Featured Book: The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith

Nine years ago, The United Church Observer “surveyed a bunch of their clergy across the country,” the Vancouver Sun reports, “and came up with the top 25 spiritual thinkers [whose writings] they’d recommend” UCC parishioners read: Marcus Borg claimed first place. An Episcopalian, Borg, who died in 2015, was, according to Christianity Today, a “liberal Jesus scholar and friendly provocateur.” Upon his death, the New York Times quoted friend and collaborator, Dom Crossan, as saying of Borg that he “delivered a radical message, but with a notably gentle demeanour.”

Though conservatives disfavoured him—“he denies so much of the core beliefs of the Christian faith,” blogger Tim Challies insists, “that it becomes nearly absurd to consider him a Christian at all”—liberals “will feel that Borg does not go far enough,” Britain’s Sea of Faith Network holds.

Judge for yourself: The Heart of Christianity is, in its entirety, “an apologetic” for an “‘emergent’ paradigm of faith,” the webzine Journey with Jesus points out. “The new paradigm…is about loving God and loving what God loves,” Publishers Weekly adds, “rather than rigidly adhering to a specific set of beliefs.” Reviewers called it both “a bellwether book” and a “highly readable book.”

The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith
By Marcus Borg
HarperSanFrancisco, 2003

The previous Featured Book, Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity, by David Felton and Jeff Proctor-Murphy, is now available in the Library.