Five books that changed my life: 5. Reading the Bible again for the first time

Over a year ago, I began a series of blogs called "Five books that changed my life" however only managed to get down two of them before procrastination got in the way.  I was reminded of this idea today, and so skip now to book number five on that list, as I was very sad to hear that the author - Marcus J Borg - passed away yesterday.  So, three and four may follow at some point, but for the moment, here is the fifth book that changed my life...

 

5. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, by Marcus J. Borg

 

A little bit of background... I grew up going along to the Sunday School of my local parish church, disappeared for a few years as a teenager and then came back to that same church when I was fifteen years old.  It was - and is - a wonderful church, filled with wonderful people from a whole manner of backgrounds and worldviews.

 

That said, there was a degree of conservatism in the theology of the Christian faith I learned there - probably fairly typical of the church-at-large.  I learned that the Bible was the inerrant and infallible literal Word of God, that Jesus died in order to pay a debt for my sins and that the only way to 'salvation' (which was understood to mean "going to heaven") was to believe this to be true.

 

As I entered my early twenties, it was becoming clear to me that this didn't fit with me.  It seemed to me that enforcing a literal interpretation of the Bible robbed it of its more-than-literal truth.  Focusing on proving that Moses literally parted the waters of the Red Sea, for example, neglects the metaphorical narrative about our requirement for liberation from systems of bondage that the Exodus story speaks of so powerfully.  I could just about deal with these things - God would forgive me if I got them wrong, surely.

 

But the more I thought about these things, the less convinced I became of what I had learned.  How could a loving God be so full of wrath that he required the suffering and death of another in order to pay for sins not yet committed?  If the requirement of faith is "believing", what about those who've never been told the story and given the chance to "believe"?  (And can grace with a condition attached really be grace?)  If the purpose of faith was "going to heaven", why bother trying to improve life here on earth?  Was I really such an awful sinner, having "fallen short of the glory of God" as every preacher-in-a-pulpit told me I was?  Could I really believe in God as a super-natural being who sometimes intervened in the world and sometimes didn't?

 

Ultimately, it was a crisis of faith and identity.  I was - and remain - convinced that God is real and knowable, but none of this fitted with my experience of God.  The faith I had grown up with seemed too doctrinal and moralistic, and didn't seem to make room for the wonderful diversity of the world's other religions, or for the blessing of same-sex unions.

 

As this was coming to a head, I began to form a friendship with a minister who was working for the Kirk's central administration.  Without knowing any of this going on in my head, she gave me a copy of this book, which carries the strapline 'Taking the Bible seriously but not literally' and told me to read it.  It was an old copy, of a stuffy-looking book with a dismally beige cover and I swiftly stuck it away on a shelf and forgot about it until the next time I was going on holiday and was short of reading material.

 

So there, at the side of a sunny swimming pool, I began to read Borg's book.  At first, I was shocked at some of the suggestions made in the book.  Borg begins by suggesting that the Bible is a human, rather than divine, product.  What!?  I was outraged on behalf of my semi-conservative Christian upbringing! 

 

Getting to the end of the book, the first think I did was to go back to the start and read it all again, and as I read, I realised that the reason I was feeling so taken aback by this book was this: it articulated the very understanding and experience of God that I had always known yet had repressed for fear of being some kind of heretic.

 

This was an immensely liberating realisation.  No longer did I have to try and force myself into a particular set of beliefs, even if they did not fit with my sense of reason.  Here was someone else saying the very things I had always thought.  Here was a faith that I could have faith in.  Here was a faith where rational thought and evidence were important.

 

In the book, Borg suggests a "historical-metaphorical" reading of the Bible, separating truth from factuality in what he calls "post-critical naïveté".  (In other words, read the Bible like the old Native American saying: "I don't know if it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true.")  He argues that the Bible is sacred scripture (in status if not in origin), is a sacrament of the Sacred (a vehicle by which God becomes present) and the Word of God (the disclosure of the divine).  He paints a picture of God, not as a supernatural being, but as the "more" in whom we "live and move and have our being", whose passion is justice and transformation of the world.  He speaks of a faith where believing in a set of propositions is not what it important; he rejects the "be good now for the sake of heaven later" model of Christianity for a faith where what matters is to be passionate about God's passion for transformation of real lives in the real world, here and now.  He speaks of a God for whom liberation from bondage, return from exile, sight for blindness, food for the hungry and freedom for the captive are just as important as forgiveness of sin.

