Marcus Borg on the Heart of Christianity: A New Vision
The shape of Christianity’s future is to be found in the theology surfacing today.
When I went to Lutheran seminary in the mid ’70’s I was shocked by how different theological perceptions were at seminary relative to those at the grass roots level. That difference could have been taken as an anomaly were it not for the fact that the same perceptions could be found in the Presbyterian and Catholic seminaries. What was the difference specifically? The de-literalization of scripture. It was based on the historical-critical method of biblical scholarship. It only took a few months studying Tillich, Bultmann, Jeremias and others to realize that grass roots theology was significantly out of sync with professional theology.
Interestingly enough those scriptural and theological sentiments I discovered in seminary in the ’70s are now old hat in the popular theological literature today read by the thousands of Christian seeker’s groups around the world. Apparently there is a few years lag between contemporary professional theology and that found in grass roots religion. Because of the age of information that lag has shrunk significantly.
I believe the same thing is happening now. I just finished reading Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity. Marcus Borg might be considered a “popularizer” of theology today. He presents theology in a way that is easily understood by the adherents in the pews and study groups. I would venture to say that he is one of the most popular theologians today being read by church study and seekers groups. If his contemporary theology found in this book also finds its way into public theology just as the ’70s theology did, in a few years Christianity may look very differently. If Borg’s theology is taken to heart, it will cast off the exclusionist elements in the religion and position Christianity as a great religious tradition, but only one among many viable religious alternatives.
Why is that? If there is one consistent theme throughout Borg’s book it is his emphasis on the metaphorical nature of scriptural assertions. Now this is not just concerning things like the creation story or supernatural claims. It is about core assertions that Christianity in the past has not been willing to metaphorize. What are some examples? The divinity of Jesus. The resurrection. Salvation schemes. Faith as belief. The end times and heaven.
Time after time Borg suggests these are to be taken as metaphors. He asserts the Bible is metaphor and sacrament. Jesus is metaphor and sacrament. Borg’s suggestion for a shift in understanding to metaphor should not, however, be viewed as a retreat from the truth of the Christian message. To the contrary. Here’s his understanding of metaphor:
As I use the word, “metaphor” is a large umbrella category. It has both a negative and positive meaning. Negatively, it means nonliteral. Positively, it means the more-than-literal meaning of language. Thus metaphorical meaning is not inferior to literal meaning, but is more than literal meaning.
In this regard, here’s what Borg says about Jesus:
Thus Jesus is a metaphor of God. Indeed, for us as Christians, he is the metaphor of God. Of course, he was also a real person. As metaphor of God, Jesus discloses what God is like. We see God through Jesus.
and
Jesus is also a sacrament of God, a means through whom the Spirit of God becomes present.
The question that naturally arises from this metaphorical view of religious sentiment is, but what about beliefs? Aren’t they crucial? To this Borg answers that there has been a distortion of the meaning of belief in modern religion.
But in the modern period, we have suffered an extraordinary reduction of the meaning of “believing”. We have reduced it and turned it into “propositional believing” — believing a particular set of statements or claims to be true. …. The premodern meanings of “faith” generate a relational understanding of the Christian life.
He recommends shifting the common emphasis on belief to relationship. For Borg, the heart of Christianity is relationship with God and “dying and rising” as a personal transformation.
It is not possible to deal in depth here with all the aspects of his message, but I consider it revolutionary for a prominent Christian theologian to offer this vision. In my opinion it is a wonderful vision. It is only one wonderful vision among others, but it does provide for the uniqueness of the Christian message while at the same time placing it squarely within a workable worldview for the third millennium.
How well will it be received? Hard to tell. It is so revolutionary, my guess is, it will be met with strong resistance. To many it will strip Christianity of its prominence as a religious framework. If Christian assertions are to be taken metaphorically this does not, in my view, demean the message at all. However, it could lead to more of an openness to recognize and affirm, if warranted, the metaphors found in other religions? As Borg puts it:
When Christianity is seen as one of the great religions of the world, as one of the classic forms of the primordial tradition, as a remarkable sacrement of the sacred, it has great credibility. But when Christianity claims to be the only true religion, it loses much of its credibility.
I believe we are in a period of distillation in religious sentiment. Those symbols and metaphors of Christianity (and other religions) that remain transparent to the divine life will distill out and find their place somewhere in the future mix of religious thought. I believe this is not only unavoidable but beneficial. It destroys the tendencies towards dogmatism and resurrects the importance of personal reflection and discernment.
