The Heart of Christianity

Georgianna's Opening

Jock's Notes

Wayne's Notes

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Peter Barnes Notes. - Synopsis

In Chapter 8 Borg explores the notion that there are many and varied places and ways in which human beings become conscious of the presence of the God who there. He uses the metaphor of ‘thin places’ to convey the sense that much of the time we have a rigid and self-protective shell around us but that some things have the ability to create a thin ‘window of opportunity’ through which we encounter the divine.

He recognizes that these are not necessarily geographic places, but may be, and that the intensity of the experience may vary from time to time and person to person. He spends some considerable time discussing worship as just such a ‘thin place’ for many questions, and in doing so raises many pertinent questions for worship leaders about the use of the various elements of worship as intentional ‘thin place’ creators.

Chapter 9 seeks to address what Borg identifies as one of the least helpful developed traditions of the Christian Church which have taken the ancient concepts of sin and salvation and reduced their significance to single, narrow, even unhelpful proportions.

Here Borg’s thesis is based on the notion that the Hebrew scriptures have a great many different and specific words to denote separation from God, all very different to the traditional Christian idea that ‘sin’ is breaking God’s laws. By looking at Hebrew stories like the exodus and the exile, Borg draws together both parts of the sin-salvation equation and shows that the theology is more about getting things right here and now than anything to do with what may, or may not, happen after death.

Having read the chapter carefully the reader may feel that the Church has short-changed Christians by its narrow and rather legalistic approach to ‘sin’ and ‘salvation’. Because of the great emphasis that has been placed on heaven as a place beyond, a desirable place to get to, people have been discouraged from seeking specific solutions to the real problems of their lives that have resulted in their being cut off from the energizing spirit of God in the here and now.

The Case For The Vigilant Heart - Georgianna Ritter.)

Borg's larger definition of sin is I think, a good one which goes beyond the act itself to its root cause. He suggests that sin originates in the state of the heart. He describes the closed heart as the self centred heart, one which may be led into bondage, exile, isolation, darkness, uncleanness, illness, and finally the evil death to all that is loving beautiful and compassionate. Most Christians, or for that matter followers of other mainstream world religions, rarely fall into the bottom spectrum of sin. But it is quite evident from observation that all humans do dabble sufficiently in matters of sin to recognize their need to seek the wisdom, gentleness, and compassion of which Borg speaks.

There really seems to be little doubt that Christians and others can experience sudden soul shattering epiphanies that lead people into amazing soul changes. For others the experience of Christian change may come with small epiphanies and gradual growth. It is not so much the epiphanies themselves which have importance but what we do about them. We must have a change of heart if we are to grow in spiritual awareness that we call grace.

Borg describes the heart as the deepest level of self, in fact he emphasizes the heart as that place of importance in every aspect of our "soul" life. While new perceptions, ways of seeing, hearing and experiencing life as well as the reviewing and renewing of the minds knowledge are part of the process they still are really only part of the temporal present world. But it is the heart that knows spiritual realities and mysteries, which sometimes awe and confound us.

Thus the need for a vigilant heart.

As Borg so aptly points out, the scriptures repeat countless admonitions about the state of the heart. If we are having difficulty following the Christian "way" we may have to program our minds to possibility thinking. In his 50th anniversary of television Christianity from the Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles, Robert Schuller 's meditations suggest some danger signals which the vigilant heart might note. Things like prejudices, generalisations, failure to address challenges or overcome problems, fear, blind spots making excuses, laziness, ignorance; all which can lead to a closed heart.

C.S.Lewis in his book of meditations entitled "The Business of Heaven" states it is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and in every family since the world began. Pride causes enmity man to man and also toward God. Borg's remedy for these problems of heart is to understand God's love for humankind and for humankind to respond with the understanding that we move, breathe and have our being in God as does every other one. C.S. Lewis goes on to remind us to concentrate on the love of God and the love of others. He says do not waste time bothering about the feeling of love but just act as though you do. Just ask yourself what you would do if you felt love for others and for God. When you have found the answer that uses your gifts go and do it.

