Honoring Dr. Marcus Borg
Memorial to a Beloved Advisor, and Friend
I met Marcus Borg for the first time when I took a class he taught during summer school at the Pacific School of Religion in the late nineties. By this time I had read his two books, Jesus a New Vision and of course his best seller Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. When I read Meeting Jesus Again, I knew then this man was going to be an important leader in a movement that was just beginning. I was both a pastor in a local church and deeply involved with The Center for Progressive Christianity, now called ProgressiveChristianity.Org.
During the five days of classes I also learned something else, which for me was even more important. On the first morning of the three-hour class, Marcus informed everyone in the packed classroom we would begin class every morning with 15 to 20 minutes of meditation. He let everyone know if they could not get there in time to meditate with the rest of the group, they would not be welcomed to attend class that day. He explained the latecomers would simply be in a different mindset if they did not meditate with the rest of the group. And he indeed did quietly let two people know they would have to leave when they showed up late one morning. I sincerely believe the class was different than anything I had before experienced in a classroom. And I believe it was at least in part because of this discipline. It was a model I adopted for the rest of my teaching days as a pastor. This man, I realized, took his spiritual path seriously and I wanted to get to know him better.
We had lunch that week and I asked him if he would be interested in anchoring a conference ProgressiveChristianity.org planned in Southern CA. This kind of thing was still relatively new, especially for the very conservative area where we were going to hold the conference. We spent over a year and a half talking about other speakers we might invite and the setting. He was always cordial and helpful and I believe in the process, we became friends.
Marcus became one of our most active Honorary Advisors, making suggestions and contributions over the years. We ended up several times at the same conferences and we usually found time to catch up on things from books to family. He never hesitated to let me know when he felt we had published something that was incorrect or with which he disagreed. We always appreciated his input. Marcus and I did have an ongoing, energetic conversation about the role of reciting ancient creeds which made statements we no longer believed, but we finally managed to agree to disagree. Those things are easy when you respect and love someone.
It will be impossible to ascertain just how big of an influence Marcus has had on the Progressive Christian movement, but I believe his biggest gift was the fact that he was a consummate teacher. It did not matter if it was one of his books, one of his lectures or if you were lucky enough to experience it, one of his quiet conversations, he always wanted to communicate in such a way you would get it.
My last direct contact with Marcus was at a conference a little over a year ago in Houston Texas. I believe there were well over four hundred people who attended the evening lectures. There were three well known scholarly authors, all of them were seasoned speakers. They had been on the road together several times over the years. Two of those speakers talked without notes, probably sharing some of the work they were doing on their current book project. Although everyone seemed to love them, I honestly could not tell you what was the main theme of either of their talks. Before Marcus went to the podium he had someone pass out two pages of notes. As he talked he referred to those notes. Unlike his wonderful sense of humor, his talk was not dry. But you knew exactly where he was and where he was going. And best of all, I took his notes home so I could study them. It was as if he wanted me to get an “A” on my hypothetical exam.
I could not help being a little jealous of the possible thousands of students Marcus Borg must have taught and touched, including myself over the decades. I hope, like me, they did get it.
We will miss him as a leader of an important movement. We will miss him as a trusted and admired advisor of our organization and I will miss him as a friend.
Thank you Dr. Borg. We love you. It is time to rest.
~Fred Plumer
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| "In the death of Marcus Borg the Christian world has lost one of its theological giants and one of its best communicators. Marcus was also a lovely human being. One could disagree with Marcus, but it was very difficult for anyone to dislike him. I have not only lost a friend I have lost a theological soul mate."[John Shelby Spong] |
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"I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product. I learned that it is a human cultural product, the product of two ancient communities, biblical Israel and early Christianity. As such, it contained their understandings and affirmations, not statements coming directly or somewhat directly from God. . . . I realized that whatever "divine revelation" and the "inspiration of the Bible" meant (if they meant anything), they did not mean that the Bible was a divine product with divine authority."[Marcus Borg]
This was one of Marcus's great additions to progressive thought. Marcus sadly passed on this week. RIP and thank you for helping so many of us find freedom.[Ian Lawton] |
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READ ON...