I agree that there is a trend towards this kind of thinking among christian theologians and ministers today. I also agree that this will be met with resistance, but I’m not so certain that it will be met with overt strong resistance. This final excerpt
does not make me think that it is new or revolutionary (an assumption about the work based only on what is quoted here mind you) merely repackaged arguments and statements against or about christianity that have been around for almost as long as christianity itself.
Comment by carbon14atom —
Hi carbon,
I agree the arguments have been around for a long time. What is different now is that they are coming from inside the tradition, from mainstream theologians. I think that is a remarkable turn of events.
Comment by Steve Petermann —
Mmmm, I dunno, there are an awful lot of predictions in the new testament of the bible about this kind of thing, perhaps it is remarkable, just doesn’t seem so to me. However, all things considered, I do plan on aquiring Mr. Borgs book just so I don’t have to speak from ignorance about what he says, and just plain ol’ inquisitive nature
Comment by carbon14atom —
I like a lot of Borg’s ideas, but I have criticized him in my blog for not really going far enough. In some ways, I feel he is trying too hard to bridge the old and the new paradigms instead of just moving forward with the new paradigm. He is willing to recite creeds he doesn’t believe, for example, and his idea of intercessionary prayer conflicts with his professed panentheism. I am one of those people who just can’t recite a creed that I don’t believe–I would consider it intellectually dishonest. It is one thing to honor the myths of the Bible and understand that they are myths that aren’t literally true, but it is another thing altogether to make affirmations of doctrine that you don’t believe. That’s where I think that even Borg is in some ways stuck in the very paradigm that he says must be replaced, or at the very least he is trying to put new wine in old wineskins.
Comment by Mystical Seeker —
Hi Mystical Seeker,
Welcome! Great to have you here.
I agree with you about the creeds. One has to wonder if Borg’s framework will cause other people who embrace it to stop saying them. I think one can appreciate the wonderful sentiment in the Bible and Christian theology and view it as metaphor but would it still be honest to call oneself a Christian if things like the divinity of Jesus and the resurrection are considered metaphors? Because I do view them as metaphors (just like many things in other religions) I don’t call myself a Christian anymore. Only time will tell if other Christians come to that point as well.
I think we are in a remarkable transition period. Scholars like Borg and Spong are forging off in new directions while still trying to maintain some alignment with Christianity. I’m a bit confused about what Spong is up to. I’ve been critical about him not for pointing out the problems with Christianity, but for not offering a vision of his own. He seems to want a new reformation in Christianity but I don’t see anything definitive from him. His rejection of theism also confuses me unless it is a classical theism. Anyone know if he’s leaning towards a panentheism?
Will these new approaches be successful? Perhaps in the short term but in the long term I think Christianity and other world religions will bifurcate into the conservatives who hold to literality and others who will look at religion more broadly and perhaps adopt other frameworks. We in the West will see a much tougher struggle with this, while in the East many Hindu theists already accept the metaphorical nature of their religion and are very tolerant of other beliefs.
What I think Borg has done is offer a vision that may find an affinity with people who haven’t been all that happy with the supernatural slant in Christianity anyway. If this is the case it could be a good pragmatic solution (i.e. meet people’s needs in the modern world). However, I do think that many others will just opt out of Christianty entirely when the creeds and dogma just seem dishonest. Many of those will go to the UU churches because they still want to be religious and a part of a community. From my experience with UU these stays will be short because UU is too open. Many UU churches just don’t have enough of a common religious strain to form the kind of community people found when there was some semblance of “dogma”. What I am trying to say is that I think we are in a period of great transition where a plurality of perspectives (traditional religion, metaphorical Christianity, UU, and new frameworks) will be in the mix.
I’m not familiar with his stance on intercessary prayer. Could you summarize it and how it conflicts with his panentheism?
[Update] I found your blog. Looks very interesting. I’ll be reading your posts. Looks like we are addressing similar issues. Look forward to a dialog.
Comment by Steve Petermann —
Hi Steve,
I agree with pretty much everything you said in your comment–about the divisions in Christianity and where Borg fits into this.
“However, I do think that many others will just opt out of Christianty entirely when the creeds and dogma just seem dishonest. Many of those will go to the UU churches because they still want to be religious and a part of a community. From my experience with UU these stays will be short because UU is too open.”
This is really my problem. I can’t accept the creeds and dogma that mainline Christian denominations, including the liberal ones, still cling to. I can’t recite a creed that I don’t believe. On the other hand, I find UU churches too open. In fact, I attended a UU service last week and, while there was nothing there that offended me, and it had some positive points, it somehow lacked the spiritual quality I am seeking. It was a spiritual snack, but not a meal.
