A few years ago I received an invitation from an Episcopal group in the San Francisco Bay area. “We want you to talk to us about Jesus,” they said, “and we want you to make it personal.”
Nobody had ever asked me to “make it personal” before. Trying to figure out what to say, I wrote the words “Me and Jesus” on a page. I reflected on those words. What emerged was the story of “me and Jesus”””of what I could remember about Jesus from my childhood, adolescence, early adulthood all the way to the present. I see now that my “personal and academic pilgrimage” has been tied to the figure of Jesus from the very beginning.
I was born into a Lutheran family of Swedish and Norwegian descent, the youngest of four children. I grew up in the 1940s, in a town of 1,600 people in northeastern North Dakota, near the Canadian border. It’s a world that now seems very far away….
Now people may not know, this is one of the people invited in to speak to the faithful(?) in the Diocese of Nevada by the last bishop of that diocese…Who could that have been…..Along with John Spong. Theological midgets flock together.
I prefer the theologian Tom T. Hall who wrote:
“Me and Jesus
Got our own thing going
Me and Jesus
Got it all worked out
Me and Jesus
Got our own thing going
We don’t need anybody to tell us what its all about”
It seems rather odd that Borg left his childhood faith and put his faith in what the scholars of the 50s and 60s were saying instead. Impressed by their intellectualism (and having a measure of intellect himself) he chose the mind over choosing Jesus. Even as God tried to reach him, he chose to put his faith in his intellect and in a spirit that, oddly enough, has the same political and social aspirations as himself.
Sad, really.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
One wonders why, in a “me and Jesus” discussion, he didn’t bring in Jesus’s words such as “My sheep know my voice and listen to none other.” and so many others like it. But then, maybe he never had a psersonal encounter with the Risen Lord.
While I have enjoyed some of Borg’s books (particularly with Tom Wright), I have found him to be extremely modern & academic – almost smug – in the way he describes the messy reality of following God in a Jesus way.
This article was written in 1993. Why is it being posted here now?
Slow day for posting?
I think Borg is great! He offers a nice antithesis to work with. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of bouncing him off the thesis of orthodoxy (such as Tom Wright). Of course, the synthesis is neither orthodox or emergent, but a position that holds up better to rational criticism that either alternative.
#3…The NT is full of Greek words that infer a complete encounter of the Gospel with the intellect. Even more so than is apparent in English.
The first of Dr Borg’s “realizations” is quite noteworthy:
[i]The gospels are not primarily history, but “proclamation” (kerygma, as we learned to call it).[/i]
To a very large extent, this “realization” is quite true; but the implications that Dr Borg draws from it (on which he appears to have built his career) are not the only ones which may be drawn.
To say that the Gospels are not [i]primarily[/i] history is not to say that they are utterly un-historical, and to say that they [i]are[/i] primarily kerygma is not to say that the kerygma is not firmly based on actual persons and events. The kernel of truth in what Dr Borg says is that the proclamation (“kerygma”) of the Apostles is indeed the boundary separating us from any “historical Jesus”. There is no way to go around the Apostolic kerygma to find historical evidence of a “Jesus” who is independent of the Apostles’ proclamation.
What that means is that the first step in [i]any[/i] engagment with Jesus is to face up to that Apostolic proclamation, and either to accept it or to reject it. Depending on whether we accept it or reject it, that Apostolic proclamation will either be a portal through which we can enter into an encounter with Jesus, or a wall which prevents us from knowing Him in any meaningful way.
When Dr Borg (and scholars like him) distinguish “history” from “kerygma,” it is to exalt “history” as scientifically true and to devalue the kerygma of the Apostles, and the believing community which received it and handed it down to us, as inherently unreliable. That methodological judgement actually cuts scholars such as Dr Borg off from any possible historical data about their subject, because in fact the Apostolic kerygma and the Apostolic tradition are the only sources of data available. It is also profoundly question-begging.
