The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of FaithWorld-renowned Jesus scholar Marcus J. Borg shows how we can live passionately as Christians in today's world by practicing the vital elements of Christian faith. For the millions of people who have turned away from many traditional beliefs about God, Jesus, and the Bible, but still long for a relevant, nourishing faith, Borg shows why the Christian life can remain a transforming relationship with God. Emphasizing the critical role of daily practice in living the Christian life, he explores how prayer, worship, Sabbath, pilgrimage, and more can be experienced as authentically life-giving practices. Borg reclaims terms and ideas once thought to be the sole province of evangelicals and fundamentalists: he shows that terms such as "born again" have real meaning for all Christians; that the "Kingdom of God" is not a bulwark against secularism but is a means of transforming society into a world that values justice and love; and that the Christian life is essentially about opening one's heart to God and to others. |
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Page xiii
... connected with larger questions of the Christian life : God , faith , the Bible , biblical authority , atonement , resurrection , the creed , prayer , ethics , Christianity and other reli- gions , and so forth . Their interest in Jesus ...
... connected with larger questions of the Christian life : God , faith , the Bible , biblical authority , atonement , resurrection , the creed , prayer , ethics , Christianity and other reli- gions , and so forth . Their interest in Jesus ...
Page 8
... related. There is no necessary connec- tion. God could speak infallibly in the language of poetry, metaphor, and myth. We have no reason to think that God must be a literalist. But for the last few hundred years, they have been linked ...
... related. There is no necessary connec- tion. God could speak infallibly in the language of poetry, metaphor, and myth. We have no reason to think that God must be a literalist. But for the last few hundred years, they have been linked ...
Page 20
... associated with a movement known as neoortho- doxy . His books are brilliant and comprehensive ; his multi - volume Church Dogmatics is about ten thousand pages long . 2. The poll was commissioned jointly by PBS's Religion and Ethics ...
... associated with a movement known as neoortho- doxy . His books are brilliant and comprehensive ; his multi - volume Church Dogmatics is about ten thousand pages long . 2. The poll was commissioned jointly by PBS's Religion and Ethics ...
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Common terms and phrases
affirms afterlife become a thin believing biblical biblical infallibility biblical literalism bondage born centered central century chapter Christ Christian identity Christian tradition church closed heart creeds culture divine dying and rising earlier paradigm early Christian earth Easter emerging paradigm emphasizes enduring religions exile experience factuality forgiveness Frederick Buechner God’s gospel grace happens HarperSanFrancisco heart of Christianity heaven Hebrew Bible historical human Huston Smith identity important includes involves Jewish Kingdom Kingdom of God language literally lives Lord Luke mainline meanings of faith metaphor modern notion nourishes one’s panentheism passion path Paul phrase political practice prayer pre-Easter primarily reality relationship religious pluralism revelation sacrament sacred salvation San Francisco scripture sense simply sins social speak Spirit story of Jesus supernatural theism Testament theism thin place tion transformation Trinity Episcopal Cathedral true truth understanding vision wealth word worldview worship
Popular passages
Page 174 - I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
Page 107 - The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
Page 107 - Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Page 87 - A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
Page 20 - ... pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending...
Page 155 - I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Page 111 - There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Page 112 - Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Page 110 - Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.