These actions will no doubt rescue us from our baser instincts and transform our personal lives as well as contribute to the social reality of bringing the Kingdom of God into being in the here and now. Remember always that this is a two way street. From the words of St. Augustine recently quoted by Desmond Tutu "God without us will not, as we without God cannot."

In closing I would like to quote a prayer for the vigilant heart. It was first written in the journal of a twentieth century Christian mystic and Swedish diplomat who was serving as Secretary General to the United Nations, Dag Hammerskjold.

Give us pure hearts that we may see you;
Humble hearts that we may hear you;
Hearts of love that we may serve you;
Hearts of faith that we may abide in you.

Jock's Notes. Thin Places.

Again Borg returns to the book's theme - he returns to the Heart. Here he speaks to the Opening of the Heart. In the Bible are many instances of this opening of the heart, and the opposite - of hearts that are closed. This most universal metaphor indeed stands for the core of ourselves says he. Our most vital centre is our heart. Our relationships with others are a matter of being open or of being closed. Our relation with the divine is the same - a matter of being open or of being closed.

A closed heart is not a small thing. Not something we can get by with. Something that passes. A closed heart, Borg shows, leads also to the closing of our eyes and of our ears, and of our minds. Then we exist in bondage, we lack gratitude, we are insensitive, we fail to notice life and mystery around us, we lack compassion. No wonder fixing a closed heart is such a common theme in the bible.

From this dark place of estrangement and exile there is no road we can find ourselves - no way out - we are lost. And it is God who calls us out of such a place. It is God who opens our hearts, and so our other senses. Grace.

As a useful new idea, Borg borrows from another really old idea, the Celtic metaphor of "Thin Places". Here is another tradition that recognizes that it is God who opens us up. That there are places on this earth that are holy, and that in these places we hear and see God. It is written on every human heart that we should go to nature, and experience the opening of our hearts.

Not too far from McTavish ancestral lands is the Island of Iona. This has been such a "Thin Place" reaching back as far as measure goes. Here ancient kings were crowned. Here St. Colombo blended Roman Christianity with an earlier Celtic Christianity. Recognizing it was a holy place, he built a church and monastery. Here are some of his very words of this place:

That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,
Source of happiness;
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves
Upon the rocks;
That I might hear the roar by the side of the church
Of the surrounding sea;
That I might see its noble flocks
Over the watery ocean;
That contrition might come upon my heart
Upon looking at her;
The best advice in the presence of God
To me has been vouchsafed.

It is still a Thin Place. Here is a picture of his ancient church and here are some words from Catherine that I collected into a haiku as she recently reflected on her visit there.

Back from Iona.

God in the still mist.

A calmness not possible

Borg quotes Thomas Merton

"Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time."

More than a few special holy places, Thin Places are "anywhere our hearts are opened." But especially worship, with its singing, and sacraments, and ritual. Perhaps says Borg, if we were to be more aware of this, we might alter the way we planned our services.

He concludes by pointing out that over the ages that an open heart, compassion and a passion for justice go together. That Christian devotion has yearned over the centuries for a new and transformed heart.

I conclude by sharing an observation of Reg Bibby in his current book "Restless Gods". We seem to have had it wrong for a half century. Modernism and secularism have not defeated belief. It is becoming quite clear that people have never lost a sense of the mystery of life, the reality of God, respect for the rituals of the church and the elements of moral action. They have not quit the church nor ceased their belief. Rather than having dropped out, they are simply not dropping in. Whatever their lack of fuller participation means, they are not rejecting the church. Bibby speaks of the church message perceived by non churched people as being too severe - that in keeping their distance, they find "fragments (of religion) are more condusive to life in our present age".