It is as if an astronomer were to begin his study of the stars by noting that data on the subject can only come from telescopes and spectroscopes, then claiming that all telescopes and spectroscopes are inherently and irredeemably unreliable; and finishing by pronouncing himself more expert in the field than those who use that equipment actually to observe the stars!
I found two of Borg’s books, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time and Jesus: A New Vision, very helpful at a certain point in my faith journey as I returned to Christianity. He helped me to look at Jesus in a different way, and many insights of his took me back to the gospels to rediscover the Jesus in them. I’m not convinced, moreover, that his relationship with Jesus is merely intellectual. There’s more to it than that, as is clear to me from reading these books. Like Padre Mickey, I wonder why such an old article has been posted here, except that it is the story of his own personal journey. One needs to read something more recent to see where he has been going since. I would recommend the chapter, “Jesus the Heart of God” in The Heart of Christianity as a more recent reflection on the meaning of Jesus.
I was looking to see if Borg knows the Guy I know, the Guy I talk to every day and Who talks to me, the guy I [b]know[/b], not just know about or study. Didn’t see much of that in Borg’s bio and it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve not known many relationships to develop when one party approaches the other as an object of study and/or intellectual curiosity, which is what Borg apparently calls a “relationship.”
Too bad. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.
Seems to me Mr. Borg could benefit from daily doses of Holy Scripture. Reading through the Bible once a year would be most helpful. Through Scripture one is exposed to the workings of the Holy Spirit…I doubt very much there is that gauranteed connection between the Holy Spirit and the writings of the folks he has allowed to shape his theology.
Two things jump out at me here. I’ll get to those in a minute, but first a word about what is not terribly striking, and that is that one particular person might have been a Christian in his youth and later left the faith. That’s happened to lots of people. It happened to C.S. Lewis (Lewis as we know returned). It happened to Spong. And so on.
What’s more interesting is (1) that an Episcopal parish KNEW ALL THIS about him in advance and deliberately sought him out to teach and speak in their community. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this. It’s a bit like the geology department of a big university asking a Flat Earther to teach an entry level course; or a local chapter of the socialist workers party asking Milton Friedman (extreme libertarian guru of the free market) to teach them about economics. In both cases we have a group that has deviated so wildly from its normative identity that it has morphed into something completely different, and should in honesty abandon its current name and choose a different one.
And its not just one Episcopal parish, but LOTS of parishes, and indeed dioceses. Our current presiding bishop asked Spong to speak in her diocese (back before she was PB). Spong and Borg have both been asked by bishops, deans of cathedrals, and many vestries and rectors across the U.S. to speak — not just invited but typically paid good money to do so. Borg, Spong, and similar Episcopal apostates can’t keep up, the demand for them is so high. And that’s only their speaking engagements: the number of parishes that are using Borg or Spong’s books as teaching materials, or who sell them in their church bookstores, is vastly higher.
Again, its hard to overstate the importance of this. The issue is not Borg or Spong but their eager ratification by TEC at large that is of interest here.
The second thing of note is that Borg does not mention to any of his San Francisco listeners that any of his childhood “questions” (e.g. his conundrum about God’s transcendence vs. immanence) have in fact answers INSIDE THE CREEDAL TRADITION. These are questions that are not hard to answer and in fact true creedal Christianity has had hundreds of brilliant minds who have written on them. His naive audience will assume, partly due to Borg’s endless reference to how smart he is and how many degrees he has, but more because he raises not the slightest difficulty for them in so doing, that a thoughtful mind that asks questions about the faith will inevitably lead to Borg-style apostasy. All those men and women of the past — St. Augustine, St. Jerome, the Lady Julian, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, Pope John Paul II, Thomas Cranmer, Richard Hooker, St. Francis, John Calvin, St. Thomas Aquinas — they were (bless their hearts) just not quite as bright as we are. They were a little dense.
It’s this last point that has to be constantly pointed out to lay people who have been bitten by the Jesus Seminar bug. They are honestly unaware that most of these questions or problems were well known to the great theologians of the past. It is only in America, with our ignorance of and disdain for the past, and our obsessive sniffing of wet printers ink, that we can privilege the mediocre minds of Borg and Spong over the great doctors and teachers of the past, who not only were a lot smarter but also (thank God!) had a humbling relationship with a living Jesus.
