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Protagonist Corner
Frederick w. Schmidt Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Evanston, Illinois
Long before we became good friends, I was introduced to Marcus Borg’s work as a student at Oxford University. 1 was beginning my own work on a degree in New Testament studies (which 1 completed in 1986), and 1 was working with George Bradford Caird. Caird held the Dean Ireland’s Chair at The Queen’s College, and he had established himself as one of the leading voices in New Testament studies in the tradition of C.H. Dodd.’ As I began working on the relationship between eschatology and ethics, Caird told me that I should consult the work of a former student, Marcus j. Borg. Borg, he noted, had written a brilliant thesis, and he thought that I would benefit from spending some time with it. This was long before Mellen Press published Marc’s dissertation* and years before he dominated conversations about the historical Jesus.* That was 1980. Borg became the Hundcre Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University in 1979. Ue published his dissertation in 1984, and Caird died in April of the same year, unaware ()’؛the impact that his distinguished student would one day have on the landscape of historical Jesus studies and beyond. Today,Marcus is oneofthe most influential New Testamentscholarsofhis generation , and with good reason. Ue possesses the critical tools to analyze the challenges associated with reading the biblical text. Ue has developed a compelling narrative describing the ministry of Jesus. And he communicates the results of his scholarship in a fashion that engages a circle of readers far beyond the biblical studies guild. Those gifts alone could account for his influence. But his ability to address our culture’s discomfort with the biblical message and foe Christian faith has been foe key to his success. Ue is masterful in naming that discomfort. Ue is adept at prescribing an alternative, and he is generous to his detractors in public discourse. It is not surprising, then, that those who are drawn to Marc’s work credit him with having developed an approach to foe “progressive” Christian message that gives them confidence in its continued viability.* Nor is it surprising that preachers, pastors, and priests rely on his work to frame their own case for foe Gospel’s relevance.5 Indeed, many of Borg’s most widely read works consciously invite that conversation, particularly Meeting Jesus Againfor the First Time,6 The God We Never Knew,1 Reading the Bible Againfor the First Time? The Heart of Christianity,9 Living the Heart /٠ Christianity,10 and foe blog that he writes in retirement at Patheos.com.11 As such, Marc’s work is that of an “accidental” apologist. I say “accidental” because to my knowledge he has never used foe label to describe his work, and I suspect that he would resist its use. But his gifts are, nonetheless, those of an apologist . His work has an apologetic cast, and his readers see and use his work in that fashion. For preachers in particular, it is also worth thinking about Marc’s conclusions through the lens of apologetics, ft allows us to make foundational observations that get at foe logic and focus of his scholarship as weft as the likely impact of his work on foe preacher’s craft.
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The Rhetoric ofBorg’s Apologetic Looked at in that light, the first thing one notiees in Marc’s work is the shift in the logicofhis argumentas compared with earlier generationsof apologists.Historically, an apologist typically sees his or her task as that of explaining the Gospel in ways that indicate the church’s faith in terms that are omprehensible to the contemporary culture. For that reason, even though apologetic methods can vary greatly, historically apologists have begun by presuming the truth ofthe Christian message and some sort of deficiency in assumptions made by those who would doubt its truth.12 By contrast, Marc assumes that some sort of deficiency in the Christian faith exists that is underlined by the changes in modern intellectual paradigms. He offers an alternative means of construing the Christian faith, and then he offers that construal as a means of continuing to live with integrity as a Christian in the modern world.1 ؟ Every apologist defends a slightly different version of Christianity, of course, and speaks to different audiences.14 But in Marc’s case, the apologetic begins not with the legitimacy ofthe Christian faith as he sees it, but with what is cast as the dominant and defective views of his fidam entalist past. In Meeting Jesus Againfor the First Time, that past is the Jesus of “pre-critical naiveté” that Marc’s childhood church taught him to embrace.15 In The God We Never Knew, it is the faith of his childhood: “doctrinal, moralistic, literalistic, exclusivistic, and oriented toward an afterlife.”16 In The HeartofChristianity, it is “an eariier paradigm” ofthe Christian faith,^ “grounded in divine authority” and dependent upon a view ofthe Bible as “a divine product,”1® that adheres to a view of the Christian faith in which “believing” and “the afterlife” are central, and this life is all about “requirements and rewards.’’^ There is nothing sacrosanct about the older pattern used by apologists, and one could argue that there is a certain genius in a rhetorical ploy that acknowledges the flaws in some forms of Christianity. Marc’s approach exhibits humility that tracks well in the contemporary world. He wins and galvanizes progressive Christians by sketching a picture of the faith from which they already feel alienated. And by citing what he found problematic in his own experience of the church, Marc connects easily with readers who had a similar evidence. But the way in which he deploys this rhetorical gambit also has weaknesses that the preacher who follows his lead should note.
