Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary QUOTES

1 " When somebody says to me, “I don’t believe in God,” my first response is, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.” Almost always, it’s the God of supernatural theism. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

2 " It is a way of being Christian in which beliefs are secondary, not primary. Christianity is a “way” to be followed more than it is about a set of beliefs to be believed. Practice is more important than “correct” beliefs. Beliefs are not irrelevant; they do matter. But they are not the object of faith. God is the “object” of commitment—and for Christians, God as known in Jesus. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

3 " But prior to about the year 1600, the verb “believe” had a very different meaning within Christianity as well as in popular usage. It did not mean believing statements to be true; the object of the verb “believe” was always a person, not a statement. This is the difference between believing that and believing in. To believe in a person is quite different from believing that a series of statements about the person are true. In premodern English, believing meant believing in and thus a relationship of trust, loyalty, and love. Most simply, to believe meant to belove.11 "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

4 " And to belove God, to center in God, has an additional crucial meaning. To belove God means to love what God loves. What does God love? The answer is in one of the most familiar Bible verses, John 3.16: “God so loved the world… "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

5 " I conclude this section with a possibly puzzling postscript on the meaning of the word “literal.” What is the literal meaning of a parable? Its literal meaning is its parabolic meaning. What is the literal meaning of a poem? Its literal meaning is its poetic meaning. What is the literal meaning of a symbolic or metaphorical narrative? Its literal meaning is its symbolic or metaphorical meaning. But in modern Western culture over the last few centuries, “literal” has most often been confused with “factual,” and factuality has been elevated over the metaphorical. Hence when people say they take stories in the Bible and the gospels “literally,” they most often mean “factually.” Thus the difference is not ultimately a literal versus a metaphorical reading, but a factual versus a metaphorical reading. And to read a story factually rather than metaphorically often involves a misjudgment about the literary genre of a story. When the metaphorical is understood factually, the result is a story hard to believe. But when a metaphorical narrative is understood metaphorically, it may indeed be powerfully and challengingly true. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

6 " Being Christian doesn’t mean being anti-American, but it does mean that Christian identity and loyalty matter more than national identity and loyalty. When there is a conflict, Jesus is Lord. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

7 " The first phrase affirms “God so loved the world”—not Christians in particular, or the elect, or the church, but the world. God’s passion is the world. Christians have often been fearful of loving the world, for they have sometimes confused it with “worldliness.” But loving the world doesn’t mean getting lost in the world. It means loving the world—the creation—as God loves the world. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

8 " When I was a young college teacher in my mid-twenties, an older colleague delighted in characterizing post-Enlightenment theology as “flat-tire theology”—“All the pneuma has gone out of it. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

9 " Indeed, for Christians, the unending conversation about Jesus is the most important conversation there is. He is for us the decisive revelation of God—of what can be seen of God’s character and passion in a human life. There are other important conversations. But for followers of Jesus, the unending conversation about Jesus is the conversation that matters most. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

10 " To believe in a person is quite different from believing that a series of statements about the person are true. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

11 " This vision of life is deeply centered in God, the sacred. So it was for Jesus. So it is in all of the enduring religions of the world. What makes Christianity Christian is centering in God as known in Jesus. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

12 " Two transformations are at the center of this life. For want of better language, I call them the personal and the political. The Christian life is about personal transformation into the likeness of Christ (from one degree to another, as Paul puts it); and it is about participation in God’s passion for the kingdom of God. The personal and the political are brought together in “the way of the cross”—an image of personal transformation and confrontation with the domination systems of this world. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

13 " In function, Jesus’s aphorisms are very much like his parables—provocative and invitational forms of speech. They provoke thought, lead people to reconsider their taken-for-granted assumptions, and invite them to see life differently. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

14 " One scenario begins by imagining that Jesus heals somebody in a village. What is the likely response, beyond amazement and gratitude? He (and those with him) would be invited to a meal. It is the classic ancient way of expressing gratitude and hospitality. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

15 " Christians also speak of the Bible as the revelation of God, indeed as the “Word of God.” Yet orthodox Christian theology from ancient times has affirmed that the decisive revelation of God is Jesus. The Bible is “the Word” become words, God’s revelation in human words; Jesus is “the Word” become flesh, God’s revelation in a human life. Thus Jesus is more decisive than the Bible. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

16 " Jesus (as well as the authors of the gospels) would have known about Rome’s policy of sending reinforcements to the city at Passover. His decision to enter the city as he did was what we would call a planned political demonstration, a counterdemonstration. The juxtaposition of these two processions embodies the central conflict of Jesus’s last week: the kingdom of God or the kingdom of imperial domination. What Christians have often spoken of as Jesus’s triumphal entry was really an anti-imperial entry. What we call Palm Sunday featured a choice of two kingdoms, two visions of life on earth. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

17 " But Easter means that the powers of this world do not have the last word. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

18 " It is a life of deep commitment and gentle certitude. Deep commitment, because it involves one’s whole being. Gentle certitude, because it is gentle, soft, regarding particular verbal formulations of Christianity, including precise doctrinal statements. These are always human products. They are to be valued as such and to be reformulated when necessary. Depth of commitment and dogmatic certainty about a particular set of beliefs are not the same thing. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

19 " As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them; so would I learn to attain free fall and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.3 "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary

20 " The term “evangelist” is based on the Greek word for “gospel,” which means “news.” As evangelists, the authors of the gospels proclaimed the “news” about Jesus in and for their time and place. The word “news” suggests updating. They proclaimed Jesus for their “now” by updating the story of Jesus “then.” They combined proclamation of Jesus for their now with their memory of Jesus then. In this, they did what any good Christian preacher, teacher, or theologian does—tells us what Jesus then means for us now. "

― Marcus J. Borg , Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary