A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Marcus Borg

  • “Physical” vs. “spiritual” resurrection?

    Liberal Christian icon Marcus Borg recently joined the blogosphere, and one of his first posts was an attempt to clarify his views on the resurrection of Jesus. Borg has been accused of denying the independent reality of the resurrection, reducing it to a subjective experience the disciples had after the crucifixion. But Borg maintains that Read more

  • Friday links

    –On Christianity, the Holocaust, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. –Recent posts on what’s apparently now being referred to as the “new universalism” from James K.A. Smith, Halden Doerge, and David Congdon. –Does having a monarchy lead to greater equality? –Redeeming the “L word.” –Appreciating both N.T. Wright’s and Marcus Borg’s views of the Resurrection. –Why liberals should Read more

  • A better hope

    In continuing to circle around the question of eschatology and look at it from different angles, I went back to Clark Williamson’s Way of Blessing, Way of Life. I wrote a short post on his eschatology here, but I thought it might be worth looking at it more in-depth. This is partly because I think Read more

  • Jesus and the end: what if he was “wrong”?

    In my post on Marcus Borg’s view of Jesus and eschatology, I asserted that if Jesus did expect an imminent supernatural in-breaking of some sort, then he was wrong, a conclusion that would disconcert many Christians. This might have been too categorical of a statement. In his book The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, Read more

  • Whose Jesus? Which eschatology?

    (With apologies to Alasdair MacIntyre.) I’m still reading Marcus Borg’s Jesus. In the scholarly arena, Borg is probably best known as a proponent of the “non-eschatological” or “non-apocalyptic” Jesus, and he addresses this controversy in chapter 9 of this book. In Jesus, Borg offers a refinement of terminology. Instead of “non-eschatological” or “non-apocalyptic,” he now Read more

  • Faith and factuality revisited

    When I was reading Marcus Borg’s Heart of Christianity, I expressed some dissatisfaction with his treatment of the Bible. I felt like he wasn’t clear enough about the relationship between the meaning of the text and the question of its historical truth. Recently I picked up Borg’s newer book on Jesus, and I’m happier with Read more

  • The thorn in the flesh and the “weakness gospel”

    I’m reading Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s book The First Paul, and it’s really good so far. I may have more to blog about the overall themes later, but for now I just wanted to note one interesting tidbit. There has been a lot of speculation about the “thorn in the flesh” that Paul Read more

  • Heart of Christianity 5 – Jesus

    Marcus Borg made his name as a scholar (and popularizer) of the “historical Jesus,” so it’s not surprising that his chapter on Jesus has some rich material. (His book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time is well worth reading, though hardly the last word on the topic.) One common way to talk about the Read more

  • Heart of Christianity 4 – God

    In chapter 4, “God: The Heart of Reality,” Borg continues his now tried-and-true approach of contrasting aspects of the earlier paradigm and the emerging paradigm. Here he discusses the nature and character of God. Borg calls the earlier paradigm’s concept of God supernatural theism. This concept identifies God as a transcendent, personal being who created Read more

  • Fact, metaphor, and the Bible: the case of the Resurrection

    “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.” – St. Paul I’m trying to get clear on the extent to which I disagree with Marcus Borg’s take on the “metaphorical” nature of the Bible, so I thought it might be useful to look at his treatment of the Resurrection of Jesus. Borg writes Read more