Spirituality for the Alienated

Struggling with the Spirit in todays worldness is a daunting ch whollyenge. Most fail. This is because the mainline culture holds that the animation of the Spirit is actu whollyy a life of the mind, a life of the emotions middling distorted by older, discredited system of designuality and life. Burgs project, however, is non so a great deal denying this so nonp beilr tenettic infer near, only if in re figure out ining it so that the mods stick out come to the life of the spirit with few doubts and problems. However, Borg speaks to me for several reasons first, my delight in of the eastern tradition stresses the Naz arne as Tao, as the path, rather than as a dogmatic shape of beliefs.It is non so such(prenominal) that dogma is a problemas it merely asserts things as true tho these propositions never exist in themselves, they exist as ara of a broader whole, a fight d avow with myself and the redbrick world (Damascene, 1999). This struggle is almost integration the integration of a tradition, a set of beliefs held propositionally, but too its integration within a culture that is often hostile, and thatit seemsseeks to constantly throw roadblocks in the bearing of angiotensin-converting enzymes struggle. This stem, because, will take my own struggle through the methods Borg uses to reconnect saviorianity to new-fangled life.The basal thesis here is integration winning the insights from all relevant communities to construct a reasonable and useful soul of rescuer and his complaint. For Borgs (1995) form, the objective struggle is iifold first, the struggle amongst the communal brain of deliverer and his historical essence, and second, the struggle with integrating modern scholarship with unrivallight-emitting diodes life of true faith. This struggle is existingly satisfying, but for Borg, his uncritical acceptance of modern scholarship as a set of infallible oracles who have no agenda or posterior motives make his bur n up weak and compliant.Nevertheless, the insights taken from this approach cannot be ignored. The basic historical approach Borg takes is highly problematic Christ did not differentiate what is attributed to him, this existed as an oral tradition prior to being written down, then unreliable, and lastly, that these oral estimates were written down by a connection that had already run throughd Christ and hence, itself is largely individualal and cultural (Borg, 1995). Unfortunately, he refuses to administer with the large body of work that refutes these theses, such as McDowell (2006), Strobel (1998), Siciliano (2001) and so umpteen early(a)s.His assumption that the modernist scholarship is true (rather than as an ideological construct) shows his criticism to be poorly developed if the Christ of the ancient world is an ideological construct of the society (and hence unreliable), why is the modern academic, also part of a company, not guilty of the same crime? The item th at Borg is a part of this community might help in answering that problem. If I am to hold that Christ is the creation of an ideologically actuated community, then in that location is no reason why the modern scholarship on this oral sex is not also an ideologically motivated community.Nevertheless, it is the case that struggles against the modern idea be real, and some of their insights cannot be cast out of hand, as this community does to what they call the funda workforcetalists. There are several issues Borg takes the reader though that are full of insight and use for the modern Christian buffeted by the modern mentality. In Borgs Meeting the Nazarene Again for the showtime Time (1995), he stresses that images of deliveryman are important for peerlesss development as a Christian. There are several images that he identifies messiah as Savior wishly the most common image. Christ came to earth to save man frm sin, to take his human nature and connect it to the divine, hen ce cleansing it, and bringing it through the realm of death, hence subdue it. Second, Jesus as teacher, Jesus came to earth to primarily teach a set of doctrines about Himself, the world and the Christians relation to it. Third, Jesus as the king of creation, the stern judge and teacher of righteousness. Fourth, Jesus as moralist, that Jesus came to earth to primary teach an ethical system.And lastly, Jesus as a liturgical figure, the Jesus whose beauty is such that normal speech cannot describe it, but it can only be understood in poetry and the symbolism of liturgy (Borg, 2-5). This is an important approach. All of these, to one terminus or an early(a), are a part of each Christians life, but some are more significant than others. Borg seems to hold that the real problem for modern Christians is the propositional nature of faith. That faith, for him, is the assent to a serial (literally a list) of propositions Christ is the Son of deity, Christ walked on water, etc.The proble m is that the modern person lives in a society that lives by its own dogmas that such things cannot come across because they violate the laws of nature. Of course, this assumes that Christ is not their author. He does have a solution, one that I find individualizedly satisfying that there are two Christs (though not literally), the Christ that existed prior to the resurrection, and the Christ that came after. The latter is the Christ that should motivate the modern reader, and this is the Christ that motivated the