On being born again and Spirituality

Being born again is the work of the Spirit...Spirituality is midwifery.

Spirituality combines awareness, intention, and practice. I define it as becoming conscious of and intentional about a deepening relationship with God. The words are very carefully chosen. Becoming conscious of our relationship with God: I am convinced that we are all already in relationship to God and have been from our birth. God is in relationship with us: spirituality is about becoming aware of a relationship that already exists.

Becoming intentional about our relationship to God: spirituality is about paying attention to the relationship. Though God is "Mystery," there is nothing mysterious about paying attention to our relationship with God. We do so in the ways we pay attention in a human relationship: by spending time in it, attending to it, being thoughtful about it. We pay attention to our relationship with God through practice, both corporate and individual: worship, community, prayer, scripture, devotion...

A deepening relationship with God: in what is now a familiar theme, the Christian life is not very much about believing a set of beliefs, but about a deepening relationship with the one in whom we live and move and have our being. Paying attention to this relationship transforms us. This is what our lives are to be about: a transforming relationship to "what is," the "More."

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pg. 120

On "Dying to self" and "Taking up your cross"

But the cross is the means of our liberation and reconnection.  It is not about the subjugation of the self, but about a new self. And so to avoid the potentially negative meaning of "dying to self," I prefer to speak more precisely of an old and new identity and way of being.  The way of the cross involves dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity, dying to an old way of being and being raised to a new way of being, one centered in God."

To be born again involves dying to the false self, to that identity, to that way of being, and to be born into an identity centered int he Spirit, in Christ, in God.  It is the process of internal redefinition of the self whereby a real person is born within us."

To relate this to John's affirmation that Jesus is "the way": the way that Jesus incarnated is a universal way, not an exclusive way. Jesus is the embodiment, the incarnation, of the path of transformation known in the religions that have stood the test of time.

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pgs. 112-113,117, 119.