The God We Never Knew
Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Answering the many spiritual questions left unaddressed by such popular historical bestsellers as A History of God and God: A Biography, renowned author Marcus J. Borg looks for a way to embrace an authentic contemporary faith that reconciles God with science, critical thinking and religious pluralism.
How to have faith -- or to even think about God -- without having to stifle modern rationality is one of the most crucial challenges facing contemporary religion. In the process of exploring this dilemma, Borg traces his own personal journey. He leads readers from the all-powerful and authoritarian image of the God of his childhood to an equally powerful but more dynamic God who is not only relevant to contemporary seekers, but also more biblical and spiritually authentic.
Marcus J. Borg, author of the bestselling Heart of Christianity, is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University and author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, The God We Never Knew, and coauthor of Jesus: A New Vision (with N. T. Wright). He was an active member of the Jesus Seminar when it focused on the historical Jesus and he has been chair of the Historical Jesus section of the Society of Biblical Literature.
“Borg does what few scholars on religion seem capable of doing: He has digested an immense amount of difficult, often conflicting religious ideas and written a clear, coherent, and highly readable theological work that satisfies the mind and the soul.” -Oregonian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his new book, Borg (Religion, Oregon State) has done for God what he did for Jesus in a previous book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Examining God from an intellectual, theological and experiential standpoint, Borg gently dismantles images of God that, in the last 30 or 40 years, have ceased to be persuasive to many, and offers a new and compelling portrait of God that invites readers to reconsider their relationship with the sacred. Borg argues that older images of a monarchical God who is distant from us discourage intimacy with God. These models' images of domination and subjection, according to Borg, carry over into our relationship with nature, politics and one another. Borg's alternative image of God, "the belonging model," portrays a compassionate God who is always with and amongst us, seeking relationship. Writing clearly, summarizing some of the best of contemporary theology in nontechnical language, Borg continues to speak to, and to challenge, the widest possible audience.