And so they do not encounter the claim of the church to turn a closed heart to God. In this sense, Borg is correctly bringing our attention to the gospel we cherish, and the way that we present it to these same distant believers. That we might find better ways - new and old - to open the human heart - better ways to share Thin Places we know.

Wayne's Notes. A Paradox: The Meaning of the Cross for Today

At the end of our last chapter on the Kingdom of God Borg reminds us that "the cross is both personal and political." We did not have much time to discuss what that might mean.

Douglas John Hall, a retired United Church of Canada theologian who has taught at McGill for many years writes about the personal and political meaning of the crossl in his book "The Cross in Our Context: Jesus in the Suffering World," Augsburg/Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN. 2003.

http://www.the-tidings.com/2004/0903/books.htm

Hall claims that for almost 2,000 years, Western Christendom in both its Roman Catholic and major Protestant expressions has been welded to an atonement theology that has guaranteed keeping God the father quite distinct from the suffering son...

"God's commitment to the world entails suffering," says Hall. To live with purpose we need a God best revealed in the suffering love of Jesus. This suffering God helps us understand our context, or current reality. Because of Jesus, God becomes one in suffering with us.

The power of this suffering love evidenced by Jesus on the cross is a paradox. It reverses both the secular power and destructive submissiveness with which the church has too often been identified. God's apparent weakness in Jesus is actually strength. It does not glorify suffering since suffering is not the goal. It is life-focused. Suffering is rather the consequence of claiming the power of faith in Jesus.

The weakness of Jesus, and those who suffer with him, becomes the power demanded of those who voluntarily forfeit their strength in order to be strong for the other.

The author proposes that the mission of the Christian movement in the 21st century is to confess hope in action, through suffering love and reflected by a theology of the cross.

This makes the cross both a personal and a political symbol - a reversal of meaning for us today. It is not a sign of personal defeat, but of victory. It is not a symbol of political power but of the strength inherent in suffering love.

Sin ³Whatever became of sin?² wrote Carl Menninger in a book with that title more than thirty years ago. Menninger, a leader in the movement to link theology and psychology several generations ago, was bemoaning the fact that people did not like the word sin, and were trying to find ways around using it. We blamed our parents, our environment, and society for why we did evil things. We had a hard time accepting that we were sinful beings.

Borg says that we cannot avoid the reality of sin. ³There is something not right, with me and with the world,² he says (165). He quotes Frederick Buecher: ³We are lost. The world gets lost.² (166).

Still, Borg suggests that using the word ³sin² or ³sinful² may not always be the best way to describe our situation. Other, more helpful images may best be used - such as ³bondage,² ³estrangement,² ³blindness,² or ³separation from ourselves.² 2.

Perhaps the best sentence in this section is this: ³We don¹t want to weaken the notion of sin, but to enrich our understanding of the condition from which we need deliverance.² (171).

Just because sin has been falsely used as a club to be held over naive, too easily controlled heads, by parents - priests and partners in the past - that does not mean that sin does not exist. Just because evil things were done by Christians over the centuries to blemish the meaning of the cross (the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, etc.) does not say the political nature of evil, confronted by the cross of Christ, is bereft of meaning.

Salvation Earlier in this course I said that I have changed my theological thinking from a judicial to a therapeutic understanding of the word salvation. Stated simply, I do not find ³sinner² very helpful to describe my condition. Better, for me, is the word ³unhealthy.² Salvation, for me is ³healing,² ³wholeness from what ails me,² ³completeness, from what has divided me.²

So if someone asks me now if I am saved, I see both good and bad connotations in that question. No, I am not saved from sin. Yes, I have found healing and wholeness in my life.

Another important aspect of salvation, linked to our discussion of ³born again² and ³Kingdom of God² is that salvation is a matter of what begins to happen for me in this life, rather than only something that I yearn for in a life to come.

