» Out of Ur: Book Review: The Patriot's Bible (part 1) (Greg Boyd)
One of my favorites, Greg Boyd, finally unveiled his review of The American Patriot's Bible recently. This is only part one, but I think he pretty much nails the qualms I have with the concept here:
The Kingdom that Jesus' followers are to be committed to is one that expresses the "one new humanity" Jesus died to create, a humanity for which all dividing walls of nation and race have been abolished (Eph. 2:14). In Christ, we are no longer to relate to each other in terms of nationality, social class or gender (Gal. 3:28-29). The vision of the Kingdom we're to be working toward is one in which people from every nation and tribe come together to worship around the throne (Rev. 7:9-10). And the Kingdom we're to "seek first" is one that is centered on imitating Jesus' loving sacrifice for his enemies (Eph. 5:1-2; cf. Jn 13:5; 1 Pet 2:20-21; Jn 2:6). In this light, it's nothing short of tragic that we now find ourselves with a version of the Bible whose sole purpose is to reinforce the nationalism and celebrate the military victories of a particular country.
The point becomes even more important when we consider the long and sad history of "Christian" nationalism. Whenever the church failed to preserve the unique beauty of God's trans-national Kingdom and allowed itself to be co-opted by the spirit of nationalism, bloodshed "in Jesus' name" soon followed. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, this Christianized nationalism inspired Christians to wage war on other Christians in service to their respective countries. The numerous barbaric intra-Christian wars from the 14th to the 17th centuries significantly undermined the credibility of the Church and were the single greatest influence in the secularization of western culture.
Sadly, the Patriot's Bible is saturated with this nationalistic, "fight-for-God-and -country," mindset. For example, this Bible repeatedly celebrates God's supposed providential hand in the American Revolution, which is simply one of the more recent examples of Christians slaughtering other Christians for nationalistic purposes.
The publisher, Thomas Nelson Publishers, offered a response from the Bible's editor, Richard Lee.
I don't take particular delight in pointing to other aspects of minisitry as being insufficient or wrong. People do that to Joel and I know exactly how wrong they are to do it, so I make a pretty concerted effort to decline the favor even toward ministries that I do honestly have some serious questions about. In the end, I would hope that God uses them for good in ways that I don't necessarily have to understand.
But given my own previous challenges in finding a church home, I feel a bit differently toward this book. It really strikes me as everything that I've feared was wrong with a certain segment of Christianity (and in fairness, this segment is often visible within Lakewood). It just strikes me as a much clearer display of idolatry ... and hence wrong.
