to fall asleep again. Be aware that you're in Babylon and, and the ways of Babylon are contrary to the ways of the lamb. And so we're supposed to be moving in the exact opposite direction of this, our cultures. We will ascend on high mindset. So good. So good, Greg. Thanks so much for being a guest yet again on the Elgin raw. Appreciate your brother. the odds are I appreciate you brother My Lord has come Sages searching for stars

Searching for love in heaven No place for them on a stable My Lord has come My Lord has come. My Lord has come. My Lord has come. His love will hold me. His love will hold me His love will cherish me Love will cradle me Quado, cherish me. Oh, Quado, cherish me, love me. Lead me, lead me to see Him. him sages and shepherds and angels no place for me but a stable no place for me but a stable

No place for me but a stable My Lord has come My Lord has come My Lord has come This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network. Hi, I'm Haven, and as long as I can remember, I have had different curiosities and thoughts and ideas that I like to explore, usually with a girlfriend over a matcha latte. But then when I had kids, I just didn't have the same time that I did before for the one-on-ones that I crave.

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