 

He provides a paradigm in which it is possible - and, indeed necessary - to take the Bible and the Christian faith seriously while simultaneously being able to affirm homosexual relationships, religious pluralism and scientific advance and reject doctrinal absolutes such as sacrificial atonement.

 

The title of the book - Reading the Bible again for the first time - is very apt, as this enabled a complete re-seeing of the Bible for me and afforded me confidence in the God I know and love.

 

Since then, I have been an avid reader of Borg's work.  Walter Wink is quoted on the cover of one of Borg's books as saying "In every generation, there is a handful of writers of whom it can be said, "Read everything they write".  Marcus Borg is one of these today."  I couldn't agree more.  Just last year, Borg published his last book 'Convictions: A manifesto for progressive Christianity' which is a semi-autobiographical summary of all his works and is a compelling and challenging summary of a faith rooted in justice and compassion.

 

It was with a great sadness that I read of Borg's death, not just because we lose a great thinker and theologian, but because his work has had such a transforming effect on my life.  He has challenged, encouraged, frustrated and inspired me more than any other writer, and it is sobering to think there will never be another new Borg book to get my teeth into.

 

Whoever you are, and whatever you believe, I would encourage you to read the work of Marcus Borg.  You won't be disappointed.

I'm sorry I HOVen't a clue

Mid September and we were travelling along the R40 heading out of Nelspruit, the capital of South Africa's Mpumalanga province.  After driving over 4000km through five provinces, I had got used to the rules of the South African road, with four-way-stops, yellow line overtaking and flashing red robots no longer presenting any confusion.  However, this large freeway presented a new-one which I couldn't work out.

The inside lane on either carriageway was marked "HOV ONLY".  After much debate and speculation as to what HOV could stand for, we concluded that it was probably safest just to avoid that lane.  The best we could come up with was that perhaps "HOV" was the local equivalent of "HGV" - maybe this was a special lane for slower-moving goods vehicles?

I had completely forgotten all of this until last night when the Highways Agency tweeted a link to a booklet called "Know Your Traffic Signs".  I don't know why, but I clicked the link and sat idly scrolling through the pages of well-known traffic signs, until I came to an entire page on "HOV lanes" - far from being something unique to South Africa, they are found in the UK and throughout the world.

It turns out "HOV" stands for "High Occupancy Vehicles", meaning that only cars with a minimum number of passengers in addition to the driver are permitted - what would be known as the "car pool lane" in the States.  Having thought I was only confused in Nelspruit because I was overseas, it was a bit of a shock to discover that this is something within our own Highway Code, so I started to flick through the booklet and came across all sorts of new signs that I've never heard of, such as "Home Zones" and "Quiet Lanes".

I have held a driving license for just under 11 years, and in that time several changes to legislation and many new initiatives such as HOV lanes, Home Zones, Quiet Lanes and Active Traffic Management have been introduced, and I was none the wiser.  This begs the question as to how much of the current Highway Code drivers older than me will be aware of - according to Direct Line, there have been 29 new rules and a 50% increase in content of the Code between 1999 and 2007.

Is it perhaps time that some kind of regular theory refresher be introduced for all drivers?

Est-ce que je suis Charlie?

I'm sure we all shared a sense of gut-wrenching sadness as we watched events in Paris unfold this week as many lives were lost and others shattered in an appalling act of murderous violence, and who could fail to be moved by the way the world has reacted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the French people.  No such act could ever have any justification, and that the perpetrators claimed to do so in the name of a peace-loving religion is beyond belief.  In the words of a statement issued by the Edinburgh Interfaith Association, "that they were carried out supposedly in the name of God only increases that sense of futility and outrage. Words cannot express the horror of such acts, nor do justice to the sense in which this was an attack upon, and betrayal of, so much that we hold dear."

