Marcus Borg: Easter about life, not death

8 Responses to "Marcus Borg: Easter about life, not death"

• Comment by: benjamin ady

  1 04/8/07 10:43 AM | Comment Link |

  I ran into another Marcus Borg quote related to Easter today:

  A recent book poses the choice and confrontation more sharply. The book, The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’ Final Week in Jerusalem , reminds us that there were processions during Passover.

  One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of the empire. Pilate’s military procession was a demonstration of both Roman imperial power and Roman imperial theology. Jesus’ procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God. Pilate’s procession was the procession of the domination system of the early first century. Jesus’ procession deliberately countered the domination system of the Roman Empire. The two processions embody the central conflict of the week that led to Jesus’ crucifixion.

  Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan, pp. 2-4;

  I found it in Weldon Nisly’s sermon from last week

  I really like Weldon’s sermons, a rarity for me when it comes to sermons in general. A couple more quotes

  We long for the triumph without the tragedy, for the parade without the passion.

  The famous quote of C. S. Lewis is that “The problem is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but rather that it’s been found difficult and not tried.” This Sunday shows just how difficult Christianity is and how rarely it is tried.

  The reality of this choice overwhelmed me yesterday afternoon as many of us saw the play My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Seattle Rep Theater. If you haven’t seen it, go see it. This Hoy Week would be a very good time to do so. While Rachel Corrie wasn’t explicitly giving up her life to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, she certainly went to that “Holy Land” and gave her life in nonviolent love for people who are being “crucified on the cross” of violence and oppression in our time.

• Comment by: Helen

  2 04/8/07 12:13 PM | Comment Link |

  Thanks for your comments, Benjamin. There’s a website for Rachel Corrie. I hadn’t heard of her before but maybe you had since she’s from Washington State. She died in 2003 at the age of 23. She was protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes when she was fatally injured by a bulldozer.

• Comment by: Pete S.

  3 04/8/07 9:06 PM | Comment Link |

  Helen wrote:

  I first heard of Marcus Borg some years ago. I was told he was an enemy to Christianity, since he claimed to be a Christian but also refused to accept the Bible as literally true.

  I heard about Marcus Borg many years ago also. Many of my brother’s have enjoyed reading him, but I have disagreed with his naturalist philosophy/theology. Recently I began reading his book: “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time” and I find myself agreeing with many parts of it, although I think he goes too far in the metaphorical direction. When it comes to Easter and the Resurrection, he doesn’t believe in miracles a priori, so he is obligated to metaphorisize every account of the Resurrection, although (personally) I can find no indication anywhere in the NT that any of the early Christians thought that he hadn’t actually physically risen from death. There are many metaphorical parts, such as Genesis 1 and 2 that I believe shouldn’t be taken literally, but most of the NT should be taken literally, when it is so presented. The Revelation of John is quite metaphorical, and can’t be taken literally.

• Comment by: Helen

  4 04/10/07 7:29 AM | Comment Link |

  Pete, I respect your position that Marcus Borg is too metaphorical about the resurrection.

  Given my current lack of conviction about whether the resurrection is a historical fact, this is actually a plus point for me, because I don’t have to process everything he says based on “Does this still apply if there resurrection didn’t actually happen?” Obviously it does if what he says is metaphorical anyway, so it is easier for me to connect with the ideas he’s sharing.

• Comment by: Pete S.

  5 04/11/07 10:35 PM | Comment Link |

  This reminds me of a class session I participated in when I was in seminary many years ago (Pacific School of Religion). I was the only person in the class (it was on Paul TIllich’s Christology) that believed in a physical aspect to the Resurrection. PSR is a very liberal seminary, and I was perhaps one of the more …. “orthodox” seminarians that it had in a while. People were a bit taken aback that I actually did believe Jesus rose from death: spiritually, metaphorically and literally. Yet I tend to question why people will insist Jesus believed in taking care of people’s physical needs, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, etc… yet do not believe that that has anything to do with people’s greatest physical need: raising the dead, and remaking, renewing the physical body in tandem with making one’s spirit whole.

  I tend to look at the whole person: body, mind and spirit, and don’t think that Jesus will just stop with healing/saving/redeeming part of a person. Each of us is a unified whole, and I believe that the physical can be redeemed as well.

  Those are just my 2 cents worth.

  Furchtet euch nicht, er ist auferstanden.

• Comment by: Helen

  6 04/12/07 4:29 AM | Comment Link |

  Pete wrote:
  

  Yet I tend to question why people will insist Jesus believed in taking care of people’s physical needs, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, etc… yet do not believe that that has anything to do with people’s greatest physical need: raising the dead, and remaking, renewing the physical body in tandem with making one’s spirit whole.

  Pete, I expect it has to do with what people think is possible. If people don’t think it’s possible for the resurrection to have happened then it doesn’t matter how much you argue that it makes for a coherent theology: they won’t accept it as part of their belief system.

• Comment by: Pete S.

  7 04/12/07 9:15 PM | Comment Link |

  Helen wrote:

  If people don’t think it’s possible for the resurrection to have happened then it doesn’t matter how much you argue that it makes for a coherent theology: they won’t accept it as part of their belief system.

  I agree. So the central question is: Is/Was the Resurrection possible? This, of course, leads directly to whether or not one believes in a Naturalist or a Supernaturalist philosophy. Is observable Nature all there is, or is there Someone outside of Nature Who influences, directs and creates Nature, both transcendentally (outside Nature physically and temporally) and immanently (within Nature creating, entering, “invading”, and affecting things so that we witness effects of that Presence?) I believe in the latter (Supernatural) and therefore interpret evidence, eyewitness accounts, and scripture accordingly.

  Good points, Helen.

• Comment by: Helen

  8 04/13/07 3:02 PM | Comment Link |

  Thanks Pete.