Jeremy Hoover

Greg Boyd's central thesis in The Myth of a Christian Nation is this: The kingdom of God is centered on Jesus. Jesus taught it, lived it, and called others to it. We--the church--are his body, which means we should expect to live and act like him. He lives in each of us individually by the Spirit. As we love others, he loves them as well--through us--and others are brought in to his kingdom through that. This all leads up to his return, when he will take the power over the kingdoms of this world from Satan and restore to God all things left unrestored.

Thus, God is looking for a group of people who embody his kingdom. Since there is no greater power than self-sacrificial love to transform hearts, the kingdom of God must be focused on how people are and what they can become. In contrast, the kingdoms of this world focus on what people do and how that behavior can be controlled.

Two defining traits of kingdom-of-God-people are humility and loss. These are signs of the cross. Victory and "winning" are symbols of the sword, signs that the kingdom of the world is taking hold. To choose retaliation, violence, and self-interest is to choose the kingdom of the sword, not matter how justifiable such responses are.

Instead, as agents of the kingdom of God, we should promote humility. Jesus provided examples of this:

• when he taught about sacrificial love that loves one neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:36-40)
  
• in his teaching about becoming like children and disregarding social privileges and advantages (Matthew 18:3-4)
• when he washed his disciples' feet as a servant (John 13)
• when he healed the ear of an enemy after Peter cut it off (John 18:10)

This is the kind of power that transforms people. Anyone can be coerced or forced into a particular type of behavior, but these actions transform people because they are signs of a new society.

Boyd concludes this chapter by stating the only criteria that matters whether anything has value within God's kingdom is love. A chart illustrates several concluding points that contrast the difference between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God.

This chapter is an important part of his argument. To be a Christian means to be a follower of Jesus. Our lives need to be conformed to his. This will never happen if we live by the values of the kingdoms of this world. The difficulty for me comes in training--I've been trained by these worldly kingdoms to respond with the sword, to be right, to seek vengeance. Christ calls me to something higher--to love those...even those who offend me. He calls me to love my enemies to the point that they are treated as my friends. This is radical.

What if we gauged our church's success or failure on whether we are loving others (especially enemies) as Jesus loved? This is the only way the kingdom of God grows and expands among us.