| "Convictions, How I Learned What Matters Most" by Marcus J. Borg | On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the renowned Marcus J. Borg shares his “convictions” about Christianity and America, contending that they are both at their best when they focus on hope and transformation, and shares his thoughts on how American Christians can return to what matters most |
| Reflecting on what matters most, both for the church and for Americans, leading biblical scholar and premiere teacher for Protestant churches, Marcus Borg surveys the most significant conversations and personalities that shaped his life, and presents his convictions about the faith and it’s role in the twenty-first century. |
| Meditating on what makes us feel at home, he calls all American Christians to reject divisiveness and exclusivity and create communities that celebrate joy, possibility, and renewal. Throughout, he reflects on what matters most, bringing to earth the kingdom of God Jesus talked about and transforming our relationships with one another. |
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Re-Visioning Christianity: The Christian Life by Marcus J. Borg
When I speak about a life centered in the spirit of God, I am referring, of course, to my strong sense that Jesus, historically speaking, was a Jewish mystic. Now a mystic, very simply, is a person for whom God, or the Spirit or the sacred, are an experiential reality. READ ON... |
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Marcus Borg was an Honorary Advisor for over 15 years
To view more of Marcus Borg's resources on our site, click here
Marcus Borg Quotes
“The point is not that Jesus was a good guy who accepted everybody, and thus we should do the same (though that would be good). Rather, his teachings and behavior reflect an alternative social vision. Jesus was not talking about how to be good and how to behave within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“Christianity’s goal is not escape from this world. It loves this world and seeks to change it for the better.”― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don’t have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.”― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“When we read Paul, we are reading somebody else’s mail—and unless we know the situation being addressed, his letters can be quite opaque…It is wise to remember that when we are reading letters never intended for us, any problems of understanding are ours and not theirs.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“The spoken word has come to dominate many Protestant forms of worship: the words of prayers, responsive readings, Scripture, the sermon, and so forth. Yet the spoken word is perhaps the least effective way of reaching the heart; one must constantly pay attention with one’s mind. The spoken word tends to go to our heads, not our hearts.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“God wills our liberation, our exodus from Egypt. God wills our reconciliation, our return from exile. God wills our enlightenment, our seeing. God wills our forgiveness, our release from sin and guilt. God wills that we see ourselves as God’s beloved. God wills our resurrection, our passage from death to life. God wills for us food and drink that satisfy our hunger and thirst. God wills, comprehensively, our well-being—not just my well-being as an individual but the well-being of all of us and of the whole of creation. In short, God wills our salvation, our healing, here on earth. The Christian life is about participating in the salvation of God.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“How can women be in the image of God if God cannot be imaged in female form?”
― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“More than half described Christians as literalistic, anti-intellectual, judgmental, self-righteous, and bigoted.”― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“But believing something to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“Our images of God matter. Just as how we conceptualize God affects what we think the Christian life is about, so do our images of God.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“the Bible is a human product: it tells us how our religious ancestors saw things, not how God sees things.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“But Christian illiteracy is only the first part of the crisis. Even more seriously, even for those who think they speak “Christian” fluently, the faith itself is often misunderstood and distorted by many to whom it is seemingly very familiar. They think they are speaking the language as it has always been understood, but what they mean by the words and concepts is so different from what these things have meant historically, that they would have trouble communicating with the very authors of the past they honor.”― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“Salvation Is More About This Life than an Afterlife”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“In a number of workshops, I have asked people whether they have had one or more experiences that they would identify as an experience of God and, if so, to share them in small groups. On average, 80 percent of the participants identify one or more and are eager to talk about them. They also frequently report that they had never before been asked that question in a church setting or given an opportunity to talk about it.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacred. Then it functions not as a prison but as a lens.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“This book might also be seen as “a Christian primer.” A primer teaches us how to read. Reading is not just about learning to recognize and pronounce words, but also about how to hear and understand them. This book’s purpose is to help us to read, hear, and inwardly digest Christian language without preconceived understandings getting in the way.”― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“Myth is stories about the way things never were, but always are.”― Marcus J. Borg
“Part of the scandal of American Christianity is that statistically the U.S. is the most Christian country in the world, and yet as a country we have the greatest income inequality in the world. And as a country we are uncritically committed, not simply to being the most powerful nation in the world militarily, but to being as militarily powerful as the rest of the world combined.
