by Marcus Borg
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The flavor of Marcus Borg’s preface gives the reader a taste of the author’s style and self-revealed expertise and limitations.
The first chapter sets the context with familiar contemporary issues and the applications of past and present perspectives within Christianity. Then Borg moves to challenging the reader’s worldview, especially with faith as “a way of seeing.”
Later, he deals with religious and nonreligious worldviews, specifically noting the latter as “Born in the Enlightenment of the seventeenth century, it’s sometimes called a secular or naturalistic or material worldview.”
Using classic categories, chapter by chapter, of faith, the Bible, God, Jesus and other theological concepts, Borg prompts reflection and application on the way to “What we see in Jesus and Bible answers our deepest personal longing, to be born again, and the world’s greatest need, the Kingdom of God.”
He then gives realistic guidance on awareness, transformation and practice.
This 2003 book lends itself to personal devotional reading. A book club or study group could enjoy a thoughtful quarter of weekly discussions though the preface and 11 chapters.
It provides insights for wrestling with more challenging texts for exploring a Jesus worldview.
Most significant is Borg’s challenge to “Go beyond the mind shaped by culture to the mind that you have ‘in Christ.’”
Review by Tom Prevost, retired minister and mission administrator in Chattanooga, Tenn.