The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authenthic Contemporary Faith

by Marcus J. Borg

Book Overview

How to have faith--or even think about God--without having to stifle modern rational thought is one of the most vital challenges facing many of us today. Marcus J. Borg, author of the bestselling Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, traces his personal spiritual journey to the discovery of an authentic yet fully contemporary understanding of God. In a compelling, readable way, he leads us from the distant, authoritarian God of our childhood...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060610352
• ISBN13: 9780060610357
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A different view.

FAITH may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. There is thus a flavor of the pathological in it; it goes beyond the normal intellectual process and passes into the murky domain of transcendental metaphysics. A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill. Worse, he is incurable, for disappointment, being essentially an objective phenomenon, cannot permanently affect his subjective infirmity. His faith takes on the virulence of a chronic infection. What he says, in substance, is this: “Let us trust in God, Who has always fooled us in the past.” You need not have faith to be decent human.

God Is Present Everywhere

THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW introduces us to a God that we never met during childhood.Most of us as Christians were taught about a supernatural being out there who created the world a long time ago and sometimes intervened - especially during biblical times. After death we might be with Him if we were good on earth and believed the right things.Instead of believing in a supernatural being out there, Borg suggests we will find it more satisfying to be in relationship with a sacred reality right here. God is not the sum total of things. God is more than everything. He is all around us and within us and we are within God.The Christian life is not about beliefs and requirements. It is not about believing in a God out there for the sake of an afterlife later. The Christian life is about entering into a relationship with God as known in Jesus Christ. This is the God who is out there but also right here. This God is real and is the God we never knew. A relationship with this God will prove to be a life-changing experience.Borg shows how this God has really been in the Bible all along but has been largely ignored by mainline Christianity. For anyone struggling with Christian beliefs, THE GOD WE NEVER KNEW may well lead to the start of an unforgettable journey with the sacred.

Be compassionate, as the Spirit is compassionate...

Marcus Borg, as any of his readers know, is a religion professor at Oregon State who has been part of the "Jesus Seminar". What sets him apart from his compatriots, however, is that he knows how to synthesize scholarship with faith. In this book, a gem of a work, he unfolds his own heart for us to reveal his own deeply personal ideas about God, Jesus, life, the Bible, and many other relevant topics. He reveals to us the difference between "faith"--a relationship of trust, devotion, and submission in love to God/the Spirit/the Sacred--and "Theology"--a manmade system to try and understand how God works and what God is like. He offers his insights in compassion, not wishing to be judgmental or to shatter old illusions--indeed, his own story reveals that he's gone through those very things. This is not the story of God the omnipotent Father figure, the King and Judge who is our un-needed superego. This is the story of the Spirit; the still, small voice, the primordial pulse of the universe, the all-encompassing transcendent/immanent force of love which holds us all in the palm of its proverbial hand. This book revealed just as much about my own human reactions to faith as much as God's nature--the journey of faith is one of self-discovery as well as discovery of God. Borg is a scholar who can see through the attempts of smaller minds to cloud Truth, but he's also an awestruck believer who feels a hint of the mystical reality that is God, and he eagerly wants to know God more. Do not read his book, however, hoping to prove or disprove your own assumptions. Certainly don't read it hoping to find material to indict Borg as a heretic. Read it hoping to discover how little you really know, and how much you really feel. Take it as a precious gift, offered in love, and let your heart be opened.

Great Book

This book confims so much I first learned from An Encounter With A Prophet Spirituality is the answer.

A must for the religiously disenchanted

This is possibly the best book on spirituality I have ever read. A must for anyone who has dismissed as "bunk" the beliefs they were taught as a child and found him or herself with nothing to replace the "bunk." Borg calls on his own experiences to suggest ways of viewing God and religion in general that make sense. Even if one doesn't agree with Borg's thoughts, at least he gives the reader something to consider. Marcus Borg has a unique ability to write about complex, scholarly issues in a simple, straightforward style that is easy to understand.

Educational, inspirational - a wonderful book

Marcus Borg, a distinguished scholar who has devoted himself to studies of the "historical Jesus," has written from his own experiences as a Christian, informed by a lifetime of scholarship, about our need to develop a personal relationship to God. In clear, precise, down-to-earth language, he manages to explain difficult concepts while outlining a reasoned, convincing approach to Christian faith. Every page conveys a sense of deep respect for, and faith in, a continuing and vital relationship to God. His theology can liberate us from magical thinking and narrow-minded literalism, and points the way to a continuing, ever-deepening relationship to God. In a thoughtful, non-defensive manner, he describes a basis for deep religious faith fully consistent with our contemporary world view. I have never found a book on religious faith so helpful, so clear, and so inspiring for a modern reader. By liberating us from a "requirement-based" faith in a "monarchical" God, he has shown the way to a meaningful, day-to-day relationship to God as the foundation of our lives, the "ground of being" described by Paul Tillich. His book is a gift to us that I am glad to have found, and I will follow the advice of William Wink, who wrote about another book of Borg's that we should read everything he writes. I wish everyone could read and reflect on the message of this book.