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Answering the many "spiritual" questions left unaddressed by such popular historical bestsellers as A History of God and God: A Biography, renowned author Marcus Borg reveals how to embrace an authentic contemporary faith that reconciles God with science, critical thinking and religious pluralism. How to have faith––how to even think about God––without having to stifle modern rationality is one of the most vital challenges facing contemporary religion. In providing a much–needed solution to the problem of how to have a fully authentic yet fully contemporary understanding of God, Borg––author of the bestselling Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time––traces his personal journey. He leads readers from the all–powerful and authoritarian God of his (and their) childhood and traditional faith to an equally powerful but dynamic image of God that is relevant to contemporary seekers and more biblical and spiritually authentic. Borg shows how the modern crisis of faith is itself rooted in delusion––misinterpretation of biblical texts and of God's true nature––and challenges readers to a new way of thinking about God. He opens a practical discussion about how to base a relationship with the divine both immanent and transcendant, here and now, always and everywhere. Arguing that the authentic Judeo–Christian tradition is that God's being includes the whole world, Borg persuasively shows how this understanding accounts for the whole variety of human religious experience. Ultimately, he introduces readers to a way of thinking about God who is "right here" all around them, rather than distant and remote. This understanding is more intellectually and spiritually satisfying and allows readers to reclaim a stronger sense of God's presence.
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MARCUS J. BORG THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW BEYOND DOGMATIC RELIGION TO A MORE AUTHENTIC CONTEMPORARY FAITH For Marianne with whom I have learned much about the sacred Contents Preface v Introduction 1 Meeting God Again for the First Time Part I: Thinking About God 1 9 1 Thinking About God: The God I Met the First Time 11 2 Thinking About God: Why Panentheism? 33 Part II: Imaging God 59 3 Imaging God: Why and How It Matters 61 4 Imaging God: Jesus and God 89 Part III: Living With God 115 5 Opening to God: The Heart of Spirituality 117 6 The Dream of God: A Politics of Compassion 139 7 Salvation: What on Earth Do We Mean? 164 Index About the Author Cover Copyright About the Publisher 187 PREFACE ith this book on God, I venture beyond my area of academic speW cialization. As a Jesus scholar, I have focused my research and writing on the historical study of Jesus and Christian origins, and the implications of such study for Christian theology and life. But though I am a Jesus scholar and not a God scholar, the subject of God has been with me for a very long time, indeed from long before I was even aware of historical Jesus scholarship. I grew up with God. Ever since, the subject and question of God—devotionally, intellectually, and experientially—has been central. I have been praising God, thinking about God, and yearning for God all of my life. Thus, though I write about God as a nonspecialist, my interest is neither recent nor peripheral. As a professor of religious studies, I have taught courses about God for almost three decades. As a Jesus scholar, I have found it impossible to say very much about Jesus without also talking about God. Finally, my own Christian journey (from initial belief through doubt and unbelief to rediscovery and reformulation) has centered on the question of God. This book thus comes out of my own journey, now more