One True Church and Christian Exclusivity

Each of the enduring religions is a mediator of "the absolute," but not the absolute itself. Applying this understanding to being Christian, the point is not to believe in Christianity as the only absolute and adequate revelation of God. Rather, the point is to live within the Christian tradition as a sacrament of the sacred, a mediator of the absolute, whom we name "God" and who for us is known decisively in Jesus. Christianity is not absolute, but points to and mediates the absolute.

Within this framework, what happens to the passages in the New Testament that proclaim Jesus to be "the only way"? We should remember that they are relatively few. Moreover, passages in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament suggest a larger view of God's presence and accessibility. But the "only way" passages are there, most famously John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to God except through me." Also well known is Acts 4:12, which says about Jesus, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved." We can understand these as expressions of both truth and devotion.

Truth: the path seen in Jesus is the way--the path of death and resurrection, that path of dying to an old identity and way of being and being born into a new identity and way of being that lies at the heart of Christianity and the other religions. This is "the way" expressed in Christian form. For us as Christians, Jesus is the way, even though not the only expression of the way.

Devotion: to say Jesus is the "only way" is also the language of devotion. It is the language of gratitude and love. It is like language used by lovers, as when we say to our beloved, "You're the most beautiful person in the world." Literally? Most beautiful? Really? Such language is "the poetry of devotion and the hyperbole of the heart." Poetry can express the truth of the heart, but it is not doctrine. And such language, when not hardened into doctrine can continue to express Christian devotion. To echo Krister Stendahl again, we can sing our love songs to Jesus with wild abandon without needing to demean other religions.

When a Christian seeker asked the Dalai Lama whether she should become a Buddhist, his response, which I paraphrase was: "No, become more deeply Christian; live more deeply into your own tradition." Huston Smith makes the same point with the metaphor of digging a well: if what you're looking for is water, better to dig one well sixty feet deep than to dig six wells ten feet deep. By living more deeply into our own tradition as a sacrament of the sacred, we become more centered in the one to who the tradition points an in whom we live and move an have our being."

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg. 215

Saint or Communist

To paraphrase Roman Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara from Brazil: "When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint; when I asked why there were so many poor, they called me a communist."

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg.201

Faith and Works

We are saved by "faith," not "works." To many Protestants, practices sound like "works." But the point of practice is not to earn one's salvation by accumulating merit by "works." Rather, practice is about paying attention to God.

Christian practice is about walking with God, becoming kind, and doing justice. It is not about believing in God and being a good person; it is about how one becomes a good person through the practice of loving God.

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg. 188, 205

Eternal Life Now

Though [John's gospel] affirms life after death, his phrase "eternal life" does not mean primarily that. The English phrase translates to a Greek phrase that in turn expresses a Jewish notion: "the life of the age to come." "Eternal life" means "the life of the age to come." Thus, for example, John 3:16 could be translated

For God so loved the world that God gave God's only begotten Son; whoever believes in him shall not perish, but shall have the life of the age to come.

[Importantly] in John, "eternal life" is often spoken of in the present tense. "The life of the age to come" has come. It is here. Eternal life does not refer to the unending time beyond death, but to something that can be known now. "This is eternal life," John affirms, and then adds, "to Know God." To know God in the present is to experience the life of the age to come. It is a present reality for John, even as it also involves a future destiny. We can know it now, experience it now. The point is that even John's language about "eternal life" has a strong present dimension.

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg. 175

Spending time in "thin places"

The Christian life is about the "hatching of the heart," the opening of the self to the Spirit of God by spending time in "thin places"--those places and practices through which we become open to and nourished by the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being.

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg. 161

In Defense of Drone Prayer

When we pray the Lord's Prayer together, the point is not to "think hard" about the meanings of the words and to mean them. As a child, I remember being told that it was important not simply to say the Lord's prayer, but to pray the Lord's Prayer--that is, to really mean it. So my attention became focused on thinking hard about the words. I no longer say or pray the Lord's Prayer in such an effortful manner. Rather, the point is to let the drone of these words that we know by heart become a think place. For Simone Weil, one of the twentieth century's remarkable Western spiritual figures, saying Lord's Prayer consistently brought her into a thin place, and not because she was paying attention to the meaning of the words.

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg. 159