Christ In Winter:
Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter…
[Repeated intro]I have
been thinking about the “hinge” books in my life, those books that open a door
in a unique way. There are hinge occasions that are not books, of
course—people, events, places, movies. Books have a special niche of hinge
importance, though--especially to people of my generation, who did not have access
to more modern forms of input when we were in our hinge years--because they
take time. If a book has hinge importance, you don’t just glimpse it, you
ingest it. And you may go back to it time and again. The whole list of my hinge
books is at the bottom. That is too long a list to explore at one time, so I’m
going to do only one book per column.
Today’s hinge book is… JESUS, A NEW VISION: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of
Discipleship, by Marcus Borg
Published in 1991, I think
this was the first of Marcus’ books. I know it was the first one I read, and it
opened up the whole world of Jesus to me in ways I had never known before.
Marcus followed this book with two decades of scholarship and writing that
deepened and expanded his insights in A
New Vision. I read them all, as well as attending lectures and conferences
with him, and along the way we had the good fortune to become friends. He even
offered to have Helen revise The Heart of
Christianity for confirmation classes for young teens, with the two of them
sharing the author credits. Unfortunately, that never got completed.
Even though his thought in
the books subsequent to A New Vision was
more developed, this will always be my favorite because of its hinge status for
me. I have enjoyed and appreciated so many books in my lifetime. This was one
of the few that actually excited me. I couldn’t read it fast enough.
I was no novice in Jesus
scholarship, of course. I had read Reimarus and Strauss and Schweitzer’s The Quest of the Historical Jesus and
all the other standards, and some not so standard. In an earlier post, I listed Bornkamm’s Jesus of Nazareth was a hinge book. Bornkamm opened up the historical
Jesus of the early church to me. Borg opened up the historical Jesus of the
spiritual world and the political world, which to Jesus were the same.
As Philp Yancey [1] and
Rachel Held Evans [2] point out, in
the constant arguments about the nature of Christianity, the real, historical Jesus
is often ignored. Marcus Borg just won’t let that happen.
Wherever I go, when
Marcus’ name comes up, there is always someone who says, “Marcus Borg made it
possible for me to be a Christian.” That’s a pretty neat legacy.
JRMcF
“Christians believe in the
Word made flesh, not in the Word made words.” Wm. Sloane Coffin
1] The Jesus I Never Knew
2] Faith Unraveled. The original title was Evolving in Monkey Town, which I think is much better.
TRAMP, THE SHEEP DOG by Don Lang, pictures by Kurt Wiese. 9-10-18
THE PREACHER AND HIS AUDIENCE, By Webb Garrison 9-11-18
JESUS OF NAZARETH by Gunther Bornkamm. 9-12-18
MAN’S NEED AND GOD’S ACTION by Reuel Howe 9-13-18
IDENTITY & THE LIFE CYCLE by Erik H. Erikson 9-14-18
THE IMMENSE JOURNEY by Loren Eiseley 9-19-18
GUILT, ANGER, AND GOD by C. Fitzsimmons Allison
PROFESSION: MINISTER by James Glasse [10-15-18]
LOVE, MEDICINE, AND MIRACLES by Bernie Siegel
JESUS, A NEW VISION by Marcus Borg [F, 10-19-18]
BIOGRAPHY AS THEOLOGY by Wm. McCutcheon
My novel, VETS, about four handicapped and
homeless Iraqistan veterans, who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will
never be on anybody’s hinge list, but, for a limited time, it’s only 99 cents,
so what have you got to lose? It’s published by Black Opal Books and is available
from the publisher as well as the usual suspects--Barnes and Noble, Amazon,
BOKU, Powell’s, Books on First, etc.
“All we ask [in old age]
is to be allowed to remain the authors of our own story.” Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, p. 140.
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