Thinking again about

God, Jesus, and the Christian Life

By Marcus Borg

 

 

Thinking about God Again

There are two different ways of thinking about the meaning of the word God. Both meanings are ancient and biblical and are also found in other religions. These two "root concepts" are (1) Supernatural Theism, God as a supernatural being—a super-powerful authority figure separate from the universe, and (2) Panentheism, God as the encompassing Spirit in whom everything that is—is.

Supernatural Theism. In this way of thinking, God created the universe "in the beginning" as something separate from God--God is "out there" not "here." This way of thinking affirms only the transcendence of God—God as "beyond " and relates to the world through intervention, the only possible way a being who is separate from the universe can relate to it. Supernatural Theism is the most widespread form of Western theism; it is what most people think of when they think of the word "God."

Panentheism: An example of this way of thinking about God is "the one in whom we have and move and have our being" ( Acts 17:28). It is also biblical and ancient. According to Irenaeus in the second century: "God contains everything and is contained by nothing. " Julian of Norwich (14th century) stated "We are not simply made by God, but made of God. And the deeper we move into our own being, the deeper we move into God." Panentheism affirms both the transcendence of God (the "moreness" of God) and the immanence of God (God is present everywhere). God is "right here" as well as "more" than right here. However, Panentheism does not affirm divine intervention, but rather affirms divine intention, interaction, and presence.

The language of supernatural theism is the language of personification--we speak of God as if God were a person. This is the natural language of prayer, worship and devotion. There is nothing wrong with personification as long as it is not taken literally, because when taken literally, several problems arise. God becomes remote and distant. A number of other problems arise with the notion of intervention. God's reality becomes questionable. Much of atheism is rejection of this way of thinking about God.

Panentheism has several advantages. It provides an option if supernatural theism gets in a person's way. That there is an alternative view of the concept of God is important for Christians and people in general to know. Panentheism does not create the intellectual problems of supernatural theism. It takes experiences of God/the sacred seriously. If the word "God" is a problem, there are other terms: "the sacred," "Spirit," "source," "without limits," "suchness," what is," "Isness." Most important, it is orthodox Christianity: God is both transcendent and immanent.

Character and Passion

According to the Bible, God not only "is," but God has character and passion, sometimes called the nature and will of God. When we think of a person's character, we think of what they are like at a very deep level.

The word "passion" is used as when we ask of a person, "What is your passion in life?" What is the character and passion of the God of the Bible, who is also the God of Jesus, and thus of Christians?

This question matters greatly. What is the character of your God? What is your God like? What do you think God is like? Consider the main options — "the grand metaphors" are variations on several characteristics: indifferent/involved; punitive/judgmental, and gracious/compassionate. Each of these ways of thinking about God's character produces a different kind of Christianity.

One can also ask: what is the passion of your God? What is your God’s passionate about? According to the Bible, God's passion is transformation — the transformation of ourselves and of the world.

For Christians, our primary sources for knowing the character and passion of God are the Bible and Jesus, the two primary Christian sources of revelation. Of these two, Jesus is decisive.

Thinking about Jesus Again

The following is based on my recent book: Jesus (with the subtitle Uncovering the Life, Teachings and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary)

Consider our memories from childhood: "Tell Me the Story of Jesus" and "I Love to Tell the Story ....of Jesus and his glory; of Jesus and his love." It matters greatly how we tell the story— for several reasons. It can make the story of Jesus difficult to believe, or it can be persuasive and compelling Jesus' significance for Christians is that he is the decisive disclosure, revelation or epiphany of the character and passion of God.

In contemporary Christianity There are a number of ways of telling the story of Jesus.

Jesus as the Dying Savior: As Substitutionary Sacrifice for Sin. This is the Jesus many of us grew up with — and still hear about. Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" is an illustration of this way of telling the story of Jesus.

Jesus the divine-human and thus a "superhuman." This usually goes with the first one. The earthly Jesus was more than human — he was also divine, super-human. It is a familiar and widespread way of telling the story of Jesus.

Jesus as Judge at the Second Coming. A contemporary manifestation is the Jesus of "The Left Behind" novels by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. This is the Jesus of "the rapture" and "the second coming." The "killer Jesus" will destroy most people and condemn them to eternal torment.

Jesus as a Great Teacher. An example is "The Jefferson Bible." These portrayals are inadequate and often banal.

The historical-metaphorical way of telling the story of Jesus is a way that is affirmed by mainstream historical scholarship and has three foundations:

The gospels are a developing tradition, written in the last third of the first century. As such, they combine memory and testimony.

Much of their language is metaphorical. Metaphor refers to the more-than-literal, more-than factual, meaning of language.

An important distinction is made between the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus. Pre-Easter is what Jesus was like before his death. Post-Easter is what Jesus became after his death: Language referring to the exalted status of Jesus — as Messiah, Son of God, Lord, etc., is post-Easter testimony and does not go back to the pre-Easter Jesus. Language referring to the saving significance of his death is post-Easter. This leaves us with the question: what was the pre-Easter Jesus like? What was his message, activity, intention?

