- ISBN13: 9780801065064
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
We human beings are burdened by our tendencies to harshly judge others and ourselves. Unfortunately for believers, this bent is as prevalent in the church as in the world. Pastor and author Gregory A. Boyd calls readers to a higher standard through understanding the true manner in which God views humanity: as infinitely worthwhile and lovable. Only an attitude shift in how we perceive ourselves in light of God’s love can impact how we relate to people and tra… More >>
Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God
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#1 by Washedintheblood on July 4, 2010 - 6:18 pm
Mr.Boyd is certainly in love with “love” and acceptance. Will he love his children in the same way as he wants us to love others? Would he let his children walk in the path of an oncomming car, because out of love, he does not want to tell them the truth? The truth is Mr. Boyd that God loves the sinner, but hates sin. Ask Jesus to forgive you and come into your heart and you will be saved. He shows us the truth in His
word. Get back to God’s word.
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by Anonymous on July 4, 2010 - 6:24 pm
Book not recommended for the serious Christian or seeker.
Too lopsided on one aspect of God’s character
Does not balance personal skew with God’s holy wrath against sin.
Please read Peter’s and Paul’s sermons/messages to the crowds in the Book of Acts. THAT is authentic Christian Gospel.
The problem is not so much Repenting of Religion, but
Repenting of SIN.
See John MacArthur ‘Ashamed of the Gospel’ and ‘Hard to Believe’
and Greg Laurie ‘Upside-down Church’.
If anything should be repented of, it’s this book and the author’s unbiblical notions.
Rating: 1 / 5
#3 by Elly Matero on July 4, 2010 - 7:43 pm
One star for the good point of urging Christians to avoid Judgmentalism. Toward self or others, believers or not. Amen.
Much of the rest of the book is a disquisition on SOME aspects of the Character of God to the omission of HOLY HOLY HOLY.
Jonah is quoted from where God spares the Ninevites by sheer mercy. Overlooks Nahum a little later in history where grace period runs out and God’s HOLY WRATH executes Divine Judgment on Nineveh which earlier had been spared.
John 3:16 is majored on which is fine. But where is John 3:18?? whoever believes in Jesus is not condemned, but whoever does not believe STANDS CONDEMNED ALREADY because of unbelief in Jesus’ Name.
Discerning Christian readers taking warning against judgmentalism to heart need also to take warning against overemphasis of ONLY ONE SIDE of the issue.God’s HOLY HOLY HOLY Character needs equal emphasis.
Reading this book gave the impression of God SOLELY as Lover, Relater,Friend-of-Sinners, Welcomer-to-Heaven, Parent, Compadre, Embracer, Forgiver, etc. and that’s fine to a degree for one side of the Scriptural Coin. But the Bible is more than the book of Jonah or John 3:16. What about God as Judge, Condemner, Banisher-to-Hell, Sentencer, Enemy-of-Sin, Confronter, Sovereign Destroyer of Evil, Wrathbearer, Holy Hater of Lawbreaking?
This book is rejected as not doing justice to Scripture IN TOTO. ‘Consider the KINDNESS (which this book dwells on) and STERNNESS (this book is vaguely silent here) of God.’
Antidote: solid study of Hebrews where Jesus’ poignant sacrifice for His beloved is balanced against ‘it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.’
Rating: 1 / 5
#4 by David A. Hunter on July 4, 2010 - 9:01 pm
Classic case of a guy who picks a few verses to make a point, while completely ignoring huge sections of scripture. The assumption that judgment and love are in polar opposition to one another is foolish at best, deceptive at worst. God loves unconditionally, and at the same time judges righteously. Paul instructed the Corinthian church to pass judgment on a fellow believer, out of love for him. The author also says we should never make conclusions based on good and evil, and that to do so is repeating the sin of Adam & Eve – apparently forgetting the fact that the Bible is filled with instructions regarding good and evil!
he says we should never judge others and that to do so indicates hypocrisy and a lack of love – his book, however, is filled with judgments cast at believers and churches based on the author’s assumptions about their motives. He assumes that any a believer (other than him) evaluates another person’s behavior we are obviously trying to cover up some sin in our own lives. I think Paul, Moses, Nathan, Elijah, Jesus, and pretty much all of the prophets who spent significant chunks of time confronting others about their sin, would disagree. Maybe – just maybe – sometimes we confront sin not to try to elevate ourselves – but out of genuine love and concern for another person’s spiritual well-being. Maybe sometimes we confront sin not out of hypocrisy but out of a love for and commitment to truth and holiness as revealed in God’s Word.