One: Marc relies heavily on stereotyping of a Christian perspective that, where it exists, is historically representative ofa small minority. I’ve known some ofthe Christians that Marc uses as a foil for his apologetic, but it is hardly fair to suggest that foe kind of thinking he outlines dominated the church until Frogressive Christianity came along. The Christian tradition is a global, wideranging , and complex phenomenon covering more than two millennia. Frotestant fundamentalism is both a relatively recent and relatively small part ofthat story, even if it looms large in some parts of the United States.20 As such, foe polemic Marc uses paints foe whole ofthe Christian tradition from a narrowly eccentric point of view that might be Marc’s experience and might be the experience of a number of Americans, but it hardly represents foe history of the Christian tradition, and it doesn’t accurately represent foe Christian faith. So, while the rhetorical ploy that Marc uses resonates with many of his readers, it also reinforces and projects a picture ofthe Christian tradition that distorts the tradition and
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reduces it tc an eccentric interpretation that makes an apcicgy for the Christian faith that much harrier to offer.
Two: The logic of Marc’s argument also overplays (he originality of Progressive Christianity. If American ” is a relatively new and small part of Christian history , ?regressive Christianity is an even smaller part ofthat history.^’ So, when Marc begins to classify Christian belief in terms of “earlier” (i.e., fundamentalist views) versus “newer” (i.e., ?regressive views), the complexity of Christianity is lost in the simple polarities around which much of his work revolves. The historical possibilities disappear from sight, and the subtlety of two millennia of Christian thought is reduced to two fairly simple alternatives. At best the resulting picture is narrowly reductionist .:(؛At worst it is a misleading caricature. In either case, the alternative on offer does the Christian tradition as much harm as good,leaving readers the thinnest ofinterpretations,lacking in historical depth and the sophistication that the history of the church offers. There has been some fine work done by ?regressive Christians, Marc’s work among them. But, contrary to the claims by the movement, Christianity has hardly found its first, intellectually honest expression in its ?regressive form. Far from being opposed to critical and scientific thought (as Marc and other ?regressives seem to imply), Christianity made the Enlightenment possible.^ So while the church’s record is far from pristine, it can hardly be argued that it has been uniformly resistant to the intellectual values that have shaped western history. Nor can it be argued that Christianity has, at long last, only recently embraced critical thought in its ?regressive and Protestant manifestation. From the preacher’s point of view, this is anything but a purely academic or historical issue. When trying to articulate the Christian faith ٢٠provide a reason for embracing it, that task is made harder by stereotyping the past ٢٠by narrowing the rich tradition from which one might draw. To be sure, the church’s history is marked by shortcomings, as is any great tradition, be it religious, political, social, economic, ٢٠philosophical. But the rhetorical gambit that Marc uses paints the whole of the tradition using its weakest examples while making the assumption that the tradition has little ٢٠nothing to offer apart from its own fairly recent contribution.
