The liberal Protestant magazine Sojourners has an message to General "my-God's-bigger-than-your-God" Boykin by Jim Wallis on its Web site:
General, I think the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" must have been written just for you. I'm sure your superiors have already given you a lesson in politics and public relations. And I've heard you have toned down your opinions and said you didn't mean to offend anyone. Whether you keep your job is a political question, the outcome of which we will know soon enough.
But I want to raise some different issues: biblical theology, bad teaching, and church discipline. General, your theology bears no resemblance to biblical teaching. You utterly confuse the body of Christ with the American nation. The kingdom of God doesn't endorse the principalities and powers of nation-states, armies, and the ideologies of empire; but rather calls them all into question. You even miss the third verse of "Onward Christian Soldiers," which reminds us, "Crowns and thrones may perish, Kingdoms rise and wane, But the Church of Jesus, constant will remain." And let's not misinterpret the famous first verse, "Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before." The cross, General, not the Special Forces.
The AOL Journal windmills of my mind has some comments on politics and exotic religious ideas here and here. (She's listening to Nanci Griffith, too, always a nice thing to do.)
The Sojourners Web site also has a brief article called The Hungry Spirit: Damnation Will Not Be Televised, which has some interesting tidbits in it. I especially like her little confession, involving one of the all-time great TV shows:
Almost everything I know about hell's eschatological aspects I learned from watching UPN's now-defunct series Buffy the Vampire Slayer - sort of an interactive "Divine Comedy."
Buffy was more theologically sophisticated than General Boykin, that's for sure.
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