Borg reminds us that in the famous Pauline passages surrounding I Corinthians 15, eternal life is discussed, but Paul¹s dominant theme is the transformation of this world through the exodus and exile stories of the Hebrew Bible and resurrection story of Jesus in the New Testament. Again, there is both a personal and social dimension, a this-worldly as well as an other-wordly reality, to all these stories.

St. Augustine speaks of the Oco-operative¹ nature of salvation. We cannot do without God, but God cannot do without us. Or as Archbishop Desmond Tutu quotes Augustine: ³God without us will not, as we without God cannot. (179).

Another way of looking at salvation is that it is a process, rather than a one-time event. As Luther would say about baptism: It means that daily, the old person in us is destroyed by sorrow and repentence, and daily the new person that is Christ is renewed in us.

All religions link salvation in some way to life after death. But the more we study the history and meaning of what that has meant in the various faith traditions, the more we realize that the different ideas tend to cancel each other out.

Many believe that there is something ³more² or something ³beyond² what we now see and experience as reality. What we can say only with assurance is that salvation is ultimately about life with God, life in the presence of God, now and forever (184).

For a good book on the history of life after death in Judaism, Christianity and Islam see:

The following reviews speak also to the topic.

This review appeared in The Tidings, weekly newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
http://www.the-tidings.com/2004/0903/books.htm
Friday, September 3, 2004

The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World
By Douglas John Hall. Augsburg/Fortress (Minneapolis, 2003). 274 pp., $17.00 US. $25.00 Cdn.

"The theology of the cross is not a single chapter in theology, but the key signature for all Christian theology," says noted European theologian Jurgen Moltmann.

Douglas John Hall has focused on this "theology of the cross" for much of his long career as a Canadian Protestant theologian, one widely read in the United States and beyond. Martin Luther coined the phrase, it seems, clarifying a biblical theme strongly present in the writings of St. Paul and other early teachers, distinguishing it from a "theology of glory."

A theology of glory focuses on a God and a church that is triumphalistic and judgmental. A theology of the cross emphasizes a God and church who offer people strength in another way: "My power is made perfect in weakness" is what Paul puts into the mouth of God (2 Cor 12:9). This power is reflected in suffering love.

In Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," Jesus dying on the on the cross is portrayed as a substitutionary, sacrificial victim for human sin, offered to placate a judging God. A theology of the cross counters that image. It is a "not-much-loved but much-needed" interpretation that portrays a God and church who suffer along with people and do not stand in judgment over them.

Hall, author of "The Cross in Our Context: Jesus in the Suffering World," claims that for almost 2,000 years, Western Christendom in both its Roman Catholic and major Protestant expressions has been welded to an atonement theology that has guaranteed keeping God the father quite distinct from the suffering son.

Historical Christianity -- Christendom -- has steadfastly avoided the theology of the cross, he says, because such a theology could only call into question the whole imperialistic bent of Christendom. But with the demise of Christendom in the modern and postmodern periods, it has become possible for serious Christians to reconsider the meaning and role of this submerged "critical theology."

The author describes how the spirit and method of this theological view -- one not well known in English-speaking lands -- works itself out in modern ecumenical Christian thought.

"God's commitment to the world entails suffering," says Hall. To live with purpose we need a God best revealed in the suffering love of Jesus. This suffering God helps us understand our context, or current reality.

The power of love reverses both the secular power and destructive submissiveness with which the church has too often been identified. God's apparent weakness in Jesus is actually strength. It does not glorify suffering since suffering is not the goal. It is life-focused. Suffering is rather the consequence of claiming the power of faith in Jesus.

The weakness of Jesus, and those who suffer with him, becomes the strength demanded of those who voluntarily forfeit their strength in order to be strong for the other.

Disestablished Christianity, a growing reality in the Western world, is well served by a theology of the cross. Hall believes that disestablishment, understood through the lens of this theology, is actually providential.

The author proposes that the mission of the Christian movement in the 21st century is to confess hope in action, through suffering love and reflected by a theology of the cross.