Three: The weight ofthe apologetic ultimately advocatesfor modernity, notfor the Christianfaith. When one recognizes this shift to a hermeneutic of suspicion toward the Christian message, it becomes clear that the weight of Marc’s apologetic defends modernity, not the Cospel. If the “earlier” way of thinking about the Christian faith was flat, simplistic, reactionaty, and easily dismissed with a few pages of caricature, then the one intellectual commitment that escapes suspicion and occupies the critic’s seat is modernity itself, ٢٠at least, a loose assemblage of what it means to be thoughtful and modem. From there Marc assesses the old way of thinking about the Christian faith, identifies its obvious flaws, and then offers a re-constmal of Christianity that conforms with modernity’s values.^ This shift in gravity ought to give preachers who take their vocation seriously some pause for thought, ?astors, priests, and ministers are called to radical honesty,
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and they should defend an understanding of the Christian faith that aeknowledges the truth, whatever it is and wherever it is found. But granted that a preaeher has also made a commitment to the Gospel, why would she then embrace a theological position that privileges modernity instead of the Gospel? ?reachers should also note that Marc’s apologetic fails to ask how the Christian traditionmigh^ritique modernity. Instead, it emphasizes how the Christian faith might accommodate itself to the modem mindset. In trying too hard to make “* acceptable to modernity, we are as far from the ancient approach to apologetics as we can possibly be. The hallmark of the church’s apologetic has been its ability to allow the Gospel to draw the world in which we live into question. Marc’s approach takes the validity of our culture’s worldview as a given. The Christian tradition’s ability to speak in a relevant fashion to the challenges that face every new generation is one of its great strengths. But the Christian faith also urges us to listen to the transcendent challenge of God. The key to a vital, contemporary Christian faith does not lie in simply taking into account what we have learned from scientific inquiry, for example. It also requires that we let God speak to us in ways that challenge the underlying assumptions of our “modem mindset.” The best of Christian critiques of any culture have always come when the church did its best to stand outside of and alongside of the culture in question.** There really isn’t room for that deeper critique in Marc’s gambit, and it is largely missing from what he writes *s
The Underlying Assumptions of Borg’s Apologetic Rhetoric is not the only dimension of Marc’s work that is worth evaluating. The underlying assumptions of his work merit scrutiny as well. Three closely related assumptions are worth mentioning here, and George Caird’s influence is in clear evidence.
One: the primacy ofthe political Like Caird, Marc helpfully observes that much of what Jesus taught and said had a political dimension, political, that is, because so much of what Jesus said had implications not just for the individual, but for the life of the people of God.* ؛That distinction helps explain why Jesus’ message has such obvious corporate and social significance.Italso illuminates the differences thatJesus had with his contemporaries.27 But the emphasis Marc places on the political can be misleading in interpreting the significance of Jesus’ teaching for the contemporary reader. To be sure, the corporate language in Jesus’ teaching takes the leading edge in the Gospels, but as with the prophets, the social does not exclude the individual ٢٠ transcendent. Nor do we live in the political environment in which either Jesus or the early church found themselves living. We do not live in a theocracy. Jesus did, or at the very least, he lived in a nation that was meant to be a theocracy. To make matters more complicated, the Romans had also robbed Israel of its autonomy in significant ways. The situation ofthe church was very different from ours as well. The early church was first a sect within a sect, then a sect in its own right, and finally an institution.28 But at no point on that journey did the church live in the same relationship to the body politic that we live in today. The church could not and did not vote or exercise
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political influence; and it is elearfrom most of the New Testament that just as ancient Israel had thought of itself as one in the same with the peopie of God, the church also thought of itself in those terms. So, to talk about politics in contemporary America is not the same thing as the conversation between Jesus and his contemporaries, nor does the application ofjesus’ teaching to our political setting accomplish the goals that Jesus or his contemporaries envisioned. It is not at all clear that the church’s exercise of influence over national and global affairs comes at all close to accomplishing the task set for the church ٢٠ the followers of Jesus by any part of the New Testament. That fact alone should give preachers pause in giving themselves to a proclamation fixed on the politics of our day that lacks a transcendent and divine word to the church. Ministers, priests, and preachers should also take note of the way in which, having acknowledged the political dimension of the Gospel for much of ?regressive Christianity, the Gospel has become merely political مو