On top of all this he bases most of his theology on his own fanciful interpretation of what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents. The original sin, he says, was judgment. I’m not sure who he thinks Adam and Eve were judging when they ate the fruit, but it seems to me the original sin was disobedience to a simple command. Call me crazy.
This book is highly misleading and inexcusably unbalanced. It does not represent Scripture or the character of God. I would not recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by Gerry Hallson on July 4, 2010 - 9:36 pm
What could have been a solid admonition of the church to practice more love and less judgmentalism comes off too harsh, unlovingly intolerant and ironically judgmental itself.
First, there is hyper-interpretation of the meaning of the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil that is the basis for the argument. Gen.2-3 state both Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge were in the “Midst”=Center of the garden. This incidental reference to tree location is extrapolated as Central Thesis into what can only be called Theologorrhea: an allegorical interpretive fabrication whereby this bad tree assumes CENTRAL PLACE as an idol-a-tree in our life. Every time we judge something/one to be either good or evil, right or wrong, we are reverting back to playing the judge with this bad tree at Center-hub of our idolatrous world. Where does the author get these peculiar notions? Not from anywhere else in the Old or New Testament. He might have a case if Scripture weren’t so silent on his idol-a-tree-at-center-stage thesis.
Next, he unabashedly advocates same-gender relations being Good-not-Evil as long as monogamous/covenantal by his own standards. He blasts the conservative evangelical church for not treating this issue with the moral equivalency of being overweight. If grace extends to this non-morality issue, it ought to include the morality issue as well. Again, peculiar, non-scriptural notions. Back to the Garden, God did not create Adam & Steve, but Adam & Eve. Paul clearly says in 1Cor.7:2 – “since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.” Paul also is adamant in 1Cor.5:11-13 – “you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is grossly immoral or greedy or idolator or slanderer, drunkard, swindler. With such a one do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside the church? God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked one from among you.” (See also 2Pet.2, Jude 7). This seems to bounce right off the author’s selective-bible-quoting defense shield.
Third, by blasting all conservative evangelicals, he stands outside and removed from this faith-group which demonstrates several things. He himself, by not using ‘we’ shows himself as liberal non-evangelical. He himself, by judging what is being done as evil,not good; wrong, not right, ironically falls into the trap of eating from his own imagined idol-tree of knowledge. He ends up being a Pathological Judger of those very believers who he labels as judgers parasitically drawing life and feeding from the idol-tree at the expense of others.
Finally, all credibility, if not lost already, fades like the smile on the Cheshire Cat in Wonderland with his ongoing condemnation of all who do not love to the level of his thesis’ expectation. It’s like, “You in the church should love this way and not judge that way or you are not Good, but Evil. Repent of the idol-a-tree of Knowledge and only Love, Love, Love.” But by going after this log in the eye of fundamental conservative evangelicals (from whom he disdainfully distances himself, which is its own act of judgmentalism), he doesn’t see or tend to the telephone pole in his own eye. He as accuser can judge as long as its done in love by his standards, but the church can’t without being hypocritical, parasitic, pathologic, loveless.
This line of peculiar reasoning is to be expected, perhaps, from one who argues by citing Bonhoeffer, Kreeft, Ellul (“Jesus’ revelation is against morality..it is impossible to derive a moral system from the Gospels&Epistles..the proclamation of grace,pardon,freedom are the direct opposite of morality..the origin of sin is not knowledge, but knowledge of Good & Evil..Jesus gives us His Own commandment ‘Follow Me’, not a list of do’s and don’ts.. to be a free person with no morality but simply observing the ever-new word of God as it flashes forth..we are as free as the Holy Spirit who comes and goes as he wills..This freedom is love.”) ten times more than the Bible itself which contains all the correctives the church needs to Love as Jesus loved and “Stop judging by outward appearances, but make right judgments.”
Rating: 1 / 5