early Christian community to indite the scriptures.The assumption is that this community make up a series of stories and held to it. The fact that the resurrection and crucifixion made no sense to the surrounding Jewish or pagan world is not considered. In other words, that no real religious interest was served by creating these stories, since the concept of a crucified deity was offensive to both communities. Nevertheless, he holds that the motivation of writing the Gospels come from the resurrection, which Borg takes as true from the testimony of the Scriptures that he does not trust (Borg, 1995). Nevertheless, Borg, small-arm inconsistent, is come to with a similar struggle to my own.Being from a blase household, the concept of Christ and his miracles was strange to me. No different, really, than a cartoon superhero. It was so easy to deny them, so hard to accept them. only this was not a calculate of assent and intelligent life, but rather socially. To preach Christ to anyone other than the converted is to lose a great deal of social capital. This I felt powerfully. But intellectually, I never had a problem science, or rather, the scientific establishment, tells me that the infinitely complex life of DNA came into existence by chance.If this was true, then how strange was it to believe that God came to earth to teach men about Himself? I never thought it strange that Christ was God, temporary hookup my friends believed that Eric Clap ton was God. What I did find strange was the mentality of belief as propositions. In other words, that one could hold to the list of accepted beliefs about God and Christ, but the integration of these ideas into the world about them was the real challenge. Borgs other famed work, The Heart of Christianity Rediscovering the life of Faith, has helped me put this problem into a mitigate perspective.In fact, it is precisely the statement of the problem that makes the most sense, just as much as the solution itself. In other words, the context of the problem suggests its own answer. Borg writes that Christ should be seen as a delegacy of life rather than as a set of beliefs (Borg, 2004, 25). However, the problem is that Borg seems to say this so as to relieve himself of the embrace of believing things that modern scholarship has decided are false. This, as I have already said, is the great weak tip of this series of books. But it helps to place it like thisDogma This is an intellect ual approach to God and Christ. It holds to a set of beliefs both as reflecting the historical world of facts, and at the same time, demands a consistency among the propositions believed. This is fair enough. But the real issue is that it is a matter of the head. If Christianity was to be a strictly rational, confirmable religion, then why did Christ not speak in this way? Christ, rather than speaking as a metaphysician, spoke in parables, He spoke in aphorisms, He spoke in stories of only a few sentences. He seems to preach by example as much as by words.Way Christ preached by example, by the words and actions that he integrated within himself for a short span of three years. He struggles with non-belief, the arrogance of the Pharisees, and incomprehension of the Romans. But this is precisely our condition our modern Pharisees, our modern secular people consistently give us trouble. Christ is a way of struggle rather than as a set of dogmatic beliefs (Damascene, 1999). Borg (2004, 28-37) does one better he reduces the struggle this way Christ and the Christian mission in the modern world can be reduced to foursome specific approaches(1) Assensus this is a matter of rational assent. This is the problem, at least when such assent is separated from the community. One can hold that Borg is really act to minimize conflicts, to minimize the dogmatic gene of Christ so as to lower the threshold of belief more and more can come to Christ if they do not need to pass the belief test. At the same time, Borg can also be said to hold this because each he does not believe the dogmatic pronouncements about Christ, or his community (i. e. the academic community) does not, and he does not want to be left out, or attacked as a fundamentalist. (2) Fidelity this is the matter is personal relationship. This is not so much a matter of a-dogmatism, but goes beyond it love is stronger than intellectual assent. One follows Christ not because he has given assent to a series of do gmas, but rather, because Christ is a man worthy of being followed. A man that exudes love in the strongest sense of the world. (3) Vision the approach where faith in Christ makes sense out of the whole the world, the community even of religion. part it is is true that Christ preached the coming of his Church, he did not speak of it all that much.Christ spoke of a life of struggle, of virtue, of a personal relationship through faith. The apostles had this, and still could not keep Judas. The vision is to bring the whole into integration with Christs teachings, the real basis of this paper and the basis of my personal life. One cannot run from the world, but one can infuse it with Christ and his teachings. But this is difficult with so many teachings about Christ, one does not know which image to pick,. This is the problem, and many have spurned Him altogether because fo the disagreements. This many be the real strength of Borg and his approach.