Marcus J Borg Foundation-Thoughts from Marianne Borg on Statements from Rev Meyers
Dear Friend,
For the March 8, 2025 Second Saturday Conversation with guest Robin Meyers I posted five quotes from Robin Meyers and one from Marcus. The quotes are provided below for your review and as prompts for thought and conversation.
From The UnderGround Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus, Robin reminds us that Christianity began "as a journey, a way of life, not a system of doctrines...". The sermon on the mount does not talk about belief but what to do, and the creeds, written three centuries later, don't say anything about what to do only what to believe. Consider this movement away from first hand experience to second hand belief, what William James calls first hand religion and second hand religion. How do you think people perceive the church in general? As a "thin place" to explore first hand experience or a place where they are told what to believe? And what about your own first hand experiences and second hand beliefs. How are they related? Or are they?
In the second quote, also from The Underground Church, Robin asks how we would describe a modern disciple? He reminds us that the early followers of The Way were counter cultural and anti-imperial. What do you think it means to be a follower of The Way, a follower of Jesus today? What does it look like? Or more what would a follower of Jesus today do? What about you?
From Saving God from Religion: A Minister's Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age, Robin calls us to consider imagining the reality of God in terms of depths not heights (a hierarchical cosmology), and move toward a "theology of consequence" rather than a "theology of obedience" (following the status quo). How would this shift change how we understand the call of Christianity? He also encourages us to move from "blessed assurance" to a "blessed assignment." What does that mean to you?
In Saving God from Religion Robin makes this comment: "when trust is gone, nothing is possible. What is terrifying is a world without trust." I pull out this sentence because it speaks to our concerns in our world today. What is it to trust? (Note that trust is the root image of the word faith not belief.) So again reflect on trust. And your existential experience of it!
In Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus, Robin suggests that words in our liturgy that emphasize belief, salvation, military and blood images must be replaced and that our transactional ways of describing our relationship with God is destructive. Discuss your own reactions to the language of the liturgy. What do you hold dear and why? What is now untenable? If any thing. How does our church language reinforce a belief system? How might the language of our "beloved community" be transformed? And do you think that is necessary?
I close with a quote from Marcus from Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally. Marcus suggests postmodernity, what is now shaping our world view and theological and philosophical assumptions, marked by three characteristics. One, the importance of recognizing how culturally conditioned language is, recognizing language as historical construction. Two, postmodernity emphasizes the importance and value of experience. Three, the postmodern turn resists fact fundamentalism and emphasizes metaphor and metaphorical narrative. This is perhaps oversimplifying, as he admits. But it is a very precise way to name three important aspect of postmodernity. He applies these three characteristics of postmodernity as key to reading the Bible again. Robin Meyers' writing is also done in the spirit and awareness of the postmodern turn.
I encourage you not only to return to Marc's books but to read Robin who provides a primer for progressive Christianity and its postmodern turn in clear, accessible ways and bring you on board to seeing Christianity again. Seeing Christianity again might give us a new vision of its promise for the future. Our future. And Christianity's as well.
Our next Second Saturday Conversation is April 12 with special guest Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark Cathedral London, author or numerous books and international lecturer. He speaks to the heart of faith and seeks "to deepen and not resolve the meaning and mysteries and mayhem of the world and the rumour of God that encircles it, infuses it."
An invitation will go out soon. We are honored Mark Oakley will be with us. Join us!
—Marianne
The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus
Robin Meyers
People often tell me that they wish Christianity were more like eastern spiritual traditions, which emphasize faith as following a "path" instead of as adherence to doctrines. The irony, of course, is that this is precisely how Christianity started—as a journey a way of life, not a system of created doctrines, demanding intellectual accent to theological propositions. In the beginning, there was no doctrine of Jesus, only the radical ethic of Jesus, and after his death, the unforgettable Jesus. Consider this remarkable fact: in the sermon on the mount, there is not a single word about what to believe, only words about what to do, and how to be. By the time the Nicene creed is written, only three centuries later, there is not a single word in it about what to do, and how to be—only words about what to believe.
The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus
Robin Meyers
We must unearth our own true identity, buried underneath layers of ecclesiastical sentiment. Our journey forward will require a fearless look backwards at the original character of the Jesus movement—from its inception as an underground movement born in the winds of Pentecost, to its corruption as a belief system at Nicaea. Nothing will give us a clearer picture of the risks and rewards of discipleship than a fearless look at the first disciples. But be warned: they will seem like strangers to us. They will seem more than odd... How would we describe a modern disciple who is as countercultural and anti-imperial as those first followers of The Way?
Saving God from Religion: A Minister's Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age
Robin Meyers
The measure of an authentic, spiritual life is in the way a follower acts in the world... We might draw near to the reality of God by revising the ancient cosmology of the heights and replacing it instead with a cosmology of the depths. Our beloved communities could be "thin places" where friends in the spirit seek access to the mystery... Perhaps the time has come for all of us who still have anything to do with organized religion, (as well as those who describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious") to move away from a theology of obedience and embrace instead a theology of consequence. This is not meant to be just a clever turn a phrase. It represents a theological shift of the first magnitude. I grew up, singing "Blessed Assurance," but what the world needs now is a "blessed assignment."
Saving God from Religion: A Minister’s Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age
Robin Meyers
Jesus never says, "go and believe likewise."... Faith is not certainty, but trust... When trust is gone, nothing is possible... What is terrifying is a world without trust... Perhaps, instead of "believing" in God, our most basic need at this point in history is to experience God. Let the spiritual life consist of those practices that open the door upon new spiritual realities... The desire for a spiritual life is as deep as it ever has been, but our old theological assumptions are failing us.
Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus
Robin Meyers
In the future liturgies of the church, the word trust should replace the word faith as often as possible. The word wisdom should be placed the word salvation. Blood should disappear all together—along with all military, metaphors and images. Bloody liturgies in church, only encourage and sanctify the blood letting of the battlefield... The church must now make a pledge to correct its most recent heresy: teaching faith as a belief system characterized by certainty. Instead, we must recover faith's original impulse. It was never an intellectual ascent to implausible assertions that could be traded in for improbable favors. It was a deep and abiding trust in the "arc of the moral universe" and the redemptive power of the beloved community.
Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally
Marcus J. Borg
We live on the boundary of postmodernity. We are not simply modern people; in addition, we are living in the borderland of a new period of cultural history... Like modernity, postmodernity is a large and complex phenomenon. I will not attempt a comprehensive description or definition of postmodernity, but will simply highlight three characteristics of primary importance...
First, postmodernity is marked by the realization that modernity itself is a culturally conditioned, relative historical construction. The modern worldview is not the final word about reality anymore than previous worldviews have been. Postmodernity knows that someday the Newtonian worldview will seem as quaint and archaic as the Ptolemaic worldview, a development that has already occurred among theoretical physicist.
Second, postmodernity is marked by a turn to experience. In a time, when traditional religious teachings have become suspect, we tend to trust that which can be known in our own experience. This term to experience is seen in the remarkable resurgence of interest in spirituality within mainline, churches, and beyond. Spirituality is the experiential dimension of religion.
Third, postmodernity is marked by a movement beyond fact fundamentalism to the realization that stories could be true without being literally and factually true. This development is reflected in much of contemporary theologies emphasis on metaphorical theology. An obvious point that has often been forgotten during the period of modernity: metaphors and metaphorical narratives can be profoundly true even if they are not literally or factually true. This realization is central for the way of seeing and reading the Bible that I will be suggesting....
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