II. My Sketch of the Pre-Easter Jesus

The Shaping of Jesus--the Importance of Contex/Matrix

Jesus grew up in a Jewish peasant village in the Roman Empire. This was a pre-modern domination system: politically, ruled by a few. Economically, half to 2/3 of wealth went to the elites. Religiously, the Roman Empire was legitimated by "royal" theology; and was chronically violent (systemic violence and warfare).

2. The Shaping of Jesus: His experience of the Sacred/God—Jesus as a Jewish mystic. Mystics are people who have vivid and typically frequent experiences of God/the sacred, and who are deeply shaped by such experiences.

3. A "profile" of Jesus includes several aspects: mystic, healer, wisdom teacher, and prophet.

4. His message and activity: Jesus is the proclaimer of "the Way" and "the Kingdom." His audience was primarily the peasant class, "the people. "The Way" is the path of centering deeply in God—a path/way that was egalitarian in a twofold sense: open to everybody, apart from status and institution; and producing an egalitarian community. The New Testament metaphors for "the way" are "dying and rising with Christ" (Paul) and being "born again"(John).

"The Kingdom of God" is central to the Pre-Easter Jesus. The Kingdom of God is for the earth, as contained in The Lord's Prayer—"Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It is both a religious and political metaphor. "Kingdom" is a political term/image in Jesus’ world. The Kingdom of God is about what life would be like on earth under God's kingship/lordship, instead of under the lordship of the powers that rule this world. God's kingdom is about justice (economic justice) and peace (non-violence as both means and goal). The Kingdom of God is "the dream of God" for the earth, God's passion for the earth.

5. Execution and Resurrection. Jesus' passion for the kingdom of God--his challenge to the powers that ruled his world and his advocacy of an alternative vision of how life in this world should be—led to his last week, execution, and vindication by God.

His message to us: Center in God—the God of the Torah and prophets. Participate in God's passion for the world. God loves the world—and God has a lover's quarrel with the world. We are called to change the world. Love God, and love what God loves—the world.

Thinking about the Christian Life Again

For emerging Christianity, what does the Christian life look like? First of all it is not intrinsically about believing a set of statements to be true. To suppose that Christianity is about beliefs is to imagine that Jesus’ purpose was to bring a true set of doctrines—"Believe these and you'll be saved." Rather, Christianity is about "a way"—the earliest post-Easter name of the movement, according to Acts 9.1—a way or path of leading to a transformed life. This is consistent with a definition of religion as the "means of ultimate transformation" The Christian life is about a relationship with God that transforms us. It is about a deepening and transforming centering in God as known in Jesus (and this, "as known in Jesus," is what makes it Christian, as distinct from Jewish, Muslim, etc.)

The following are expressions of the path of transformation:

Jesus says: "If any would be my disciple, let them take up their cross and follow after me" (Mark 8.34; Luke 9.23 adds "daily" to this saying). The path is a dying to an old way of being and rising into a new one.

Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ—it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2.19b-20b) "We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, from one degree of glory to another." (II Cor. 3.18) "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation." (II Cor. 5.17)

John: The way is "being born again," being "born of the Spirit" (John 3). "Jesus is the Way." (John 14.6). Jesus is the incarnation of "the way." What do we see in him as the embodiment of "the way"? Dying and rising.

Practices and Intentional Christianity: Living "the Way"

Intentional Christianity involves practice, for practice is how we pay attention to our relationship with God; it allow for the transformational work of the Spirit in our lives.

The most important collective practice is worship. Its purpose: Worship is for us. It's directed to God, of course, it's worship of God; but it's for us. Worship draws us out of ourselves and opens us up. It is formative; it forms us and in-forms us.

Prayer is the most important individual practice. Richard Rohr says that the church that does not teach its people how to pray has virtually lost its reason for existence. As a child, prayer meant asking for something. Now, what it means to me in a non-interventionist context: prayer is about paying attention to our relationship with God. In one respect our relationship to God is like a human relationship: it grows and deepens by attending to it. There are two primary kinds of prayer: verbal and non-verbal. Verbal is talking to God, whether silently or aloud. Non-verbal is prayer of internal silence, contemplative prayer.

What about petitionary/intercessory prayer? Do our prayers affect God? Do they change God's mind? Call God's attention to something God has overlooked? I'm skeptical. Do our prayers affect God in a much more mysterious way that we don't and perhaps can't understand? Possibly. But without doubt, prayer affects us, changes us. Prayer transforms those who pray.

Communities of Participation in God's Passion for the World.

What is God's passion--transformation of ourselves, and of the world. There is a political dimension to the Christian life—politics is about the shaping of the world for good or ill, consciousness-raising about the political passion of the Bible…Jesus…and God, about systems and how they affect peoples’ lives, being active for compassion, justice, and non-violence (peace). This is the way forward—the "market niche," the vocation of mainline denominations—to be communities of participation in God's passion—which is twofold:

(1) Our transformation through a deeper centering in God.

(2) The transformation of the world. We are called to participate in God's passion for a different kind of world.

"God without us will not; we without God cannot." (Desmond Tutu)