I would like to believe that we are indeed in a period of transition. Maybe then I’ll find the kind of religious community that I seek. I would like to believe that Borg and Spong are pointing the way to something new, even if they are not going to make it to the promised land themselves.
As for Spong in particular, that is a good question about whether he leans towards panentheism or not. I haven’t read all of his books. For some reason, I was assuming that he was leaning towards panentheism, but now I’m not sure and maybe I’m confusing him with Borg, who has explicitly said that he is a panentheist (so does Matthew Fox). Since I define myself as a panentheist, I found Borg’s ideas interesting. His comments about intercessionary prayer thus seemed out of place to me and a relic of a different kind of spirituality (I talk about that in one of my blog entries).
Thanks for responding to my comment. It sounds like we are interested in some of the same questions on this subject.
Comment by Mystical Seeker —
Mystical Seeker,
I agree this sounds inconsistent. I tend to agree with you that Borg is still stuck in an old paradigm. As to the subject of prayer, I still pray both for myself and others. And I also think it works. However, I have different view of why and how prayer works. In my view a panentheistic approach makes the notion of intervention mute. However, I do believe that because there are several varieties of panentheism it is a bit more complex. I’ve been working on a post on panentheism in which I’ll address some of this.
However, in short I frame my view of panentheism within an organic model of “the divine life”. In this view the divine life is a communion of all things. As such no event, no thought, no action, (including prayer), etc. is disconnected from the communion. Since the communion is part of God any prayer effects God and the communion as well. As such I view a prayer as on offering up to the communion the inclination of my essence. Just as in ecosystems each element effects the other, I believe that prayer can have the same effect.
However, there is a caveat. I also believe that the communion is grounded in God’s faithfulness to a certain mix of order and novelty. The faithfullness of God to maintain this mix means that a thoroughgoing obversion is ruled out. In other words I reject the common sense notion of “miracles” as an intervention. Instead my view is that within the mix of order and novelty there are “windows of opportunity” within which this faithfulness is maintained but also quite remarkable things can happen. As these occur they may seem very miraculous but they really occur “naturally”, in the sense that order is not “violated” outside of God’s “plan” for life. I realize this a subtle argument and I hope to flesh it out more in future posts. However, I do believe that certain types of prayer are an essential part of theism where God is a personal God and should not be abandoned prematurely.
Comment by Steve Petermann —
moot mute
Out of curiosity…
If one is inclined to forsake the core belief or faith in the divinity of Christ, the Holy Trinity, the resurrection, salvation, et al., why is one still couching their theology in a christian (clearly little ‘c’ required when divinity is no longer adhered to) framework?
If you’ve cast off the “problems” of the religion itself by casting them as metaphor and are now arguing for a universal God, christian schema would seem to have no standing in that sense, at least no more than any other religion.
Why continue to frame things in the Christian tradition when it no longer applies to such thinking?
What, exactly, is the point of being christian without believing in the Christian tradition? Is one still compelled to live distinctly from the world, strive towards a Christ-like life and a giving heart? Is one still compelled to act with grace towards others, as we have been given?
Lastly, does anyone approach such thinking with a solid grounding in the Bible, in its teachings, from cover to cover? The only people I know advocating such thought are absolutely not well versed in it and are the least likely prepared to mount any kind of Biblical (or otherwise) based defense of Christian doctrine (myself included). Or is a key tenant of this argument to first dismantle the Bible so any such defense is merit-less in the counter-party’s POV?
This line of thinking seems like the epitome of conforming God to our idea of Him rather than belief in Him despite our own lack of understanding. Seems like the cart may be before the horse…
Comment by Skeptic of Skeptics —
Hi Skeptic of Skeptics,
Great questions.
I think your concerns are valid. In my view, the question is “what does it mean to be a Christian”. Does it mean propositional belief in something or living a certain way? Borg recommends a shift from the paradigm of propositional belief to relationship. But that begs the question of what that relationship would look like. Clearly a relationship is based on some propositional sense of the way things are. Borg’s answer is to view the Christian message as a metaphor for “dying and rising” as a personal transformation. That can be a powerful message but is it enough to keep the capital “C” in the religion? I don’t know. However, as far as I’m aware, it is a unique metaphor in world religions but then each religion has its own take on what is foremost in its message.