#8…. extraordinarily thoughtful response, Chris. Thanks.
Marcus Borg is an interesting writer, but in all of his books he wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to promote rational, “intellectually respectable” beliefs consistent with a non-supernatural explanation for Jesus, while at the same time claiming the outward forms and vocabulary of Christianity. What you end up with is hypocrisy, with people rationalizing their profession of the Nicene Creed and other statements of Christian faith without believing them.
Very simply, if you are really convinced that Jesus was just a clever guy, then have some integrity and just say so and go down the street to the Unitarians. If you truly don’t believe Jesus was God (and not just a pointer to God, or “divine” in the same sense that everyone else is or could be, or whatever the rationalization is), and really don’t believe that He rose again in accordance with the scriptures, then don’t be a hypocrite and say the Nicene Creed.
I have much more respect for comparable writers (like, for example, Bart Ehrman, an agnostic scholar who was discussed here last week), who openly try to give rational non-religious explanations for Christianity than people like Marcus Borg (or Bishop Spong) who reject essential, creedal parts of Christianity on academic grounds but then try to rationalize continuing to profess Christian beliefs by gutting them of any substance.
I wonder if the practical spiritual effect of his labors, over time, won’t be seen as an ironic but very persuasive propaedeutic for conversion to Islam. It seems likely we will see them used that way more and more in coming decades.
#14…. thanks Jason. Very sound comments. C.S. Lewis said much the same thing in an interview back in 1963:
Good, huh?
John Stamper,
Thanks very much for your kind words. I in turn found the insights in your #12 to be quite trenchant — particularly your statement that the Church’s tradition contains all that is needed to answer the attacks of the Borgs and Spongs of this world.
This points out the importance of thorough and ongoing catechesis. If the faithful are not to be vulnerable to the likes of Borg, the riches of the tradition must be imparted to them.
# 15: that was exactly my thought. There is nothing in this 1993 piece that wouldn’t have cheered a liberal minded Sufi Muslim.
I wonder if the ‘Rev’ Redding has been reading Borg.
“They were moments of transformed perception in which I saw the earth as “filled with the glory of God,” shining with a radiant presence. They were also moments of connectedness in which I felt my linkage to what is. They seemed similar to Rudolf Otto’s description of experiences of the “numinous,” the awe-inspiring and wonder-evoking “holy,” the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (the tremendous mystery that elicits trembling even as it also attracts us in a compelling way). They involved a rediscovery of mystery—not an intellectual mystery, but an experience of holy mystery.”
It was thoughts much like these that convinced me that dropping acid was spiritually dangerous. The doors of perception once open are very hard to shut and who the heck wants an spiritual openhouse?
About 15 years ago in a preaching class we were required to purchase ‘Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time’ by Borg. Whe we started to discuss the book I asked why we were required to buy this book by a person who did not believe in Jesus and was not a Christian. I was told that he knew more than I did and he was a respected Episcopal scholar. I pointed out the sections I had hi-lighted and was told to not confuse the others our time was limited. In trying to get together with the instructor to discuss what I perceived to be his inerrancies i was put off and never was able to have a one on one. In reading this piece I see the PB saying and believing the same things as this non Christian.
Art+
When I went to Asbury Seminary a few years ago one of the most strident re-appraisers in my parent’s congregation bought me a Borg book. I’m assuming that she wanted to rescue me from the evil clutches of orthodoxy. Her attempt failed and I’m sure she was sadly disappointed by the sermon I preached in that church after my first year in seminary.
20…art…You must be a Baptist. Anglican evangelicals follow the 39 Articles which state that one is a Christian who has been baptized. It’s strictly objective. If it were contingent on our beliefs being 100% correct, then we’re all in a whole lot of trouble, since there is no such thing as perfect belief. If it is contingent on how we behave, then we’re in a whole lot of trouble, since none of us are perfect.
