“Marcus Borg is the reason I fell back in love with Jesus,” wrote blogger Deborah Arca. Same here.
For those who don’t know, Borg was the founder of “Progressive Christianity.” He was famous for accepting the bulk of Historical Jesus scholarship while insisting that it was still possible to call oneself Christian. He’s basically the founding father of mainline Protestantism. Virtually every pastor of the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and United Church of Christ has been influenced by Borg to some extent or another.
I read his best-known work, The Heart of Christianity, when I was in high school. In it, Borg denies all the miracles in the New Testament, including the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. He jettisoned traditional Christian beliefs on sex and abortion. He questioned the existence of Heaven and Hell (“I don’t have a clue what happens after death”). He explicitly denied that Christianity is “the only way” to salvation.
And yet, unlike most theologians today who lose their supernatural faith—Tillich, Vahanian, and the like—Borg really did believe in Jesus.
True: his idea of Jesus was funky. He called Our Lord “a metaphor for God” who “discloses both the character and passion of God.” Jesus isn’t God, but “the heart of God made flesh.” And, naturally, Borg’s definition of God is equally funky. He explicitly denies “supernatural theism” and instead calls God the
“encompassing Spirit,” the “ultimate reality,” the “ground of being”—even “Being itself.”
So, Jesus is a metaphor for Being. Whatever that means.
Still, I liked Borg. It wasn’t that he made Christianity “reasonable.” It was that, despite all his many doubts—and his pompous efforts to skirt those doubts—Borg clearly felt like the Gospels made certain demands of him. He couldn’t ignore them. His mind was clearly with the secular Left, but he knew in his heart that Jesus was worth more than all the great “modern” thinkers put together.
I grew up an old-fashioned Presbyterian, but walked away from the church after getting into an argument with my minister over predestination. It never occurred to me that Calvin was wrong about Christianity—not until I read these “rational” Christians. Borg urged me to give Jesus another chance. And I did.
Obviously, I didn’t remain a Borgite. And the reason is very simple. The more I got to know Jesus, the harder it become to believe this “metaphor of Being” nonsense. I really did fall in love with Jesus—and who ever fell in love with a metaphor?
I realized my days as a Progressive Christian were over when I first heard Thomas Tallis’s anthem “If ye Love Me”:
Here’s the whole passage from the Gospel of John:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
That’s not how a metaphor talks.
Really, the most “normal” parts of the Gospels are actually the miracles. Jesus doesn’t turn water into wine and then say, “As long as you’re all nice to each other, everything should be fine.” If so, we might think—like Borg, and Tolstoy, and Jefferson, and countless others—that all the hocus-pocus was added to the Gospels many years after Christ’s death.
But then we actually read the words in red. Not only does Jesus acknowledge the miracles: He promises more. He doesn’t say, “Think about ultimate reality and then try not to worry too much about death.” No, He says, “I’m going up into the sky, but if you need anything, just start talking to me. You won’t be able to see me, but I’ll be able to hear you, and I’ll make it happen. Then, when you die, we can be together again.”
That’s not how a metaphor talks.
This is what Jesus is. This is what the Gospels are all about. Go ahead and read them again. Yes, Jesus talks about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. He talks about caring for orphans and widows. But most of the time He’s saying, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” “All things are possible to him that believeth.” “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
Rob Bell, another de-mythologizing theologian I used to like, says, “The biblical trajectory is about this world—this world being reclaimed and this world being restored. So, if the Bible is a story, it’s a story about this world.”
Well, yes. But how will this world be restored? Jesus is clear about that, too:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
You can’t get around the hocus-pocus. Go ahead and try if you want to, but you’re better off ditching the Bible altogether. It’s all hocus-pocus.
Even the Pharisees knew that. After all, they didn’t kill Jesus because He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” They killed Him because He said, “I’m God” (John 8:58). There’s no metaphor here. Either you believe or you don’t. Either He is God, or He isn’t.
If He isn’t, then there’s no reason to treat Him as anything but an historical curiosity. Everything He said was influential; some of it was even true. But none of it was unique. He probably wasn’t even the first man to claim Godhood. He certainly wasn’t the last. The only difference is this: He was right and they were wrong. He’s God and they’re not.
This is how I became a supernatural theist. To be clear, though, I didn’t wake up one day and say, “I hereby declare myself to be a supernatural theist.” I don’t follow a school or sect called supernatural theism. I follow Jesus. If Marcus Borg wants to call that supernatural theism, I don’t mind. But orthodox Christians don’t follow Jesus the way you might follow a theologian like Marcus Borg or John Calvin. We follow Him the way a duckling follows his mother. We follow Him for who He is.
Progressive Christians find that barbaric. They say it infantilizes us by making us mere followers. To which I say, “Too right.” We are infants. We’re small and weak and don’t know what’s good for us. This is why Jesus said, “Become as little children.” He meant, “Act your age.”
I think this is also what Christ meant when He said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” He’s like a father teaching his son how to ride a bike. They’ve just taken off the training wheels; the boy is scared, and so the father says, “Look into my eyes and see how much I love you. I am big, and you are small. I know what’s best for you. I know you better than you do! Would I ever lead steer you wrong? I know you love me, and you know that I love you. So, trust me.”
That’s what we do. We trust Him. We take His word for it.