Two: The metaphorical nature ofeschatological language There is perhaps no single k؛ud of theological language that has generated more confusion than eschatological language. George Caird distinguished himself as an advocate of a nuanced approach to its interpretation, observing that it was often used metaphorically; that is, eschatological language is language used to describe the consequences of decisions made about an event that is not the end?،؛ This observation was so important to Caird’s work that it was often difficult to know what role “the end” actually played in the biblical text. In a private conversation , I once asked George if all eschatological language was metaphorical, then what did the language of Daniel 12:1-2 describe? He responded in what seemed to be a bit of special pleading, “Sometimes the ultimate referent becomes so real, it leaps to the forefront.”31 In Marc’scase, there is less ambiguity. Reacting to dispensationalism and popular, flat-footed readings of eschatological language, Marc makes it clear that he believes that eschatological language is “more-than-literal” in nature.^ Touching the question of an “afterlife,” he is, by his own testimony, “agnostic.”33 He is fairly sure that the tomb was not empty, and the resurrection means that Jesus is still experienced in the world today as Tord, recruiting for the Kingdom?* I share Marc’s discomfort with the bald and “unbiblical” appropriation ofeschatological language that dominates the work of John Nelson Darby, Hal Lindsey, Tim TaHaye, and others? ؛And there is certainly good reason for a measure of what Marc describes as “agnosticism” about the specifics of the Resurrection and “the afterlife.” In fact, I would argue that the term “afterlife” is itself an unfortunate turn of phrase, and it biases the conversation about the place of eschatology in the Christian (aith. The New Testament describes eternal life as both present and future possession (see John’s Gospel), ft emphasizes the continuity of both the old and new heaven and earth (see the Hook of Revelation), and both dimensions of the eschatological future depend upon the vindication of the claim that Jesus Christ is Tord. The notion of an “afterlife” as a realm of existence that is unrelated to this world except as reward ٢٠ punishment is threaded through with connotations that have little ٢٠nothing to do with Christian expectation. But, contrary to Marc’s blithe acceptance that the tomb was probably not empty,
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the writers of the New Testament elearly believe that it was. They plainly anticipate a bodily resnrreetion. They look forward to a new heaven and new earth that shares some measure of eontinuity with eurrent versions of both. And in more than one plaee, the New Testament is emphatic about the importanee of it all.36 There is, then, more to esehatologieal expeetation in both Seripture and the Christian tradition than what Mare describes as the “’literal-faetual”’ preaehments of evangelists who long to scare the hell out ٢٠others.^ The resurrection is, in faet, all about God’s elaim to be God, and without it, we are without hope.3؟
The primacy offaith as heartfelt devotion over the content offaith More recently, a third assumption that has surfaced in Marc’s work gives precedence to the primacy of faith as heartfelt devotion and commitment over belief in the content of the Christian faith.3 ؟This is a distinction he further bolsters by distinguishing “assent” (meaning, I give my heart to this) from a “propositional belief’ that he charactering as inevitable belief in a set of “literal-factual” truths.*؛ At first blush this emphasis avoids the dogmatism of fundamentalism, and theologically it underwrites interfaith tolerance, a point that Marc is repeatedly at pains to make.4′ However, while there is some support for Marc’s argument in the Old and New Testament, the evidence he adduces to make his point is misleading. It is true that much ٢٠the Hebrew and Greek vocabulary behind our use of the words faith and believe connotes the act ٢٠trust ٢٠a disposition of heartfelt commitment. But both Testaments talk about that act of trust against a religious background that ‘ the importance of God’s identity. Judaism and Christianity are exclusivistic religions that define their God as distinct from the gods of other religions, and that God is repeatedly defined not just in what might be described as metaphorical, ethical, and historical categories, but in the dogmatic categories that Borg implies are secondary, if not unnecessary رأ Additionally, what Marc suggests is psychologically and spiritually impossible if one is going to talk at all about a relationship with God. No one in their right mind would assent to an intimate relationship with someone who said, “I love you, but I don’t know who you are and it doesn’t matter.” This may require a more creative approach to religious tolerance and diversity. The essence of both spiritual and intellectual maturity is the ability to embrace specific convictions in the face of unanswered questions and differences of opinion. To acknowledge the particularity of our faith is also fundamentally more honest about the character of Ghristianity and about the religious convictions of others.
