Convictions

How I Learned What Matters Most

De: Marcus J. Borg

Narrado por: John Pruden

On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the renowned Marcus J. Borg shares his "convictions" about Christianity and America, contending that they are both at their best when they focus on hope and transformation, and shares his thoughts on how American Christians can return to what matters most.

Reflecting on what matters most, both for the church and for Americans, leading biblical scholar and premiere teacher for Protestant churches Marcus Borg surveys the most significant conversations and personalities that shaped his life, and presents his convictions about the faith and its role in the 21st century.

Meditating on what makes us feel at home, he calls all American Christians to reject divisiveness and exclusivity and create communities that celebrate joy, possibility, and renewal. Throughout, he reflects on what matters most, bringing to Earth the kingdom of God Jesus talked about and transforming our relationships with one another.

©2014 Marcus J. Borg (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers

The original and eternal Christian now

working from the text of the Bible, original languages, the context and a deep understanding of God as reflected in the person of Jesus, the norm for interpreting the Bible, Borg offers a lifetime of reflection conversions and convictions on faith. This is an incredible book for anyone who is a person of faith or seeker. it is easy to understand and offers wonderful suggestions and opportunities for life. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED​!

Thought provoking

I was not familiar with the Author until taking on this reading with a Sunday School class. I found the opening and closing of the book the more interesting of the content. The controversial suggestions in between were an exercise in contemplation.

Perhaps Dr Borg’s best ...

This is perhaps the best book he is authored, it especially hits home for Christians who are trying to make sense of biblical applications in our lives today.

What really matters in life.

I am grateful for this book. After seventy years, Marcus Borg has come to very similar convictions in his life that I have reached after seventy years of my very different life. The huge value of this book for me is that Borg distills and articulates these convictions adding substance to my unarticulated, sometimes vaguely formed, much less thought out conclusions. As I listen to this audiobook, I also hear a voice deep within me saying, “Yes, That’s exactly right!”

As a young man, I loved God. I didn’t question the fundamentalist Evangelical teachings of my church until the second year in a conservative Evangelical Seminary. Somewhere deep inside told me, “There is something fundamentally wrong here. It doesn’t feel right.” It suddenly became obvious to me that Biblical inerrancy was a falsehood as was the whole theological system built on it. Voicing this realization got me in trouble. I was thrown out of that seminary. I still loved God but at age 27, but I was ostracized from graduate school, my church, my family, and from all life I had previously known. This started me on a lifelong spiritual quest for which I am grateful.
Now, in my seventies, I am a comfortably retired, liberal Episcopalian and Christian mystic living quietly in a villa on a Caribbean beach where I work in my garden. I listen to Audiobooks by great Christian teachers as my eyesight declines. I greatly admire Marcus Borg’s learned insights and the way he states his faith. That’s why I feel humbled and grateful that God’s spirit has led me to the same spiritual place and that “Convictions” defines that place so beautifully.

So many wonderful insights!

Such a rich, enlightening work - I am starting it again immediately!
Teaches how to ask questions and search for answers.

This encouraged me in my faith and answered some longstanding fears and concerns from my conservative background.

His ideas are well researched and clearly presented. Not pushy. Gave me a completely new perspective.

For the contemporary Christian

For the contemporary Christian who wants to follow Jesus and move onward.

If you are are a progressive Christian following the path of Jesus, this author will confirm your convictions.

But convictions are not as important as leading your life from your conscience and this conscience is formed throughout our lifetime.

I remember as a young girl that the Catholic Church declared you at the "age of reason" when you turned 7 years of age. To me that meant that I had to pay attention to my faults and my sins. One of the biggest impediments is guilt, when guilt lingers it blocks all avenues of human and God's love.

So instead of developing into the person that God intended me to become, I was developing according to the rules of the Catholic Church and not realizing that I was born in the image of God which is love.

After all I had to practice humility, a very big thing in Catholicism but never fully explained in the sense that all is grace. After all we can't think like the protestants can we? Justification by grace through faith.

This belief system was pretty much what I lived until in my early 30's I had a very spiritual experience that turned my life around. Turned it around in the right direction but 30 years of the Catholic Church's teachings on morality etc didn't change me overnight. I had to work at examining my life all over again and even to this day I have not completed this task, it is eternal.

Marcus Borg shares with us his 70 years of following the Lutheran Church, his parents convictions, his mentors etc. Coming full circle back to himself and his relationship with Jesus.

Marcus Borg delivers his message simply and with conviction. He has found his place in the order of things and gives the reader or in my case the listener a push to keep on going, to keep looking inward and not outward.

To finally come home to oneself and move forward with hope, conviction and above all else love.

Thank God, a Christianity I can profess.

What made the experience of listening to Convictions the most enjoyable?

Actually, the listening is kind of meh, but Borg's language transcends an unremarkable performance

Any additional comments?

I gather that this is the last of this writer's books on the subject of Christianity. It is a summing up of a lifetime of exploration and coming terms with the difficult gift of Christianity.
As someone who has been appalled at the modern American Christian tendency to promote the idea that simple belief in Jesus, without reference to the difficult task of attempting to live in the Way of Jesus, I found the very humanness of Borg's approach to be one that finally spoke to me and is part of how I can find my way into a church, and into the active choice to seek to emulate this way of living. The prose is clear, the references compelling. Borg's interpretation of the Kingdom of God as something we should be seeking to create in this world speaks to the progressive in me who believes in the fundamental goodness of most individual people. In short, this is a Christianity I can profess without shame.

Excellent!

Even though I was familiar with other books by Marcus Borg, this one was a great summery of his personal thought and in general that of progressive Christianity. Highly recommended!

Rehashing of Borg's progressive perspective

I really have profited from Marcus Borg's work over the years. His earlier work had plenty of verve and vivacity. I really wanted to like this book as he reflected on some of the theological themes and issues that shaped his life.

However ... in the past years I have thought Borg is simply rehashing ideas, concepts and issues that he has treated well in the past. I really wanted to like this book, but in the end found it a little disappointing, as he didn't break any new ground.

The reader was fine, but unmemorable and often s/he can really lift a book from the page. Not this time though.