The God We Never Knew
Aug. 1st, 2004 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayreI said a while ago that I'd share my notes on The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg. I've been skimming through Methodist theology, looking for an appropriate book for my group of rebels, but now I'm waiting for my Amazon order... so I finally have time for Borg.
So far my responses consist almost entirely of "Yes!" so this is just notes and quotes from the book.
Preface
Borg describes himself as a “Jesus scholar” (vii) but “... found it impossible to say very much about Jesus without also talking about God.” Also describes himself as “a Christian of a nonliteralistic and nonexclusivistic kind.” (viii)
Introduction
Terms God, the sacred, and Spirit will be used interchangeably (1).
Borg’s childhood understanding of God was of “a supernatural being ‘out there’ who created the world a long time ago and had occasionally intervened in the aeons since, especially in the events recorded in the Bible. (1) Even when he became an unbeliever, this was the God in whom he did not believe (2). This view was the “popular-level Christianity” of a previous generation: “doctrinal, moralistic, literalistic, exclusivistic, and oriented towards an afterlife.... Christianity was about believing in central Christian teachings now for the sake of heaven later.” (2) This understanding of God is no longer satisfactory to many, but mainline churches have not clearly taught a new understanding. “In many mainline churches... there is a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach to the question of God.” (3).
“Our concept of God can make God seem real or unreal, just as it can also make God seem remote or near.” (4)
Changing worldviews have made the traditional understanding of Christianity inadequate. “Some of us resist the impact of the modern worldview by becoming fundamentalists, insisting on the truthfulness of premodern Christian ways of seeing things in spite of their conflicts with modern knowledge.” (6) Others move toward what is essentially a modern version of Deism. (7). Others simply stop thinking much about God; “God becomes largely irrelevant. The notion of God in fact plays no major role in their lives, although they may agree in opinion polls that ‘God exists.’” (7)
So far my responses consist almost entirely of "Yes!" so this is just notes and quotes from the book.
Preface
Borg describes himself as a “Jesus scholar” (vii) but “... found it impossible to say very much about Jesus without also talking about God.” Also describes himself as “a Christian of a nonliteralistic and nonexclusivistic kind.” (viii)
Introduction
Terms God, the sacred, and Spirit will be used interchangeably (1).
Borg’s childhood understanding of God was of “a supernatural being ‘out there’ who created the world a long time ago and had occasionally intervened in the aeons since, especially in the events recorded in the Bible. (1) Even when he became an unbeliever, this was the God in whom he did not believe (2). This view was the “popular-level Christianity” of a previous generation: “doctrinal, moralistic, literalistic, exclusivistic, and oriented towards an afterlife.... Christianity was about believing in central Christian teachings now for the sake of heaven later.” (2) This understanding of God is no longer satisfactory to many, but mainline churches have not clearly taught a new understanding. “In many mainline churches... there is a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach to the question of God.” (3).
“Our concept of God can make God seem real or unreal, just as it can also make God seem remote or near.” (4)
Changing worldviews have made the traditional understanding of Christianity inadequate. “Some of us resist the impact of the modern worldview by becoming fundamentalists, insisting on the truthfulness of premodern Christian ways of seeing things in spite of their conflicts with modern knowledge.” (6) Others move toward what is essentially a modern version of Deism. (7). Others simply stop thinking much about God; “God becomes largely irrelevant. The notion of God in fact plays no major role in their lives, although they may agree in opinion polls that ‘God exists.’” (7)
