The Gospel narratives may suggest that Jesus was divine, but they do not insist upon it. Hundreds of years after Jesus’ death, the Church councils made Jesus’ divinity a central tenet of belief among many of his followers. This is a narrative history of Christians’ early efforts to define Christianity by convening councils and writing creeds.
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British theologian F.D. Maurice is considered a forerunner of the contemporary ecumenical movement. His writings and work were an articulation of his theology, which emphasized the inclusiveness of Christianity despite ideological divisions within the Christian community. This volume offers a selection of Maurice’s moral writings based on his theological worldview.
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“Not only have my incoming students exhibited little sense of what it means to assert that Christians are historically monotheists (as opposed, say, to deists, pantheists, or monists), but their initial comments about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit (much less the Trinity) have been so vague and superficial (and often purely sentimental) as to reflect little real understanding. Consequently, any profession of faith that my students might make or notion of salvation that they might harbor is groundless, free-floating, and without context — theological, existential, psychological, or sociological.”
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Like his earlier book, this one is written for lay people whose faith has been frustrated by their misapprehension that fundamentalism’s claim to be the one true faith is valid. Borg, a professor of religion at Oregon State University, describes an alternative to fundamentalists’ so-called “literal” readings of scripture. (He believes that such “literal-factual” readings do not live up to that description, and that the limitations of such readings have alienated many people who would otherwise remain part of the church.) Borg calls his alternative “historical-metaphorical” reading, a way of “taking the Bible seriously without taking it literally.” Study guide available, by FaithFutures.
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Why did Jesus happen when he happened? Why the confluence of the Baptism movement of John and the Kingdom movement of Jesus? Why the tiny villages around the Lake? Why the confrontations in Jerusalem? Why then? Why there?
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“Why did Jesus happen when and where he happened?” Excavating Jesus is a groundbreaking work of popular biblical scholarship, an extraordinarily mature and accessible integration of textual study with archeological research. “Words talk. Stones talk too. Neither talks from the past without interpretive dialogue with the present. But each demands to be heard in its own way,” the authors write.
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