Following the attack on Charlie Hebdo, many, particularly in the media, have also been quick to jump to the defence of the freedom of the press, and rightly so.  If society is to operate in any kind of just manner, the scrutiny of a free press is essential - and satire plays an important role in this.  With that freedom comes the freedom to offend, and that is something we must all be prepared to accept.

All of that said, two things are playing on my mind.

The first is Charlie Hebdo.  I hope I have made clear that I believe they have the essential right to publish as they see fit, and I join the ranks of all those who stand in solidarity with all affected by this week's attacks.  Even if Charlie Hebdo published that which I disagree with, I defend their right to do so.  However, expressing our solidarity and defending the rights of a free press does not require us to give assent to all that they do.  After all, having the right and freedom to publish something does not mean it will advance the common good to do so.

We live in a world where vastly different ideologies are competing for power.  While satire has a valid role to play in challenging this, we must be careful that inflammatory media does not fan the flames and deepen division.  Far better that those of different worldviews try to find a space to understand one another, for only then will we find ways to peacefully live side-by-side.

American cartoonist Joe Sacco had given this thought provoking response on the limits of satire: http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2015/jan/09/joe-sacco-on-satire-a-response-to-the-attacks

The second thing playing on my mind is Nigeria.  Why Nigeria? I hear you ask. 

As the hostage situation in Paris was drawing to a close, 20 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a packed marketplace in Maiduguri in Nigeria, the attack carried out by... wait for it... a 10 year old girl.  How many front pages did this headline?  None.  How many news bulletins even ran the story? Very few.  Contrast that with the 24-hour rolling coverage of events in France.

Now, let's be clear, I do not intend to belittle what happened in France, but simply to highlight the differing media coverage.  Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for around 2000 deaths in Nigeria in recent months, and yet we hear little of it; no marches have taken place, no hashtag is trending.  Even as I type, the AFP newswire is reporting two suicide attacks killing four people in Nigeria - I wonder if that will make tomorrow's front pages?

Why are atrocities in Paris more newsworthy than atrocities in Nigeria?  Is it because the former involved a direct attack on the media itself?  Is it because of geographic closeness?  Is it because events in Nigeria are so frequent we have learned to tune them out?  Or is it because the attacks in Paris involved people we deem to be like ourselves in a society we deem to be like ours?

We must be careful not to divide the world into "them" and "us", whether that be in media which mocks "them" without considering the role of "us" in reconciliation and peace-building, or in the reporting of only that news which affects "us" and turning a blind eye to that which affects "them". 

If there is hope for a harmonious future for humanity, there can only be "us" and we must all find ways of living with our differences.  Or, to again use the words of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association, "the future for our world, and for religions, will be found in respect for others, dialogue through freedom of expression, and collective action that seeks the wellbeing and flourishing of all."

A strange year...

Having left 2014 behind, it seemed appropriate to do that clichéd thing of reflecting on the year gone by.  As has been true for several years now, 2014 brought more than its fair share of bad news, so I make no apologies here for focusing on the positive things.  The word that seems to sum it all up was... unusual.

Within the last twelve months, I've climbed into the caldera of a volcano, cycled round a Greek island, run naked into an iced pool in the middle of a city and my bald spot has appeared on BBC One.  I've eaten a kudu, been chased by a rhino, kissed by an elephant and charged by a warthog.  I've dived with rays, hunted for gnomes, danced with Zulus, queued for Wimbledon and swam in a desert.  I've been to shows as diverse as a hip-hop concert, some fantastic comedy and Pinocchio in Polish and have experienced a Mauri haka done to Scottish ceilidh tunes accompanied by a didgeridoo.  I've learned to lay slabs, catch termites, vote by proxy and finally grasped the subjunctive tense in French.

None of this could be regarded as ordinary, but all of it has been great fun.  Who knows what 2015 will bring, but part of the fun is in the unknowing.

Happy new year!