The Heart of Christianity

Suggested Questions for Chapter 1

1. Stop reading after the first section of the chapter, and think about what you consider to be the heart of Christianity. In thinking about this, consider your experience, as well as any reading you have done. What is most important about Christianity for you?

2. In the chapter’s second section, A Time of Change and Conflict, Borg identifies three “issues that divide the contemporary church.” Are there additional issues that you would add to his list?

3. Borg describes the earlier paradigm on pages 7-12. Does that description match with your experience of Christianity? In what ways is it on target and in what was does it miss the mark?

4. Borg recognizes that the earlier paradigm has worked and continues to work for millions of Christians. In what ways does it work for you and what ways doesn’t it?

5. Borg provides a brief description of the emerging paradigm on pages 13-14. What in the emerging paradigm as he describes it appeals to you and what troubles you?

6. In the final sections of the chapter, Borg suggests that there are ways to bridge the differences between the two paradigms. Do you find his suggestions realistic? Have you experienced the bridging of these differences in your relationships with other Christians? If you have, what helped to make that happen?

Suggested Questions for Chapter 2

1. This second chapter focuses on faith as the way of the heart. How did you understand faith before you read this chapter and what changes were there, if any, in how you understand faith after reading it?

2. Borg gives us four meanings of faith. The first, assnesus, is “faith as belief,” or a “propositional understanding of faith.” Are there propositions or belief statements that you once assented to but don’t any longer? If there are, what are they?

3. The other meanings of faith that Borg gives us – fiducia, fidelitas, and visio – are seen by him interrelated. Have they been interrelated in your life experience? And if so, how?

4. Near the end of the chapter Borg lists three affirmations that he sees as foundational – the reality of God, the utter centrality of Jesus, and the centrality of the Bible. What would add, if anything, to this list? What would you discard as not being foundational?

5. How did you like Borg’s idea that credo should be understood as “I give my heart to…”? Does this meaning change the way you say the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds?

Suggested Questions for Chapter 3

1. Borg’s position that the Bible is an historical document written for a specific time and a specific culture can be a flashpoint for people. What in this section challenged you?

2. On page 47 Borg talks about the Bible as something which became sacred over time---the canonization process. What else has become sacred over time in our tradition? Is it possible for something to lose its “sacredness?” Can things we have informally canonized in the church become impediments to faith?

3. In describing the Bible as using metaphorical narrative Borg names many stories as not factual, yet ultimately true. He states that the “metaphorical narration invites us into these truths,” then he lists several examples which are written as historical “facts” but are, actually, metaphors. Do you agree? Are there any Bible stories you are unwilling to consider metaphorical?

4. Continuing with metaphor, Borg suggests that the Bible as metaphor can be a bridge between the earlier and emerging paradigm---do you think the different truths we elicit from these metaphors would be able to bridge the gap in the Worldwide Anglican Communion? Between Christianity and other faiths?

Suggested Questions for Chapter 4

1. This fourth chapter focuses on God as the heart of reality. Early in the chapter, Borg writes about the significance of our wolrdview, of "our image of reality-our image or picture of what is real and what is possible." (page 62) How would you descrieb your worldview?

2. Borg goes on to describe to two kinds of worldviews: religious worldviews and nonreligious worldviews. Where does your own worldview fit in? In what ways has your worldview been shaped by religious and nonreligious worldviews?

3. Borg describes two concepts of God, (pages 65-70) supernatural theism and panentheism, both of which Borg sees as running “side by side throughout the history of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” (page 65) Where do you see these two concepts of God reflected in the Bible and in your own experience as a Christian? Has your concept of God changed over time?

4. Borg points to the problem of intervention as one of shortcomings of supernatural theism. Have you had questions like the ones that he poses on page 67, e.g., “If God could have intervened to stop the Holocaust but chose not to, what kind of sense does that make?

5. How did you like Borg’s idea that panentheism does a better job of emphasizing both the transcendence and the presence of God? How have you experienced the presence of God?

6. Does Borg’s use of the terms “wholesale God” and “retail God” make sense to you as a way to understand God as personal?

7. In the final section of the chapter, Borg writes about the character of God. How would you describe God’s character? How would you describe the God you believe in?

