The title words of today's entry are to be attributed to Marcus J. Borg, a theological Professor and member of the historical Jesus movement, The Jesus Seminar. These words were the title of a book of his which I have just read and felt moved and challenged by.
The book is one I would recommend to anyone who, like me, may have grown up with an image of Jesus as God's Son sent to earth to bear the punishment for my sins, to be sacrificed for my sake. If you are, or have the suspicion you may soon be, at the stage where the notions of sin and hell and judgement and Jesus bearing God's wrath become either stale, or tasteless, or no longer concepts to which you can relate, this book is most definitely for you.
Far from being what many conservative Christians would consider liberal theology to be - watering down scripture, removing what is significant from the heart of the Christian faith and leaving you with nothing of any meaning - in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time Marcus Borg focuses on truths about who Jesus was which are so often neglected by the church and modern Christians in favour of one specific strand of theology which is actually based on a very small amount of the comparatively large New Testament Gospels, and upon only one of the three most significant stories of the Old Testament (which, for Borg, are the Exodus from Egypt, the exile to Babylon and the Priestly Story; the dominant doctrines of salvation, atonement, etc. are purely based on the latter of the three, and pay no attention whatsoever to the former two).
As I have probably made quite clear by now (!) I thoroughly recommend this book. You may not agree with everything Borg thinks (I myself don't, either), but there is compelling truth in this book that presents Jesus in a way which is far removed from the almost cringeworthy picture which is proclaimed ad nauseam by evangelical Christianity.
I conclude with some words from Marcus Borg himself:
For those of us who grew up in the church, believing in Jesus was important. For me...that phrase used to mean...'believing things about Jesus'. To believe in Jesus meant to believe what the gospels and the church said about Jesus. That was easy when I was a child, and became more and more difficult as I grew older...
Believe did not originally mean believing a set of doctrines or teachings; in both Greek and Latin its roots mean 'to give one's heart to'. The 'heart' is the self at its deepest level...Believing in Jesus does not mean believing doctrines about him. Rather, it means to...give one's self at its deepest level, to the post-Easter Jesus who is the living Lord, the side of God turned toward us, the face of God, the Lord who is also the Spirit'.
As a friend of mine frequently says, 'amen to that, brother!'.
The book is one I would recommend to anyone who, like me, may have grown up with an image of Jesus as God's Son sent to earth to bear the punishment for my sins, to be sacrificed for my sake. If you are, or have the suspicion you may soon be, at the stage where the notions of sin and hell and judgement and Jesus bearing God's wrath become either stale, or tasteless, or no longer concepts to which you can relate, this book is most definitely for you.
Far from being what many conservative Christians would consider liberal theology to be - watering down scripture, removing what is significant from the heart of the Christian faith and leaving you with nothing of any meaning - in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time Marcus Borg focuses on truths about who Jesus was which are so often neglected by the church and modern Christians in favour of one specific strand of theology which is actually based on a very small amount of the comparatively large New Testament Gospels, and upon only one of the three most significant stories of the Old Testament (which, for Borg, are the Exodus from Egypt, the exile to Babylon and the Priestly Story; the dominant doctrines of salvation, atonement, etc. are purely based on the latter of the three, and pay no attention whatsoever to the former two).
As I have probably made quite clear by now (!) I thoroughly recommend this book. You may not agree with everything Borg thinks (I myself don't, either), but there is compelling truth in this book that presents Jesus in a way which is far removed from the almost cringeworthy picture which is proclaimed ad nauseam by evangelical Christianity.
I conclude with some words from Marcus Borg himself:
For those of us who grew up in the church, believing in Jesus was important. For me...that phrase used to mean...'believing things about Jesus'. To believe in Jesus meant to believe what the gospels and the church said about Jesus. That was easy when I was a child, and became more and more difficult as I grew older...
Believe did not originally mean believing a set of doctrines or teachings; in both Greek and Latin its roots mean 'to give one's heart to'. The 'heart' is the self at its deepest level...Believing in Jesus does not mean believing doctrines about him. Rather, it means to...give one's self at its deepest level, to the post-Easter Jesus who is the living Lord, the side of God turned toward us, the face of God, the Lord who is also the Spirit'.
As a friend of mine frequently says, 'amen to that, brother!'.
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