Catholic readers should value this book. It interprets a stream of biblical, early church and reformation theology that connects with modern Catholic teaching and practice. It could help all Christians to recover a faith tradition "not much loved, but much needed" in our time.

-- Wayne A. Holst

Wayne A. Holst is a parish educator at St. David's United Church in Calgary. He has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary.

Reviewed for The Globe and Mail, Toronto, ON. Martin Levin, Books Editor. July 31st, 2004.

LIFE AFTER DEATH: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion,
by Alan F. Segal. Doubleday Canada: Toronto, ON. 2004. 866 pages. Hardcover. $56.50. Cdn. ISBN #0-385-42299-7.

Reviewed by: Wayne A. Holst

What happens when we die? Is there life after death? If so, what form does that life take?

Most moderns ask such questions. Humans have always asked them. It is the way we have struggled with meaning and self-definition for millennia.

Alan F. Segal, professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard College, Columbia University claims that even though the subject is beyond the purview of science, belief in an afterlife is older than the existence of homo sapiens (if ancient Neanderthal burial studies can be trusted).

History teaches that mortals need to believe there is life after death.

The author of previous best-sellers Paul the Convert and Rebecca's Children (both of which dealt with primitive Jewish-Christian relations), Segal has studied the evolution of belief over five thousand years. He mines rich insights from many ancient Near Eastern mythologies, rites and rituals. He has investigated Islam and comparative teachings of the three great Western faith traditions.

Most importantly, Segal is concerned about how this vast inter-religious tradition impacts our lives today.

Religion, if polling numbers are to be believed, seems to be more important to Segal's American compatriots than to Canadians. But religious sociologist Reginald Bibby and others assure us that the afterlife is also of interest to people in Canada.

Life After Death deals with a subject that is guaranteed to provoke debate; even conflict. Afterlife issues dramatize what many people consider important. Americans take significantly differing positions on the subject, says the author, and this represents a major liberal/conservative rift in their society.

All this merely confirms the contemporary consequence of religion. In spite of secularization in modern Western societies (the demise of formal faith over the past half century), events like 9/11 and the reality of religious terrorism in many parts of the world remind us that popular interest in transcendental meaning has not evaporated. North Americans are still consumed by these matters - even if we do not adhere as we once did to the traditional creeds and doctrines of formal religion. Invariably, as we age, we revisit questions about the afterlife.

Since this book is an extensive social history that traces the development and comparative cultural impact of a religious idea, it is not a theological treatise per se. One underlying question keeps surfacing: "To whose benefit is this belief in the afterlife?"

Every religious tradition interprets life after death as a reward for how well we navigate this life.

Reader beware! It is difficult to skim lightly over any portion of this magnum opus. Segal writes from years of disciplined thought and research. He demonstrates a mature and magisterial grasp of his subject. The range and clarity of understanding contained here is formidable. Rather than be intimidated, however, a good way for readers to approach and maximally benefit from its more than 800 pages is to first read and digest the Introduction and Afterword. These sixty pages provide both a comprehensive orientation and a summarization of the intervening fifteen chapters.

Kernels of truth and insight appear on most every page. The author carefully massages the key themes of each section and demonstrates their particular contribution to the central subject . Every chapter represents a important building-block in the evolution of how the afterlife has been perceived at various times by various audiences in the West. A sense of the afterlife allows individuals to conquer the fear of mortality, says the author. Societies organize and maintain themselves using this strategic motif.

Egypt, Mesopotamia and Canaan provide the foundational source material. The early Hebrews were quite parochial and concentrated primarily on life this side of the grave. Their prophets and other religious leaders preached against foreign temptations. Eventually, however, Judaism did an about face and accepted ideas from various external sources. This resulted in a considerable transformation in the Hebrew worldview.