I think what has driven scholars like Borg (BTW, Borg is an accomplished biblical scholar. He was part of the Jesus Seminar) is that as scholars did their in depth biblical criticism they found it harder and harder to accept a literal interpretation of the texts. I myself ran into the same issue as I studied scripture in the historical-critical mode when in seminary. The deeper one goes into an in depth historical and linguistic examination of the Bible, the more and more it appears to contain what they are called, testaments, by very human beings who have their own worldviews, traditions, and biases. If it is the case that the Bible is not some sort of holy transcription, then the question becomes, is there something truly revelatory in its testaments. I would say unequivocally, yes. But I would also say the same thing about other scripture and even first person testimony throughout history. The challenge becomes how to winnow out the true revelatory message. To me this is a personal challenge to tap into one’s own religious sensibility informed by everything one can draw from. Now this does not necessarily mean a complete “roll you own” approach but it does mean approaching the traditions with a critical eye. This can be either a scary or liberating challenge or even both. But given the religious pluralism that we find ubiquitous in the world, I see no other alternative at least for those who feel the need to critically seek the truth. For most people all this is irrelevant and I have no problem with that as long as they find some sense of fulfillment in life and promote the general welfare of others and the world.
So the question becomes, even if the unique divinity of Jesus is questioned, is there something about the testaments of Christianity that compel one to passionately identify with its message?
Comment by Steve Petermann —
I suppose I don’t understand why one can’t live in relationship with Christ and maintain propositional belief? Or is it that Borg is trying to establish that it is possible to live in relationship while not holding to that belief? But, perhaps more importantly, on what basis is relationship required if divinity is not presumed?
The answer to your final question would seem to be a question itself. What is the core message of Christianity? I would posit that it is living in grace, given yet undeserved. However, if one dismisses the divinity of Christ, from where does grace come? Is that where the metaphor arises?
I guess I would also wonder what the end game is. If all is metaphor and there is no true north, no way for one to establish our bearings, no common belief and bond, then wouldn’t the Christian faith run into the very problem mentioned above where there is a lack of engaging ‘community’ in the UU churches? Stripping away central notions would seem to have that effect.
I understand grappling with conflicting info from the Bible as well as critical historical and literary analyses of it. However, in the end, isn’t this just another form of disbelief? Faith as I understand it is never something proven, but rather chosen, even in the face of not understanding it and having open questions about it.
Comment by Skeptic of Skeptics —
Borg is not against propositional belief, per se. After all, he offers propositions in all his work. However, at some point, probably after the enlightenment, propositional belief became the center piece of Christianity. For most Christian denominations belief in certain propositions became the determining factor whether one was saved or not. Now as I said, some sort of propositional belief about the nature of reality must be in place in order to form any position including religious sentiment. The question is what propositions are the core basis for a religious position?
I think Borg would say that the relationship he is talking about is not one with Jesus, per se, but with God. Jesus as a historical figure and his narrative offer a revelatory picture of our relationship to God.
I guess I don’t understand how the divinity of Jesus is essential to the message of God’s grace. I suppose it could be stemming from the roots of Christianity in the Jewish emphasis on justice, i.e. we are guilty, the debit must be paid, and God graciously and unconditionally pays the debit through the death of his divine son. If this is the dynamic then I suppose it presumes some sort of balance sheet where our guilt is so great that in order to balance the scales the divine value must offset it. While justice is an important concept, to me this presents a distorted picture of God as an accountant tallying things up. I just don’t think that God is involved in such tedium.
After Bultmann claimed that the narratives in the Bible where metaphor, there was a common sense about these narratives that “it’s only a metaphor” suggesting that there was no truth value in them or that it was diminished. Tillich and others, including Borg, rejected that understanding saying that metaphor didn’t mean “no truth” but rather that the truth was at a deeper and more profound level than the specific details of the narrative. Of course this makes it a challenge to tease out the deeper truth in these narratives but for those who can’t accept the literal interpretations the only way to “save the message” is to look for a deeper meaning. I personally find this strategy problematic but I guess many feel it necessary to save the religion. Having said that, when one looks at many of the classical religions worldwide the adoption of metaphorical interpretations becomes necessary to “save the religion” for our current “modern mind”.
This raises an interesting issue. When faced with scriptures that are claimed to be revelatory how does one determine what to believe in? After all there are many scriptures that claim to be revelatory about ultimate reality. The Hindu Vedas are called śruti, not from human agency but rather “what is heard”. Other religious systems besides Christianity have elements like incarnation, virgin birth, the death of God, etc. Is faith in one or the other of these religious systems just arbitrary or is there some critical criterion that should be employed? If so, what would that criterion be?
Comment by Steve Petermann —