We Christians live in a tradition that is passionate about issues of economic justice and peace and yet at least half of American Christians, probably even more, think it’s really important that we be as powerful as the rest of the world put together.”― Marcus J. Borg
“How we think about God matters. It affects the credibility of religion in general and of Christianity in particular. Our concept of God can make God seem real or unreal, just as it can also make God seem remote or near.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“Our central problem is not sin and guilt, as it is within the monarchical model. For the Spirit model, our central problem is “estrangement,” whose specific meaning of “separated from that to which one belongs” is most appropriate. … For the monarchical model, sin is primarily disloyalty to the king, seen especially as disobedience to his laws. The metaphors used to express the Spirit model suggest something else. For the metaphor of God as lover, sin is unfaithfulness—that is, sin is going after other lovers.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“The political vision of the religious right is for the most part an individualistic politics of righteousness, not a communal politics of compassion.”― Marcus J. Borg, The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith
“To see Paul positively does not mean endorsing everything he ever wrote.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“When somebody says to me, “I don’t believe in God,” my first response is, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in.” Almost always, it’s the God of supernatural theism.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
“Jesus died for our sins” has been understood. Among some Christians, it is seen as an essential doctrinal element in the Christian belief system. Seen this way, it becomes a doctrinal requirement: we are made right with God by believing that Jesus is the sacrifice. The system of requirements remains, and believing in Jesus is the new requirement. Seeing it as a metaphorical proclamation of the radical grace of God leads to a very different understanding. “Jesus died for our sins” means the abolition of the system of requirements, not the establishment of a new system of requirements.”― Marcus J. Borg, The Meaning of Jesus
“But “having dominion over” meant something very different from what it has often been understood to mean. It refers to the relationship between shepherd and sheep.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“The way of Jesus is thus not a set of beliefs about Jesus. That people ever thought it was is strange, when we think about it — as if one entered new life by believing certain things to be true, or as if the only people who can be saved are those who know the word “Jesus”. Thinking that way virtually amounts to salvation by syllables.
Rather, the way of Jesus is the way of death and resurrection — the path of transition and transformation from an old way of being to a new way of being. To use the language of incarnation that is so central to John, Jesus incarnates the way. Incarnation means embodiment. Jesus is what the way embodied in a human life looks like.”― Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally
“Other prophets, other messiahs, came and went in Jesus’ day. Routinely, they died violently at the hands of the pagan enemy. Their movements either died with them, sometimes literally, or transformed themselves into a new movement around a new leader. Jesus’ movement did neither. Within days of his execution it found a new lease of life; within weeks it was announcing that he was indeed the messiah; within a year or two it was proclaiming him to pagans as their rightful Lord. How can a historian explain this astonishing transformation?”― Marcus J. Borg, The Meaning of Jesus
“The heaven-and-hell framework has four central elements: the afterlife, sin and forgiveness, Jesus’s dying for our sins, and believing.”― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“By the time I began college, anxiety about hell had disappeared—not because I was confident that I was “saved,” but because the whole package had become sufficiently uncertain that I didn’t worry about it.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“The word “sacrament” also has a broader meaning. In the study of religion, a sacrament is commonly defined as a mediator of the sacred, a vehicle by which God becomes present, a means through which the Spirit is experienced.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again For the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally
“To believe in a person is quite different from believing that a series of statements about the person are true.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
“God’s dream for us is not simply peace of mind, but peace on earth.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Christmas
