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Commentary on The Heart of Christianity by Phil Nichols (Editor's Note: Sydney and Phil Nichols, along with their disabled daughter Jocelyn, regularly attend St. A's 9:00 am Sunday service. Phil told me how much he liked Marcus Borg's book, The Heart of Christianity, which is the topic of a Sunday morning adult discussion group I have led. I asked Phil to write something for this newsletter. The following is Phil's offering. ) Phil Nichols' Commentary - There is a wonderful song that Cole Porter wrote in the 1930's, "So Easy to Love. "You'd be so easy to love..." Unfortunately, the same has hardly been true of the God of my upbringing. When most of your close friends are Jewish, God is not "easy to love" if He denies eternal life to those who do not believe in Jesus as the Son of God. When terrible things happen to people you love, God is not "easy to love" if He has the power to intervene and does not. When you realize the scientific progress made though the God-given tool of rationality, God is not "easy to love" if you must accept beliefs that defy rationality. Ironically, it has been easier for many of us to like the church than to love God. In my late 20's, I welcomed church (as I still do) as a place where I can spend a Sunday morning focused on something other than my job. Church brought perspective and balance. However, it did not necessarily seem founded on truth. In fact, the nagging knowledge that the Church was based on unbelievable beliefs has sometimes interfered with the spiritual power of the services. One had to learn to appreciate the community and communion and mission of church in spite of the beliefs, not because of the beliefs. So that is why I found Borg's The Heart of Christianity a great, great read. Borg said that his wife told him that he was out to help those who loved their faith, and to help others find a faith they could love. I think she is right. Borg's gifted mind sorts through concepts and history, always respectful of the diversity of experience and belief. So, having sorted out so much, what does Borg himself believe? Borg does not believe God is a being in heaven, capable of parting the sea or setting bushes on fire. But Borg believes that God can transform us. Borg does not believe that God is exclusive to those who believe that Jesus was literally the son of God. But Borg believes that Jesus is central to our church and the way we understand God (Christianity being a way, but not the only way, to know God). Borg really believes in God, and that God is a constant presence in whom we "live and move and have our being." Borg prays, he reads the Bible, and he seeks out spiritual experiences that help him have an open heart. Borg believes that God calls us to seek justice for others. Borg is both clear and respectful. He neither obfuscates nor infuriates. In the 1960's, I read a book of Paul Tillich, a major protestant theologian who died in 1965. It seemed to me that Tillich took traditional Christian terms, such as God, grace and sin, and redefined them as psychological concepts. It was nice to read, but it seemed like cheating. It felt like a disservice to the believers, creating a terminology that Tillich-like clergy could use to mask their differences with their parishioners. Tillich lacked clarity, perhaps to be a hero without having to be an outcast. About the same time, I also heard Bishop Pike speak. He was a remarkable, forthright, controversial man, the Episcopal Bishop of California (the grandiose name for the Bishop of San Francisco). In a sermon I heard in college after he had resigned his post, Bishop Pike said that the problem with the church was that it had too many beliefs, and not enough belief. Pike was clear, and, at some level, may have enjoyed being an outcast. Fortunately, Borg is both clear and respectful. As a real estate lawyer, I realize the importance of ownership, and the problem of "clouds on title." When I read Tillich in college, I assumed that the concepts of God, grace and sin were, from the days of Jesus, owned by the church. Tillich seemed to me to be trying to misappropriate those terms, and to cloud the church's title to those concepts. It seemed that Tillich sowed confusion, not clarity. But Borg makes a fascinating point: that the disciples, and those who wrote the gospels, and those who were part of the church of the first century, were likely of Borg's views. Borg thinks those early Christians did not believe in the literal resurrection, or the literal virgin birth. Rather, they found themselves transformed by the message and life of Jesus. The early followers of Jesus wrote books and letters that used language intended as metaphors, not facts. They spoke from their hearts and for their times. For them, Jesus was a way, and the resurrection was a metaphor for finding the new way and leaving the old. Borg thinks that the organized church over the centuries misappropriated the teachings of Jesus and the beliefs of the early Christians. To ensure the power of the church and its leaders, church leaders adopted doctrines that were inconsistent with early Christianity. Those doctrines were comforting to some people but were destructive to others. So in Borg's view, Borg's "new paradigm" of Christianity is really a return of Christianity to the religion of Jesus' followers during the first century. Borg thus may have helped some of us find a faith we can love ñ a God "so easy to love", to use Cole Porter's phrase. A church service could perhaps become a place to find spirituality in the context of belief, instead of in the absence of beliefs. Time will tell. What if we discover that many of us at St. A's are attracted to this God so easy to love? Well, for one thing, we will have to celebrate that St. A's will always have members who are attracted to the God that is harder to love. There is no exclusive vision at St. A's. Diversity is the norm. For another thing, we will have to sort out what this might mean for others. Sydney and I have two adult sons, as well our daughter Jocelynn. Our adult sons ñ and millions of their generation -- find the "God of our fathers" to be unbelievable and unfair and a distraction from leading a meaningful, integrated life. Can the un-churched find a church that helps them find peace, growth and challenge without having to leave their brains outside the church doors? What if we as a parish nourish Borg's concept of the transformation in Christ, and the realization that God is in us and around us, and that Jesus calls us to social justice? Is this a valuable enough thing to share? Can it connect with the un-churched? Perhaps best of all, it is nice to think that those of us in Borg's "new paradigm" are not merely welcomed as "people struggling with doubt." Rather, we are welcomed as people of belief.
Copyright © 2004 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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