Suggested Questions for Chapter 5

1. This fifth chapter focuses on Jesus as the heart of God. Early in the chapter, Borg makes the point that Christians “find the revelation of God in a person,” (page 80) but stresses that the emerging paradigm “sees Jesus quite differently than the earlier paradigm does.” (page 81) From your reading of the book thus far in what ways would you think the emerging paradigm and the earlier paradigm might differ in how Jesus is seen?

2. In the second section of the chapter, Borg asserts that an earlier image of Jesus is no longer persuasive for millions of people. In what ways is the earlier image - with its emphasis on Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, the miraculous, the saving significance of his death, and Jesus as the only way to salvation – persuasive or unpersuasive for you?

3. Borg makes a distinction between the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus, preferring these designations to ones used in the past – the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. In what ways do you see it as important that Christians make this distinction?

4. Borg describes how he sees the nature of the Gospels, i.e., as the product of a developing tradition and as writings that combine memory and metaphor. He provides a historical-metaphorical reading of the story of the wedding feast at Cana. (John 2) Does his reading of the familiar make it a richer story for you in what ways?

5. How did you like Borg’s metaphorical treatment of our christological language? (pages 86-89) Among the metaphors that are used to describe Jesus, which ones have particular resonance for you?

6. Borg gives us a “five-stroke sketch of the pre-Easter Jesus” on pages 89-91. Would you add anything to his list – or leaving anything out?

7. In the long section on the significance of the death of Jesus, Borg describes five ways that the death is seen in the New Testament. How do you see the meaning of his death?

8. In the final section of the chapter, Borg writes of Jesus as metaphor and sacrament of God? Does his use of this language enrich or diminish faith in Christ for you?

Suggested Questions for Chapter Six

1. In the first section of this chapter, Borg gives some reasons why born again language has been a problem for mainline Christians. Do the reasons he gives refelct your own reaction to this language? Would you add anything to his list?

2. In his interpretation of the classic text in John 3, Borg examines the symbolic meanings of the text. In what ways does this metaphorical reading of the text overcome some of the problems of born again language?

3. Borg relates the phrase born again to the more common New Testament images of dying and rising and death and resurrection. What value do you see Borg's idea that being born again "involves death and resurrection...dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being...."?

4. Borg traces the development of the idea of death and resurrection as the way of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, Paul's Letters and the Gospel according to John. In what ways does Borg's interpretation of dying and rising as a "metaphor for personal transformation" make sense to you?

5. How would you describe the old way of being that we are to die to as we take up the cross and follow Jesus?

6. How do you see the process of death and resurrection working in your own life?

7. How does Borg's definition of spirituality - becoming concious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God - make sense for you?

8. What spiritual practices have helped you to have a deepening relationship with God?

9. Do you agree with Borg's assertion that "the primary quality of a life centered in God is compassion"? Are there other qualities that you think are important?

Suggested Questions for Chapter Seven

1. In this chapter, Borg turns “to the other transformation at the center of the biblical vision of our life with God: social and political transformation.” In what ways does Borg’s assertion that the “Bible is political as well as personal” ring true for you? In what ways does he miss the mark?

2. On page 127 Borg deals with what he claims is a misunderstanding of God’s justice, i.e., as something opposite to God’s mercy and as something focused on our personal sins. How does Borg’s understanding of justice with a focus on economic, social and political systems resonate with you?

3. In the section God’s Passion for Justice in the Hebrew Bible, Borg describes the “ancient domination systems” as politically oppressive, economically exploitative and religiously legitimated. If this is an accurate description of those systems, in what ways do you see more recent social systems as having similar characteristics?

4. Borg, in the section on the Kingdom of God, speculates that one of the reasons for the loss of this central idea in the life of the Church was Matthew’s use of the Kingdom of heaven in recording Jesus’ teaching. In your own experience in the Church, has the Kingdom of God tended be something for the hereafter and not for here and now?

5. Is the idea that the Lord’s Prayer has a theo-political meaning one that you had heard or thought of before? Does Borg’s interpretation change the way you pray that prayer?

6. If Borg is correct in seeing “Jesus is Lord” as a political statement, what are the implications for us? Who isn’t Lord if Jesus is?

7. Borg’s reading of the book of Revelation is markedly different from that of many fundamentalist clergy. How does Borg’s interpretation make the book more or less relevant in our time?

8. Do you agree with Borg’s assertion that consciousness-raising and advocacy of justice should be important aspects of the Church’s life?