“One scenario begins by imagining that Jesus heals somebody in a village. What is the likely response, beyond amazement and gratitude? He (and those with him) would be invited to a meal. It is the classic ancient way of expressing gratitude and hospitality.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
“Even more striking and revealing is how he interweaves “sons of God” twice in Romans 8:14, 19 with “children of God” twice in Romans 8:16, 21—and again in Romans 9:8. It is, for Paul, all about family values—but divine family values, and that is what makes him very, very radical.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“When I was a young college teacher in my mid-twenties, an older colleague delighted in characterizing post-Enlightenment theology as “flat-tire theology”—“All the pneuma has gone out of it.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
“The book of Proverbs makes the same point: Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him. (14.31)”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“As an epiphany of God, Jesus discloses that at the center of everything is a reality that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and as individuals within society. As an image of God, Jesus challenges the most widespread image of reality in both the ancient and modern world, countering conventional wisdom’s understanding of God as one with demands that must be met by the anxious self in search of its own security. In its place is an image of God as the compassionate one who invites people into a relationship which is the source of transformation of human life in both its individual and social aspects.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship
“Humanity’s universal sin is far, far worse than those traditional vice lists cited for Greeks and Jews by Paul in Romans 1–3. It is this: we have accepted violence as civilization’s drug of choice, and our addiction now threatens creation itself.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“Finally, then, I conclude with an iconic image of that foundational reconciliation from the later fourth century. It is a bronze hanging lamp from the villa of the aristocratic Valerii on the Celian Hill in Rome, now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Florence. The lamp is shaped like a boat. Peter is seated in the stern at the tiller. Paul is standing in the prow looking forward. Peter steers. Paul guides. And the boat sails full before the wind.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“Because modern critical thinking is corrosive of conventional religious beliefs, some Christians reject applying it to the Bible and Christianity. The result is fundamentalism and much of conservative Christianity, which holds that regardless of the claims of modern knowledge, the Bible and Christianity are true—and not just true, but factually true.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“The notion that there was one “right” way of seeing things disappeared. This was enormously liberating, even if a bit alarming. But my curiosity was greater than my fear.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“a worldwide flood destroyed all life on earth about five thousand years ago requires denying an immense amount of generally accepted knowledge—from astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, biology, cave paintings, and more.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“We learned, in the opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, that God is “in heaven.” But we also learned that God is everywhere—that is, omnipresent. When one combines the two, the result is panentheism. It is orthodox Christian theology.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“But “redemption” in the Bible and in Paul is not about the forgiveness of sins. Rather, it is a metaphor of liberation from bondage—from life in Egypt, from a life of slavery. “The redemption that is in Christ Jesus” would be better translated “the liberation that is in Christ Jesus.” We are liberated through him.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“Rather, the language of divine agency here emphasizes the theme of God’s grace: God provided the sacrifice.”
― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
“These questions can be used by individual readers and also in reading groups in which participants are invited to share their memories and thoughts. Many of them invite reflection on previous or current understandings and are best used before treating the content of the relevant chapter. Some invite reflection about material in a particular chapter.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power – And How They Can Be Restored
“Images of Jesus give content to what loyalty to him means. The popular picture of Jesus as one whose purpose was to proclaim truths about himself most often construes loyalty to him as insistence on the truth of those claims. Loyalty becomes belief in the historical truthfulness of all the statements in the gospels. Discipleship is then easily confused with dogmatism or doctrinal orthodoxy.
