Marcus Borg and God
Jacqui Poole celebrates the vision and power of Marcus Borg
Borg, Marcus Borg. I met him about six years ago. He was introduced to me by a Friend from another Meeting when we were on a course at Woodbrooke – and it was love at first sight! Well, not quite ‘sight’ as he wasn’t there in person. The Friend recommended a particular book of his, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith, which I devoured. I read others. Then, later, at the bookshop in Friends House, I came across what for me is his pièce de résistance – Speaking Christian: Recovering the Lost Meaning of Christian Words.
I keep recommending him in general and this book in particular to friends and acquaintances – to the point where people are beginning to treat me, I feel, as one inclines to treat all harmless fanatics, with smiling tolerance!
He is, or was (he died a couple of years ago) an American theologian. His work, I find, is inspiring. He brings an informed objectivity of thinking and clarity of expression to all the aspects of the ‘spiritual’ that he writes about.
Now, I have just finished reading No Extraordinary Power: Prayer, Stillness and Activism, a book that was on the recommended reading list for Yearly Meeting Gathering. The author, Helen Steven, gave the Swarthmore Lecture in 2005. The main focus of the book is prayer and how, for her, it relates to activism. In the last section, ‘Bedrock of Faith’, she looks at what we mean, as a Society, and what she means as an individual, by the word ‘God’ – and this brought Marcus to mind!
In chapter five of Speaking Christian Marcus Borg claims, despite the standard dictionary definitions of ‘God’ that posit a person-like being that is separate and distinct from the universe – an authority figure who is interventionist and male – there is a second idea that permeates both the Old and New Testaments and which is the antithesis of the first. This second ‘referent’ is as ancient as the first and is common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I would also add Hinduism. He quotes Paul talking of God as ‘the One in whom we live and move and have our being’. According to this, we are in God. We live within God, we move within God. God is a Sacred Presence in which we move as fish move in water. He quotes Psalm 139, which stresses that wherever we go, God is. This, he says, only makes sense if God refers to a Sacred Presence that is everywhere. You need to read the whole chapter to get the force of his argument.
He then makes a point, which I find so telling, and I quote: ‘This referent of the word [the referent as ‘Sacred Presence’], radically changes the question of God’s existence. It is no longer about whether there is another being separate from the universe. Rather, the question is about the nature of reality, of what is, of isness.’
The question becomes not ‘is there a God?’ but ‘is “what is” simply the space-time world of matter and energy?’ – or is reality more than that? There’s more, of course. He examines further implications of this position.
I would just add that it is the first ‘referent’ that nontheists or atheists seem to be rejecting. So do I – God, for me, is this Sacred Presence which cannot be categorised but can be experienced, as George Fox – and so many others – tell us.