Actually, Borg does believe in Jesus. It’s just that he sees him through different lenses. If we could realize that we see reality through different lenses (not all ‘seeing’ is equal), we’d loose our egocentrism and start realizing that the lenses we see through are not perfect either. It was St. Paul who states that we see through the mirror darkly. But our hope in the future is to see Christ in his clearness.
You’re right, not all “seeing” is equal. Some of it is fallacy. Like Borg’s trash.
RE: “Anglican evangelicals follow the 39 Articles which state that one is a Christian who has been baptized.”
Yes . . . just as one is married once the vows have been said.
That’s why I merely point out when someone openly and forthrightly does not believe the Christian gospel. I’m sure that God will work out whether he is saved or not. But objectively people can determine whether someone believes something or not.
I may claim to be a Buddhist, but anybody can make an objective determination about whether I *believe* Buddhism when I publicly denounce the four noble truths.
In the case of Borg, he does not believe the Christian gospel and he has openly and forthrightly and proudly proclaimed that he does not.
That’s cool . . . I don’t really have any further opinon on him. But I have all sorts of opinions about present-day Presiding Bishops who as bishop of her diocese invited in a false teacher to teach her flock the Borg-Gospel.
A disgusting and abhorrent display — at least, to those who believe the gospel.
#7 Virgil stated:
[blockquote] [b]”I’ve enjoyed the challenge of bouncing him off the thesis of orthodoxy . . .” [/b][/blockquote]
So, you would be so bold as to claim that orthodoxy represents merely another academic thesis? And are you implying that the foundational core of the Christian faith can be reduced to an intellectual proposition, argument or essay?
I would seriously suggest that you revisit the definition of “thesis” before you make any more statements in this context.
#25…I do not believe the truth lies in orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is an attitude regarding the truth of the Christian religion. It is based on the theory that our knowledge of truth never changes. The old Greek metaphysical categories are permanent vehicles for truth. Any study in the theory of knowledge puts that thesis in question.
The “emergent’ paradigm (as Borg calls it) is an attempt to recast the Christian truth in modern metaphysical categories. Does it succeed? No! It assumes its own set of categories with their own presuppositions. It tends toward a relativist view of knowledge, which has also epistemologically been found lacking. I don’t find his attempt unreasonable, but I believe the results don’t stand up against criticism.
Did the title strike anyone else as odd?
Me and Jesus
— seems to indicate a strange hierarchy in my eyes.
Hi Virgil. Thanks for your thoughts.
In post #22 you suggest, if I understand you right, that from the point of view of Anglicanism, the best meaning to give to the word “Christian” is a person who has been baptized — period. Nothing else — no claims about belief of any kind.
Do you see that this makes the word nonintuitive and impractical in daily use? For example, a person could be an atheist and a Christian. Or a Satanist and a Christian. Certainly a person could be an orthodox Muslim (and vigorously reject most of the Nicene Creed) and be a Christian.
So in practice that use of the word will confuse your listeners — they will think you mean one thing when you mean something else. Note here that we are talking about something very practical — using words in a way that is likely to convey reasonable meaning to most people and avoid misunderstanding. I am not talking about the deep theological questions involved in how belief is related to salvation, or how baptism is related to salvation. All I am doing is pointing out that Art was using the word “Christian” in a standard way that communicates to most hearers some minimal amount of belief — and the way you were operationally defining it (as only referring to baptism) is at the very least extremely odd, since it enables the existence of atheist Christians and Satanist Christians.
In practice then, most people assume when they hear a fellow identified as a “Christian†that it refers at least in part and to some extent about the person’s beliefs. You’re mistaken in thinking that they assume it means that the fellow is 100% correct in all of his theological beliefs. They just assume that the guy is fairly close to believing all or almost all of a certain very minimal set of beliefs about God and Jesus Christ. They may not have in their head a detailed creedal statement of what that minimal set is, but they have a pretty close idea.