Borg, the Progressive Apologetic, and Today’s Pulpit That a preacher’s careful assessment ofMarc’s work might raise questions about an uncritical embrace of ?regressive Christianity should be no surprise.*3 The problems with that apologetic help to explain why ?regressive Christianity has struggled to capture the hearts and minds of those who are spiritual but not religious and why it largely remains a movement dominated by the Boomer Generation.44 An approach to the Christian faith that lionizes modernity’s conceits and reduces the Christian faith to a series of metaphors describing a largely political undertaking is finally without a good reason for religion, never mind God. All Christians should suffer afrisson of warning whenever their faith commitments make them more comfortable with
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themselves and the world around them. ?erhaps that is why ?rogressive Christianity contrasts with earlier reform movements in the church in a fashion that is analogous to foe contrast between Marc’s apologetic and his predecessors. If Marc’s approach stands foe Christian apologetic on its head, accommodating foe Christian faith to modernity, it ought not be surprising that Progressive Christianity does not seek to renew a martyr’s commitment to foe Christian faith (as did early monasticism ٢٠foe leaders of foe Reformation), but seeks instead to make its adherents comfortable with modernityرﺀ Por today’s preacher, that is good reason for a critical reappraisal of the Progrèssive agenda. Built as it is on foe rhetoric of false polarities and misleading assumptions about the nature of foe Christian faith, there is good reason to be circumspect. Appropriated without thinking foe modem preacher is more likely to find herself defending a loose constellation of modem conceits than anything robust enough to be described as foe Word of Cod. Whatever one might do with foe modern pulpit, one hopes that foe preacher who stands there would offer more.
A Concuding Note I have no doubt that my dear friend is not attempting to subvert foe preacher ٢٠ betray foe church. Far from it, I know him to be a conscientious and caring scholar and Christian who also feels that he has followed the inevitable logic of the evidence available to him. So, why do I question so much that is at foe heart ofhis work? Marc once observed during an on-line debate with blogger and scholar Tony Jones that perhaps foe problem that the two of them faced in their debate is that they are both enmeshed in materialist assumptions about foe world around them.* ؛That, I believe, is not only true, but it is, in foe final analysis, the problem with Marc’s apologetic for modernity. As long as we believe even subconsciously that foe “most real” thing about reality ٢٠the truth that must be acknowledged is that which can be felt, smelled, touched, seen, or measured, and as long as we refuse to see foe material dimension of our lives as foe creation of foe Triune God, we will never win through to a distinctively Christian understanding of the world around us. We will always resort to cartoonlike visions of Cod (á la fundamentalism) or take refuge in Marc’s notion that foe “newer” trufo is “more-than-literal,” a phrase that takes its cues ffom materialism itself and grafts on foe spiritual. And, as long as we erase most of the Christian past by creating a stark choice between modem fundamentalism and Progressivism and lumping all pre-twentieth century Christianity in with fundamentalism, we will lack foe theological resources to find a distinctively Christian perspective on our world and our lives The choice between foe strawman of wooden fundamentalism and foe shining savior of Progressive Christianity is a false one, and the far richer alternatives are excluded ftom foe debate. While, for example, it has not always been at foe vanguard of modem learning, foe Eastern Orthodox tradition has also not suffered through foe same tension with modern learning, in part because it does not embrace foe same materialist assumptions. Without resorting to panentheism ٢٠process theology, foe Orthodox believe that the Triune God brought foe world into being and sustains it. As such, there is no absolute divide between foe material world and foe spiritual. Both are, instead, foe domain in which Cod lives and moves and has being.*’ That, it seems
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to me, is a far better starting point for both a Christian world¥؛ew and apologetic.
