On Belovers and Believers
Nancy Haught, of the Religion News Service, penned this article which I read in my local newspaper, the Lakeland Ledger. Haught offers a tribute to Marcus Borg, a liberal theologian who was part of the Jesus Seminar, who is retiring from Oregon State University.
At 64, Borg is a public theologian and a private mystic. He writes best-selling books on theology and reads murder mysteries. He was trained at Oxford University and teaches at Oregon State. He lives in a neighborhood overflowing with espresso, but drinks Taster’s Choice instant decaf.
But mostly, his is a polite and nontraditional voice in an often intense conversation about who Jesus was and what his life may mean to his modern followers.
Borg talks, primarily, to three decidedly different groups: his students, who are mostly undergraduates; his readers, who are mostly Christians who question long-held beliefs about Jesus; and his critics, who are mostly evangelical or orthodox Christians, who confess their beliefs in familiar terms. Jesus was, the last say, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, suffered for human sins, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and will come again.
Borg sees Jesus differently.
Haught claims that Borg sees Jesus and the Bible as a “mixture of memory and metaphor.” Borg offers his version of Christianity:
For me, to believe a set of statements is impossible… (What is possible is to “belove” Jesus and walk in his path.) For the past 300 years, faith was a matter of believing a list of beliefs about Jesus. The list varied among Christians - that Jesus was the son of God, that he was born of a virgin, that the tomb was empty on Easter morning. But in the pre-modern world, before about 1600, the object of belief was never a statement. It was always a person. To believe meant to belove a person. To belove Jesus means more than simply loving Jesus. It means to love what Jesus loved. That is at the heart of Christianity.
Borg reinterprets (incorrectly) centuries of Christianity. I’m sure Thomas Aquinas (1265-1274) would be surprised to know he really didn’t write the massive Summa Theologica, providing a comprehensive treatment of Christian theology, or what Christians believe. I’m sure Augustine would also be surprised to find out that he didn’t actually write On Christian Doctrine or The City of God. Borg is just completely wrong in suggesting that before 1600 the church did not care about doctrine.
Borg presents us here with a false dichotomy, two extemes which have led astray many throughout the centuries of Christian experience. Borg finds himself at one of these extremes. Christianity is not an either/or proposition when it comes to relationship and doctrine. One must not choose between knowing Christ and knowing true doctrine. Attempting to relate to Christ without understanding what he taught is futile, while attempting to know what he taught without knowing him is also misdirected.
Borg was correct in stating we must love what Jesus loved. But one of the things Jesus loves is truth! To reduce Christianity to “beloving” without any reference to “believing” is to ignore the teaching of the New Testament. Now, Borg certainly does not view the Bible as the Word of God, but rather as the result of human effort, however, he could at least be true to what the scripture actually teaches.
True Christianity is consists of “beloving” and “believing”. Either without the other is only a part of what it means to be a Christian. Borg’s Christianity is not truly Christianity at all. To attempt to bake a cake while leaving out half the ingredients does not produce a cake. Whatever one ends up with, will not be a cake. To suggest that one can be a Christian and ignore the truth claims of Christianity will not produce Christianity, rather an impotent, dangerous form of pluralistic, inclusivistic religion.