The First Christmas Quotes

“Do we think that peace on earth comes from Caesar or Christ? Do we think it comes through violent victory or nonviolent justice? Advent, like Lent, is about a choice of how to live personally and individually, nationally and internationally.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“The four-week period of Advent before Christmas—and the six-week period of Lent before Easter—are times of penance and life change for Christians. In our book The Last Week, we suggested that Lent was a penance time for having been in the wrong procession and a preparation time for moving over to the right one by Palm Sunday. That day’s violent procession of the horse-mounted Pilate and his soldiers was contrasted with the nonviolent procession of the donkey-mounted Jesus and his companions. We asked: in which procession would we have walked then and in which do we walk now?”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“Participatory eschatology involves a twofold affirmation: we are to do it with God, and we cannot do it without God. In St. Augustine’s brilliant aphorism, God without us will not; we without God cannot. We who have seen the star and heard the angels sing are called to participate in the new birth and new world proclaimed by these stories.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“Eschatology is not, of course, about the destruction of the earth, but about its transfiguration, not about the end of the world, but about the end of evil, injustice, violence—and imperialism.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“The terrible truth is that our world has never established peace through victory. Victory establishes not peace, but lull. Thereafter, violence returns once again, and always worse than before. And it is that escalator violence that then endangers our world.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“God’s dream for us is not simply peace of mind, but peace on earth.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“The Roman vision incarnated in the divine Augustus was peace through victory. The Christian vision incarnated in the divine Jesus was peace through justice. It is those alternatives that are at stake behind all the titles and countertitles, the claims and counterclaims.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“God will not change us as individuals without our participation, and God will not change the world without our participation.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“we are to participate with God in bringing about the world promised by Christmas.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“Advent and Christmas are about a new world. They are thus intrinsically about eschatology. Recall what we said about this word in Chapter 3: eschatology is about the divine transformation of our earth. It is not about some mass immigration from a doomed world to a blessed heaven. Rather, it is about the end of this era of war and violence, injustice, and oppression. It is about the earth’s transformation, not about its devastation. It is about a world of justice and peace.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“Are we among those who yearn for the coming of the kingdom of justice and peace, who seek peace through justice? Or do we, like advocates of imperial theology, seek peace through victory? Where do we see the light of the world? Is America, the American empire, the light shining in the darkness? Jim Wallis, in his important book God’s Politics, reports that our president on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 2001 spoke of America as “the light shining in the darkness.”1 The statement is remarkably similar to Rome’s claim to be Apollo, the bringer of light. Or do we see the light of the world in Jesus, who stood against empire and indeed was executed by imperial authority?”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“empire is not intrinsically about geographical expansion and territorial acquisition. As a nation, that is not our aim. Rather, empire is about the use of superior power—military, political, and economic—to shape the world as the empire sees fit. In this sense, we are the new Rome.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“American Christians need especially to see the political meanings of these stories, for we live in a time of the American empire.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“Christmas is not about tinsel and mistletoe or even ornaments and presents, but about what means will we use toward the end of a peace from heaven upon our earth. Or is “peace on earth” but a Christmas ornament taken each year from attic or basement and returned there as soon as possible?”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“We face a similar choice each Christmas, and so each Advent is a time of repentance for the past and change for the future. Do we think that peace on earth comes from Caesar or Christ? Do we think it comes through violent victory or nonviolent justice? Advent, like Lent, is about a choice of how to live personally and individually, nationally and internationally.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“We can now see that the fundamental difference between those divergent visions of earth’s final kingdom is not about ends, but about means. The imperial kingdom of Rome—and this may indeed apply to any other empire as well—had as its program peace through victory. The eschatological kingdom of God has as its program peace through justice. Both intend peace—one by violence, the other by nonviolence. And still those tectonic plates grind against one another.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth

“But then something went terribly, terribly wrong. Athens had invented a democracy, but learned that you could have a democracy or an empire, but not both at the same time for long. Rome was now about to relearn that lesson. It had invented a republic, but was now to learn that you could have a republic or an empire, but not both at the same time for long.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Say About Jesus's Birth