Borg explicitly rejects theological doctrine after theological doctrine that have been held in common by Christian saints and teachers of the church who are otherwise very diverse. I have listed some of these folks before — St. Augustine, St. Jerome, the Lady Julian, Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, Pope John Paul II, Thomas Cranmer, Richard Hooker, St. Francis, John Calvin, St. Thomas Aquinas – and of course we could list many more. All of them believed in the Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb and bodily Resurrection, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for sin (differing on theories), original sin, the Trinity, Jesus as fully God and fully human (as became codified at Chalcedon), the Devil as a real spiritual being, and so on. Borg rejects every one of these doctrines.
Here’s a helpful way to think about it. To be a “Jeffersonian Democrat†or a “Marxist†or a “Smithian†(as in Adam Smith and his Wealth of Nations) or a “Shakespeareanâ€cannot be pinned down to an absolute fixed set of beliefs or views, something capable of forestalling all future debate. Two different Shakespeareans might disagree sharply on all kinds of things. They might even be critical about this or that part of the canon (e.g. “I think Corialanus is not a good playâ€). But suppose we had a person who insisted on calling himself a Shakespearean, but who said that King Lear was a bad play, and the same for Macbeth, and also Hamlet, and likewise The Tempest…. Well at some point we’d simply have to say “in what sense are you a Shakespearean?†I mean if you reject everything that Shakespeareans have been saying about the man and his plays for the last several centuries, then why call yourself that? Likewise if I were to call Joe Stalin a Smithian or a Jeffersonian – I could only do that by so radically redefining these guys that it would be more appropriate – i.e. more useful – to not use those words to describe Stalin’s views.
So I think that’s the sense that Art and Sarah and Jason and indeed most people in general are using the word Christian, and what we mean when we say – purely descriptively – that Borg and Spong and a number of other people are no longer Christians.
And also why we are puzzled and indeed shocked that putatively Christian bodies (e.g. episcoapl parishes) and leaders (e.g. episcoplal bishops, rectors, vestries, sunday school teachers) are so eager to use these men in the context of Christian teaching.
#27: The title is odd in a way. Youand I would say, if we said such a thing at all, Jesus and I. This title may be an exercise in egotism, but I rather think the title is meant ti indicate in a ungrammaticality that the writer is just “one of the little people,” a regular guy, part of the hoi polloi ( i suppose I should say “a part of hoi polloi”) and all-American bluecollar guy. It is of course self-concious posturing. And this pretentiousness is apparent throughout the essay. The liberal and the populist are old political bedmates. LM
#28…I believe in the sacrament of baptism an ontological change takes place. This change is guaranteed and sealed by the Holy Spirit. We are “grafted” into the community of Christ (The community know as Christians) and are “marked as Christ’s own forever” (BCP). This ontological change is the new birth. It isn’t contingent on any belief or action on our part. We don’t loose it because of unbelief and evil action. (This is God’s action).
We now, existentially, have the potential for being (deification–the end of the process sanctification/justification), and we choose to live closer to being or to non-being. Our beliefs and actions do not distort the ontological reality of new life, only our existential realization of being. Can any action we commit change our ontological state? Christian tradition states that is possible that our actions can lead God to break his guarantee and seal and we then enter an ontological state of non-being (traditionally hell). This is the sin against the Holy Spirit. I have never seen an adequate explanation of this sin, so I’m not going to fear committing it, since my attitude of faith is clearly present, even if my knowledge of truth is (as with all humans) frail and uncertain.
#28…I guess I’m defining Christian ontologically, while the other are defining it existentially. The only problem with the latter is that at what point do we declare that someone isn’t a Christian existentially?
Also, if we don’t make a distinction between existence and our ontological state we wind up with the odd doctrine of concupiscence.
Hi Virgil. Sounds like we are still talking at cross purposes. I explicitly told you that I was not talking about the relationship of baptism to salvation. I was talking only about everyday words (e.g. “Christian”) used by ordinary people and the practical question and about how to communicate with them in a way that respects common usage. In everyday discourse it is USEFUL to define the word “Christian” in such a way that it refers at least in part to some minimum set of belief — otherwise you end up saying that Satanists and atheists can be Christians.
