Marcus Borg

Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing Marcus Borg speak. This was my fourth opportunity to learn from Borg in the give and take of a presentation followed by a Q & A. His topic was Open Hearts and Thin Places: Mysticism and Christianity. Another chance to figure out why I continue to call myself a "Christian."

If you've read my blog, you know that I hold many ideas which are outside the mainstream of commonly declared Christianity. I usually cringe when someone tells me that they are a Christian. When I look through the Craigslist, "Women For Men" category and some woman says she is looking for a Christian man, I move away immediately. I know that I am not what she wants. I consider George Bush, not only a criminal traitor to our nation, but also a cynical religious poseur who uses the words of Christianity to play political games. But he is merely following in a line that begins, in my lifetime, with Ronald Reagan. I am not only a nudist, but one who believes that nudism is a healthier way to raise children. I do not believe that the bible was dictated by God. In fact, I don't believe in a God who is "out there" and who swoops in to perform miracles that defy the laws of nature in response to prayers and supplications from believers.

Yet I am a "Follower of Jesus" and am subject to the common term Christian. I do experience within me, the real presence of something sacred. Is this Christ? Well, that feeling comports with the teachings of Jesus and he experiences of the disciples as reported in the bible. The combination of that sacred presence and those teachings, I call "ChristSpirit." (Others may have other words and some of my friends use the word "deluded.") I am strongly persuaded to try to live my life according to the words of Micah, Amos, Isaiah, and the 25th chapter of Matthew. Nothing in human nature seems to drive me in that direction. When I fail to pay attention to the "ChristSpirit" I find myself doing some pretty venal behaviors, concerned mainly with my own short-term hedonism. Yet I know that I am also capable of great acts of benevolence, kindness and altruism. I attribute this to the sacred ChristSpirit.

Back to Borg. Mysticism is at the center of a modern Christianity. The non-mystical Christianity is a dying religion. It was born in a world where accepted reality was a flat earth, four pillars holding up the dome of heaven. What is now called "hell" was a real place--though not the place which Dante invented--under the surface of the flat earth. The attempts to promote "Intelligent design" will fail. A religion based on the physical cannot continue. A religion of images of God which places God above the dome of heaven simply can't cope with space travel. And there will be more space travel; humans will not fail to travel to distant stars and planets.

Only a mystical Christianity can touch the reality of our sacred sense of God. Only a mystical awareness will do justice to our noetic experience. Finally, only a mystical faith is adequate to accord with sacred reality of panentheism. (The word "God" does not refer to a person-like super-powerful authority figure separate from the universe, but to a reality that is "right here and right now" as well as "more than right here and right now"--present everywhere and also beyond everything.

Only a mystical Christianity takes seriously the (post)modern culture which turns to experience rather than doctrine. "Our suspicion of doctrinal claims grounded in traditional authority." This is an affirmation of my own postulate, "Orthodoxy is by definition incorrect as it doesn't take a constantly changing reality into account."

Borg concluded with four admonitions:

• Mystical experiences are not the goal of the Christian life. Becoming focused on them is a form of grasping.
• The goal of Christian life is a deepening relationship with God, and greater and greater participation in God's compassion for the world.
• The goal of the Christian life (and the height of mysticism) is union with the will of God.
• The pinnacle of Christian mysticism is not an altered state, but altered traits

Neither Borg nor I would say that this mystical Christianity is correct and other religions are wrong. In fact, Borg spoke admiringly of both Judaism and Buddhism--and I have, for over thirty years, maintained a Zen practice.

He was only saying that for Christianity, the option for the future is an engaged mysticism.

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For anyone who wishs to read more from Marcus Borg, I recommend the following books available from your local independent book seller--or, if you insist, Borders, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.com.

Meeting Jesus Again For The First Time
The Heart of Christianity
Jesus