9. Did Borg’s specific examples on pages 143-145 challenge you to think about justice issues that we might address?

Suggested Questions for Chapter Eight

1. In the first section of this chapter, Borg writes about the heart as a Biblical metaphor for the self. He describes several characteristics of what could be called a closed or hardened heart, and confesses that there are days when his heart is more closed than on other days. Are you aware that this is true for you? What seems to cause your heart to be closed?

2. Borg writes about two levels of reality, “the visible world of our ordinary experience and God, the sacred, Sprit.” (page 155) He goes on to describe what Celtic spirituality refers to as thin places, “places where the boundary between the two levels becomes very soft, porous, permeable.” (pages 155-156) Where and when have you experienced thin places, places and times when you have seen the reality of God shining through?

3. Borg writes about the potential of spiritual practices to create thin places for us. What are the spiritual practices that have opened you to the reality of God’s presence?

4. In contrast to the days when your heart was more closed, think of times when your heart seemed to particularly open. What brought about that openness of your heart?

Suggested Questions for Chapter Nine

1. In the first section of this chapter, Borg writes about the language of sin as dominant in the Christian imagination. Think back to your earliest memories of Church. How was sin described/emphasized then?

2. Borg quotes Frederick Buechner on page 165. In what ways would you agree with Buechner’s notion that the world has gotten lost?

3. Borg describes how two 20^th century theologians – Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr – understood sin: Niebuhr as hubris and Tillich as estrangement. How does these two ways of understanding sin reflect your own experience?

4. Borg poses a question on page 167: “Is ‘sin’ the best comprehensive term for naming our problem?” How would you answer that question and why?

5. Borg offers a number of other biblical images to describe our problem: being blind, in exile, hungry, thirsty, in bondage, lost. What do you find helpful about these images? What other biblical images would you suggest?

6. In the second part of this chapter, Borg writes about salvation. How has your understanding of salvation been shaped/dominated by the idea of salvation as heaven, as a reward after dearth?

7. In what ways do you experience salvation as a present, though partial, reality?

8. Borg offers three stories of salvation – the exodus, the exile and return, and the temple story. In what ways do these three stories appeal to you?

9. In the final section of the chapter, Borg writes about repentance, seeing that as something more than being sorry for our sins. As you have experienced repentance on your own Christian journey, have there been times when it has involved a dramatic turning back towards God?

10. How do you envision the afterlife?

Suggested Questions for Chapter Ten

1. What was your initial reaction to Borg's assertion that Christians, especially Protestants, have neglected "practice" and that this has not been a good thing?

2. Borg lists five purposes for practice on page 189. What would you add (or subtract) from this list?

3. How have you seen the three A's - attractiveness, achievement and affluence - having an impact on your life and the lives of your family and friends?

4. How has your Christian identity and character been shaped?

5. Borg spends a good of deal of space on the importance of being part of a church (pages 193-196). What, if anything, would you add to the reasons he gives for the importance of this?

6. Borg also spends a good deal of space on prayer (pages 196-199). What types of prayer have been important for you?

7. Are there daily pratices, such as the ones that Borg describes, that have become part of your life?

8. Borg concludes the chapter with a section on compassion and justice? In what ways have you been able to express your Christian character in compassionate response to others? In working for justice and the transformation of society?

Suggested Questions for Chapter Eleven

1.      What was your response to the demographic statistics that Borg presented on pages 209-210? What has been your experience with people other faiths?

2.      Borg describes three understandings of religion on pages 211-215. What has been your experience with these three understandings? Do you have friends/family members who embrace one of these understandings? How do you relate to people with a different understanding than yours?

3.      Borg’s description of the Sacramental Understanding of Religion is, not surprisingly, much fuller than his descriptions of the other two. In what ways is your own understanding of religion reflected or not reflected in this description?

4.      Did Borg’s listing of the central similarities of all religions make sense to you? If it didn’t, where would you take issue with it?

5.      In his use of the image of the paths up a mountain, Borg asserts that the goal isn’t “heaven” but “the sacred.” (page 218) This has been a central argument of the entire book. In what ways do you find this a helpful description of the goal/purpose of the Christian life?

6.      In the final section of the chapter, Borg gives several reasons for why he is a Christian. Do you agree with his reasons for rejecting Christian exclusivism?

7.      Of the reasons that Borg for his being a Christian, which ones are true for you?