"Resurrection of the body" and "immortality of the soul" are the two major historical patterns that have emerged to describe what happens when we die. The former represents a belief that surfaced from within Judaism and early Christianity while the latter came from Hellenism and various antecedent traditions. These two motifs thread their way through the entire study. Segal extensively documents the interaction of these core and distinct beliefs. He shows how one dominated, then the other; how integration was achieved and lost again.

A final section deals with how afterlife developed over the past two thousand years. Paul, the Gospels, Pseudepigraphic Literature (false writings), the Church Fathers and Early Rabbis influenced and were influenced by each other.

For a non-Christian, Segal writes with exceptional awareness and understanding of Christian sources. His final chapter, wherein he addresses the Islamic afterlife, is perhaps the least developed of the book. He goes into considerably less detail over Muslim distinctives and how these evolved. He writes emotionally about the dangers of contemporary Islamic, Christian and Jewish fundamentalism.

Objecting to those who hold that the inherent truth of a religion never changes, Segal demonstrates how doctrines of the afterlife in Judaism, Christianity and Islam have shifted over time.

Traditionally, religious faiths were triumphalist about the truths they claimed to possess and exclusive over who should receive the benefits of the afterlife. Generally speaking, that stance is changing.

Caught in the historical dilemma of shifting motifs and creeds, we should admit that the belief we may now favor was, at least at some point, considered wrong. We can either convert to the beliefs that best suit us or we can acknowledge that all statements attempting to define life after death are, at best, approximations of what may await us when we die.

Segal declares that we respond to this dilemma by creating our own heaven and are disinclined to believe that there is such a place as hell. How can we justify this? We are changing our views about what constitutes divine revelation. We are less ready to acknowledge that God speaks to us exclusively and more inclined to accept that God sends differing revelations to different people. We are all essentially talking to ourselves when we interpret what our respective scriptures mean in our present circumstances.

In sum, we may not have a way of ultimately determining which truth is right. The best we can do is articulate what appeals to us most. Ultimately, we still ask the same basic questions and respond with similar answers that humans have debated for thousands of years. Only now, our answers tend to be more comforting and inclusive. We have come full circle. Many moderns accept what pagan philosophers of late antiquity were saying. Our souls, not our bodies, are immortal and everyone will ultimately be saved.

It will just take some souls longer than others to work out their salvation.

We are moving away from religions of belief and toward religions of spiritual imagination since the existence of God and the afterlife are not dependent on what humans believe or disbelieve. Doubt must be part of any attempt to describe what is ultimately indescribable. Having doubts is a healthy acknowledgment of the imaginative aspects of faith. True faith must leave room for doubt.

Our common "immortal longings" are mirrors of what all humans find valuable and worth sharing. Segal concludes with hope for people of various religious traditions, or none. Since all the major faiths have borrowed from each other in the past, the afterlife can serve as an enabling motif for drawing us all together.

Reviewer's Bio: Wayne A. Holst is an adult educator at St. David's United Church, Calgary. He has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary.

Questions for Discussion

Discussion in groups: (3 - 5 people) 35 min Please appoint a ‘spokesperson’ for each session Look at the first question that follows, then subsequent or other questions as time permits. If your own questions seem more relevant please raise them and seek discussion of them.

Question 1: Carefully consider the patterns of worship (personal and/or corporate) in which you are, or have been, involved and try to decide what situations have been most effective in creating ‘thin places’ for you. Where worship has failed to create a thin place, what has been the reason for the failure?

Question 2: In what ways do you feel most separated from God, and what is needed to help you experience ‘salvation’ to counter that separation? Are there ways in which your support community, perhaps (but not necessarily) your church might offer that salvation?

Question 3: If, as Borg suggests, personal transformation is at the heart of the Christian message, what might we do to make this the focus for our worship and our lives?

Plenium Discussion (20 min) Each nominated spokes-person to have an opportunity to share their group’s discussion. The leader will facilitate the group discussion.

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