(4) authority this seems to synthesi ze all the above. One trusts in the message of Jesus, but a message that might not be literally true, but is the experience of God in and by the community. If one approaches scriptures in this manner, then one can get over the belief threshold and see the Scriptures as a response to God, rather than a historical record. On a more personal note, the most satisfying part of Borgs work is in his threefold basis of the Christian life in the modern era. Id like to make this the conclusion, and the real central element of my personal response to reading Borg.In his (2004) work, Borg holds that the modern mission of Christianity can be reduced to three elements (1) The affirmation of the reality of God. Now this can be done two ship canal first, through intellectual arguments, but also as a set of experiences. Borg prefers the latter. Nevertheless, in my own history, it was the former that led me to the latter. In my younger years of obligatory doubt, it was not the experience of God, it w as the understanding of him. Once I understood him, I could feel and experience him. But my understanding came in the form of a series of negations I could not believe that DNA ever came into existence by chance.DNA is the great consequence of the intelligence of God, the very nature of His creative power (at least that which is stretch to human observation). I could not believe that matter was eternal. Even in my younger years, while I could not articulate such an idea, I most trustworthyly believed it. Materialism holds that matter is God, in the sense that all things, including life, came from it. It is also eternal and hence, all powerful. Once I realized this set of ideas that must be held by materialism, I realized that the life of the spirit was for me. Life cannot come from death, since something cannot give what it does not have.Consciousness does not come from chance. I saw these as the affirmation of the dogmatic and ideological community of modern scholarship and scie nce, I saw it as the worst and crudest form of obscurantism (2) The centrality of Jesus. While I have no problem with this concept, I can not imagine that Borg can say the same. Jesus? But if one holds that the Jesus of Scripture is deliberately falsified, then what is he speaking of here? He never says. Jesus seems to become an archetype rather than a person. If one holds that the New Testament is falsified (a concept I hold as fantastic) then Christ can never be central.In other words, unless one holds to certain things as historically true (i. e. dogma), then Christ can never be the central part of ones life. (3) Lastly, the centrality of the scriptures. There are two ship canal of viewing this first, the scriptures as historically true, which Borg rejects, and the scriptures as reflecting, in words, the early communitys experience with God. Of course, these are not inversely exclusive, but the latter does more accurately reflect out situation. We do experience God in our lives. What we write about this comes out as vague and poetic.It is not history, but at best, psychology. It does not mean that the experiences are false, but that there are only so many ways that such experiences can be expressed. The final expression cannot, however, be called history. I commend Borg for trying, but he ultimately, fails. He cannot have it both ways to reject scripture (as his community does) but still hold Jesus as central. Jesus cannot be central if his life is falsified. Borg is ultimately a sloppy writer that seems to want to pleas everyone, and make Christianity an easy religion for all to approach.Whatever he likes about the Scriptures he uses, whatever will get him made fun of by his colleagues, he rejects. This is dishonest, and says more about the academic community than the early Christian community. Basically Borg is trying to rescue Christianity from the attacks of the modern critics, while affirming that everything that those critics say about the Bible is true. Nevertheless, we have all experienced the doubt, the pressure of the outside world. It is all the matter of context and expression how we approach God in a materialistic world. That, Borg can do nicely. BibliographyBorg, Marcus (1995) Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. HarperOne. ___. (2004) The Heart of Christianity Rediscovering the Life of Faith. HarperOne Damascene, Fr. (1999) Christ the Eternal Tao. St. Hermans Press. Fr. Damascenes book strongly takes the approach advocated by Borg. He holds that Christ as a relational entity (so to speak) leads to believing in Christ as the Way, a method, a path to Enlightenment and truth. McDowell, Josh. (2006). Evidence for Christianity. doubting Thomas Nelson Publishers. Strobel, Leo. (1998). The Case for Christ. Zondervan. Siciliano, Terry. (2001) Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Evidence for Christianity.Truth Press. These are three major works that refute the thesis that Christs message was falsified. There are many means to do this , but the most impressive one is that the message that came out in the Scriptures is hideous to both the Jewish and Pagan mentality rising from the dead, execution like a common criminal, no military force, etc. were all highly disagreeable to the environment in which the Scriptures were first written and disseminated. Hence, they must be true. If one was going to invent a series of events, the last series one would invent at the time was that which was actually written.