Again, let me say one more time, that I am talking only about using words in a useful fashion — I am making no salvic claims in so doing.
#32…I wasn’t assuming that you believe that baptism has no relationship with salvation. You were talking about the use of “everyday” English as opposed to the precision of theological/philosophical terminology. However, the problem with using those “everyday” statements or relying on everyday concepts is that the average person equates not-a-Christian with condemned people (hell), when their ontological state may be quite secure.
Hi Virgil. Perhaps this will help make my point clearer. Let’s consider the question — why do we use words? Well, we use them to communicate. So let’s consider the words “apple” and “orange.” There’s no doubt that I have a “right” to define a word to mean anything I want — Humpty Dumpty pointed that out a long time ago to Alice. But if you want to communicate with people, it’s best to use the meaning that most people give the word. Therefore it’s best not to call the brightly colored tangy fruits that grow in Florida by the name everyone else calls the fruits that grown in the northwest or you are going to confuse people plus get the wrong kind of juice when you order breakfast — no matter what great reasons you may have otherwise for so doing.
In Art’s case, it was abundantly clear that he was using “Christian” in its received sense of having (at least in part) some doctrinal content. Anyone reading his post knew this. Art was in this sense using the word in a fashion very common to not only the man on the street but also all kinds of high priced theologians or scholars. All of the historic people I have mentioned on my posts would have assumed that if you said that a room contained 10 Christians, 3 Jews, and 1 Muslim, that you were not including Satanists, Atheists, Jews, Muslims, or Hindus among the 10 Christians — i.e. that you were using the word in a fashion that had refered at least in part to some minimal set of belief. Again, this is a seperate and distinct question from how those many diverse great historic Christians would have viewed the relation between baptism and salvation — they would have most certainly NOT agreed on that.
But they would have, like most ordinary people, used the word in a straightforward fashion (i.e. with reference in part to belief) and would not have reproved someone for so doing and told him he was being a Baptist.
Virgil says:
This belief appears to be what the liberals “reappraisers” also believe from what I have seen of their writings, statements and what i have heard firsthand. They believe that bacause of baptism no matter what they do or believe they are guaranteed their place in heaven. So, it is not sinful to lead a homosexual lifestyle, to reject Jesus as the son of God, to reject the Ressurection, to say Jesus is only one way to the Father, etc.
We have Jesus’ words, that, He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me. To ignore this and to continue to lead a lifestyle of doing evil actions and unbelief will lead to ultimate distruction unless there is repentance and a change in ways to again become a follower of Christ. Jesus told us the road would be difficult that the gate was narrow and the wide gate and road is easy but leads to destruction and many will take it.
However too many believe that the Bible is only a book of stories and not the Word of God so anything written therein can be taken or left as it fits your lifestyle
Again I believe that anyone , regardless if they have been baptized, who does not believe and follow the principle tenets of Christianity are not followers of Christ along the narrow way and therefore are not Christian.
#35 Art,
Really interesting and consistent with my experience. And I would extend this to say that they are so proud to have gone beyond the “myths of the Bible”, but engage in this “magical thinking” with regard to baptism, making it a magical ritual. I’ve been thinking something like this in reading about the changes in the practice of Eucharist.
#36. Deja Vu,
You make an excellent point. I, too, wonder how Borg and company can assign a contemporary political/social quality (their supposed new set of Christian core values) to the practice of Eucharist.
Wouldn’t their approach to “The Great Thanksgiving” be the height of hypocrisy by validating what they say they know is a religious practice based on myth? And wouldn’t such a practice be directed toward what they hold to be “a nondescript God?”
I suppose that Borg and crew would point to the Eucharist as being a communal act of the faith community, however that would be defined. Unfortunately, such an embracing of this ancient Christian rite would merely amount to the embracing of just another Christian myth, in direct opposition to the intellectual truth they (the reappraisers) have arrived at.
More simply put: Garbage In . . . Garbage Out!