The absence of an image – the most common fruit of biblical scholarship in this century – leaves us with no clear notion of what it means to take Jesus seriously, no notion of what loyalty might entail, no direction for the life of discipleship. But the vision of Jesus as a person of Spirit, deeply involved in the historical crisis of his own time, can shape the church’s discipleship today. For us, as for the world in which he lived, he can be the light in our darkness.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship
“In function, Jesus’s aphorisms are very much like his parables—provocative and invitational forms of speech. They provoke thought, lead people to reconsider their taken-for-granted assumptions, and invite them to see life differently.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
“I conclude this section with a possibly puzzling postscript on the meaning of the word “literal.” What is the literal meaning of a parable? Its literal meaning is its parabolic meaning. What is the literal meaning of a poem? Its literal meaning is its poetic meaning. What is the literal meaning of a symbolic or metaphorical narrative? Its literal meaning is its symbolic or metaphorical meaning. But in modern Western culture over the last few centuries, “literal” has most often been confused with “factual,” and factuality has been elevated over the metaphorical. Hence when people say they take stories in the Bible and the gospels “literally,” they most often mean “factually.” Thus the difference is not ultimately a literal versus a metaphorical reading, but a factual versus a metaphorical reading. And to read a story factually rather than metaphorically often involves a misjudgment about the literary genre of a story. When the metaphorical is understood factually, the result is a story hard to believe. But when a metaphorical narrative is understood metaphorically, it may indeed be powerfully and challengingly true.”― Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
“Its meanings include: The risen Christ journeys with us, is with us, whether we know it or not. Sometimes there are moments when we do recognize this.”― Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most
“When one of the Jewish Sibylline Oracles imagines what God’s perfect world will look like on its arrival, it claims: “The earth will belong equally to all, undivided by walls or fences…. Lives will be in common and wealth will have no division. For there will be no poor man there, no rich, and no tyrant, no slave. Further, no one will be either great or small anymore. No kings, no leaders. All will be on a par together” (2:313–38). So we moderns should not think we invented everything.”― Marcus J. Borg, The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon
Read Dr. Marcus Borg's bio here
- Marcus Borg
Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture, Oregon State University, and president of the Association of Anglican Biblical Scholars.
Marcus J. Borg is Canon Theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. Internationally known in both academic and church circles as a biblical and Jesus scholar, he was Hundere Chair of Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University until his retirement in 2007.
He is the author of nineteen books, including Jesus: A New Vision (1987) and the best-seller Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994); The God We Never Knew (1997); The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (1999); Reading the Bible Again for the First Time (2001), and The Heart of Christianity (2003), both best-sellers. His newest books are Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (2006), a New York Times Best-Seller; Conversations with Scripture: Mark (2009), and three books co-authored with John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week (2006), The First Christmas (2007), and The First Paul (2009).
His novel, Putting Away Childish Things, was published in April, 2010.
Described by The New York Times as “a leading figure in his generation of Jesus scholars,” he has appeared on NBC’s “Today Show” and “Dateline,” PBS’s “Newshour,” ABC’s “Evening News” and “Prime Time” with Peter Jennings, NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, and several National Geographic programs. A Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, he has been national chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and co-chair of its International New Testament Program Committee, and is past president of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars.
His work has been translated into eleven languages: German, Dutch, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and French. His doctor’s degree is from Oxford University, and he has lectured widely overseas (England, Scotland, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Israel and South Africa) and in North America, including the Chautauqua and Smithsonian Institutions.
In addition to the nineteen books he has authored or co-authored, he is the editor or co-editor of: The Lost Gospel Q (1996) Jesus and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (1997) God at 2000, co-edited with Ross Mackenzie (2000).
Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994) is the single best-selling book by a contemporary Jesus scholar.
The God We Never Knew was named “one of the ten best books in religion in 1997″ by Publishers Weekly.
The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, co-authored with N. Thomas Wright, a well-known British New Testament scholar from the conservative side of the spectrum. It won the “Best General Interest Book of 1999” award from the Association of Theological Booksellers.
Reading The Bible Again for the First Time (2001) has made Publishers Weekly “ten best selling books in religion.”
The Heart of Christianity (2003) has been a group study book in hundreds of churches.
Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary is a New York Times best-selling book.
A very useful study guide for The Heart of Christianity is published by HarperOne and authored by Tim Scorer. 160 pages long, it teaches “Heart” in twelve sessions, with suggestions for small group formation and activities, a DVD that includes handouts, visuals, and some video.
Similar study guides for Reading the Bible Again for the First Time and Jesus are also available from Wood Lake Books.
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