Notes لSee: Henry Chadwiek, “George Bradford Caird 1917-1984,” The Gory of Christ in the New Testament , Studies in Christology, eds., L.D. Hurst and NT. Wright (Eugene: Wipf & Stock ?ublishers, 1987),xvii־xxvii. 2 Marcus Borg, Conflict, Holiness & Politics in the Teachings ofJesus (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1984). 3 Marc has written or co-authored nineteen books. He has edited or co-edited three others and his work has been translated into eleven languages. Meeting Jesus Againfor the First Time (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco , 1994) is foe best-selling book written about Jesus by a contemporary New Testament scholar. See: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/about/. 4 As one reader of Marc’s column observes, “The way you explain things, Marcus, makes it so much easier for me to be an honest follower of Christ.” Marc’s audience often expresses sentiments of this kind. See, for example, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/2013/ll/what-is-the-gospel/. 5 In a poll surveying foe most influential voices among foe clergy in The United Church of Canada, Marcus Borg was number one. See: http://www.ucobserver.org/faith/2011/07/theologians/ 6 See above, endnote 3. 7 Marcus j. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997). 8 Marcus j. Borg, Reading the Bible Againfor the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002). 9 Marcus j. Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life ofFaith (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco , 2003). 10 Marcus j. Borg and Um Scorer, Living the Heart ofChristianity: A Guide to Putting Your Faith into Action (San Francisco: Hamer One, 2006). 11 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/ 12 Given the purpose of this article, I do not wade into foe debate about how apologetic works should be classified, although 1 am largely in agreement with those who believe that they should be classified more according to their purpose than their genre. On that subject, see: Anders-Christian Jacobsen, “Apologetics and Apologies—Some Definitions,” in Continuity and Discontinuity in Early Christian Apologetics, eds., Jörg Ulricfo Ander^Christian Jacobsen, Maijastina Kahlos, Early Christianity in the Context ofAntiquity 5 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2009), 5-22. 1^ See below. 14 That has been true from foe beginning. See: F.F. Bruce, “Paul’s Apologetic and foe Purpose of Acts,” Bulletin ofthe John Rylands University Library, 89:2 (1987): 389-90. 15 Meeting Jesus Again, 3ff. 16 The God We Never Knew, Iff. 17 Heart ofChristianity, xif. IS Ibid.,7. 9 Ibid., 10. 20 David Bentley Hart, The Experience ofGod: Being, Consciousness, Bliss (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 23ff. 21 There is no useful history of what is now described as Progressive Christianity, ft is an amalgamation of Bultmann’s emphasis on demythologizing Scripture, Process Theology, and classical American liberalism. As some describe it, it is post-liberal and post-modern in its inspiration. See: Roger Wolsey, Kissing Fish, Christianity for People Who Don’t Like Christianity (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2011). As named, its current architects are largely American Baby Boomers whose efforts to define their movement is scarcely fifty years old: (http://www_.patheos.com//Resources/Additional-Resources/Progressive־Christianity־a־TheologicalMovement -Bruce־Epperlv-06-13-2011.htmB Even foe label “Progressive” continues to be a matter of debate: (http://www.mfoeos.com/blQgs/tonvjones/2011/06/17/is-progressive-the-right-term/). 22 See: Marcello Pera, Why We ShouldCall Ourselves Christians: The ReligiousRoots ofFree Societies, trans., L.B. Lappin (New York: Encounter Books, 2008). 23 See above.
