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Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning And Power - And How They Can Be Restored (2011)

by Marcus J. Borg(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

HarperOne

review 1: The twist to this book is that rather than Christian words being "lost," as in suffered distortion over the course of history, those words simply failed to appeal to the Christian audience Borg would like to appeal to in their traditional/orthodox usage.Borg claims to be going back to the original meanings, yet rarely ever appeals to the past, far less than most theologians do even when not trying to recapture the past. More so, Borg makes appeals to modern day (middle class, western and politically liberal) sensibilities as being key to how we should read the Bible. He gives it away aplenty by dropping hints that certain historical-traditional understandings are hard to stomach, seem too harsh, make us feel bad, etc. As for restoring meaning, there's a lot of cherry-picki... moreng verses, calling some verses metaphorical-not-literal and vice versa with no apparent exegesis, and good luck searching early church documents to find a lot of the beliefs modern theologians distorted--not that Borg references them (or anything really.)I am entirely fine with Borg trying to paint Jesus as a social revolutionary who came to preach justice to the poor and oppressed. I am both sympathetic to such a reading and to such Christian ethics. However, I do not believe jettisoning Trinitarianism, calling the resurrection unimportant, new agey collusions, jettisoning sin, and calling for a more reader-friendly Bible is anything but Speaking Anti-Christian.
review 2: Stunning biblical and early Christian analysis is presented as Markus Borg reclaims the meaning of the words that convey Christianity itself. It is a light run through of the major vocabulary of the faith (sin, salvation, the way of the Lord, believe, righteousness, faith, mercy, and shockingly even eternal life) giving back the ancient hebrew or early Christian sense of the word. One main theme of the book is that "believe" does not mean to twist your intellect to confess the impossible, but it means to BELOVE; "credo" means to "give my heart to". But there is so much more. Read this and learn about the legacy, the birthright, of Christians that has been distorted and twisted to mean something so different from what was originally mean as to not be the same faith. less

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