I only just discovered Marcus Borg.
He’s a “progressive Christian,” I suppose. A liberal theologian, though that meant something different 30 years ago (when he was most active) than it does today.
But I’m not drawn to his teaching because of that label. I didn’t know who he was until I saw this video. What attracts me is his honest—with himself, his audience, fellow believers.
What is God? How does our conception of God affect the way we live? What about our conception of God is rooted in Scripture vs. products of our own imaginations? And how much does that matter?
Here’s a good quote:
The way of Jesus is thus not a set of beliefs about Jesus. That people ever thought it was is strange, when we think about it — as if one entered new life by believing certain things to be true, or as if the only people who can be saved are those who know the word “Jesus”. Thinking that way virtually amounts to salvation by syllables.
Marcus Borg
Rather, the way of Jesus is the way of death and resurrection — the path of transition and transformation from an old way of being to a new way of being. To use the language of incarnation that is so central to John, Jesus incarnates the way. Incarnation means embodiment. Jesus is what the way embodied in a human life looks like.
