Boyd: "My Church has been Hijacked by Politics"
Gregory Boyd, pastor at Woodland Hills Church in Maplewood, MN, uses the occasion of a recent endorsement of a congressional candidate by a Minnesota minister during a worship service to remind us that Jesus did not equate Christian love with politics. In an op-ed in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
The evangelical church in our country has been hijacked by politics. In some Christian circles, voting a certain way has become a litmus test for whether or not your religious beliefs are even valid. So completely have some evangelicals bought into politics that many define Christian social activism strictly in political terms.
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We are, above all else, called to follow Jesus' example as we individually and collectively show God's love to the world by humbly serving it.But this beauty is ruined when we allow our faith to be hijacked by politics. We drag Jesus' name and reputation into the muck and mire of our ugly secular politics and invite its inevitable divisiveness into our churches. In sharp contrast to Jesus (who brought Matthew and Simon together in loving service to the world), we end up with churches in which people like [candidates] Michele Bachmann and Patty Wetterling can't worship together and work side by side for the cause of Christ. Instead of displaying the beauty of God's love, we become just a religious version of the ugly politics of the world.