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24 ^ ٠coin a phrase: “Do not he conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God” (Ro 12:2). 25 It is also worth remembering that, while the modem western mindset has much to commend it, the rest of the world does not necessarily share our point of view, nor will the “modem” western mindset as we know it continue to be “modern” It will inevitably be replaced by a ^rspective that considers us quaint and naïve in our way and our version of modernity is just as much a social constmction as those points of view that we consider an artifact of the past. 26 See: Borg, Conflict, Holiness & Politics, 2ff. The same argument is made in a newer edition: Marcus j. Borg, Conflict, Holiness andPolitics in the Teaching 0/Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998), 22ff., the major difference being that Marcus now sifts that analysis through the lens of crosscultural studies in politics and economics (see pp. lOff). 27 Borg, Conflict Holiness & Politics, 51ff and in the new edition, 66ff. 28 I am unable to locate the original reference, but I am fairly sure that I owe this characterization of the church’s history to Norman Perrin. 29 Not always reliable, but an excellent indication of where a movement is headed that is as new as Progressive Christianity, is this description in Wikipedia: tot^//em wi^dia.org/wi^/Progressive .Christianity 30 G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery ofthe Bible (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1980), 243ff. 311 confess that at the time I didn’t have the courage to tell him that I thought it was, so I have no idea how he would have responded. 32 Marcus j. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power -A n d How They Can Be Restored (San Francisco: Harper One, 2011): 189ff. The phrase “more-thanliteral ” invites the reader to equate Marc’s position with “only metaphorical.” Marc would probably object to that equation. But the phrase he uses invites toe interpretation “toe literal doesn’t matter very much.” Either way, toe critic is placed at a disadvantage. 3 3 /م. ها*ﺢﻣ I97ff. 34 See, forexample,Marc’sresponsetoTony Jones: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/2013/10/ response-to-tony-jones־about-the-resurrection/ 35 Ibid., 189-191. And I’ve taken issue with them; see: Conversations with Scripture: Revelation (Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing, 2005), 1-15 and “Leaving Behind Left Behind.” Congregations (Spring,2007): 6-11. 36 There is not space to make this argument here, but see for example: Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Cospel (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, Ltd., 2002), 9 Iff. ٦٦ Borg, Speaking Christian, especially 5-33. 38 Cf. 1 Co 15:12ff. and He 2:14-18. 39 See, for example, his reflection on toe question, “What is a Christian?” in his blog at Patheos: http:// www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/2013/ll/what-is-a-christian/ 40 Borg, Heart of Christianity, 25ff. 41 Ibid. 42 The distinction that Marc makes here is not unlike toe effort to determine whether Paul believed that Christians were saved by baptism or by faith. The distinction is one that would not have occurred to Paul. He couldn’t have imagined being baptized without believing, nor could he imagine believing without being baptized. Hence, he uses the two interchangeably to describe a single experience. 1 think toe issue here is much the same. The notion that one could give his or her heart to toe teachings of Christ and not believe certain things about Christ, or believe certain things about Christ and not give her or his heart to Christ would not have occurred to an ancient follower. 43 Most of Marc’s apologetic, both in style and in content, has become central to toe logic of Progrèssive Christian belief, and his work has been closely linked to its development. 44 To my knowledge there isn’t any solid demographic information on the age ofthe average Progressive Christian. That isn’t surprising. I am told by a recently retired demographer for toe United Methodist Church that there are not solid statistics for the demographics of most churches. But most (not all) of the movement’s architects certainly seem to be ffom the Boomer Generation (or older). 45 On the focus of early monasticism, see: George E. Demacopoulos, F/ve Models ofSpiritualDirection in the Early Church (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 1. 46 The exchange was fairly lengthy. It started here, with a passing observation by Tony Jones:
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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/10/04/no-the־writers־of-the־bible-did-not-expect־it-to־ be-taken־literally-questions־that-haunt/ Which prompted this response from Marcus: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/2013/10/response-to־tony־jones-about־the-resurrection/ A rejoinder from Tony: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/10/09/dear-marcus-borg-please-reconsider־the־resurrection / Yet another response from Marc: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/marcusborg/2013/10/continuing-the־resurrection־conversation/ And a brief up-date at the end of Tony’s earlier article: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2013/10/09/dear-marc 47 Cf. Dan Chitoiu, “The Dialogue between Science and Drthodoxy: specificity and Possibilities,” Journalfor Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science, No. 6 (January, 2010): 48ff.