Days of Awe and Wonder: How to Be a Christian in the Twenty-first Century

by Marcus J. Borg

In a broader sense, theology refers to “what Christians think.” In this sense, all Christians have a theology—a basic, even if often simple, understanding—whether they are aware of it or not. In this broader sense, theology does matter. There is “bad” theology, by which I mean an understanding of Christianity that is seriously misleading, with unfortunate and sometimes cruel consequences. But the task of theology is not primarily to construct an intellectually satisfying set of correct beliefs. Its task is more modest. Part of its purpose is negative: to undermine beliefs that get in the way of taking Christianity seriously. Part of its purpose is positive: to construct a persuasive and compelling vision of the Christian life. But being Christian isn’t primarily about having a correct theology by getting our beliefs right. It is about a deepening relationship with God as known especially in Jesus.

To return to mystical experiences, these episodes of sheer wonder, radical amazement, radiant luminosity often evoke the exclamation, “Oh my God!” So it has been for me, and for me that exclamation expresses truth. It is the central conviction that has shaped my Christian journey ever since. God is real, “the more” in whom we live and move and have our being.

For repentance, though done by individuals, was not a turning from individual sins so much as a turning from a certain understanding of God and Israel to a transformed understanding.20 It called for a departure from the established structures that had shaped and nurtured the existence of those who heard Jesus to a new understanding of Israel

The way of death can be described either as a dying to the world or a dying to the self: the person dies to the world as the center of security and to the self as the center of concern.