It is with no little relish I began this book, since Borg is as opposite an Episcopalian as can be relative to my father. I think it’s great that they’re both ordained in the same denomination. Anyway, I had to violate a dual parental prohibition just to buy the book, who knows what devastation would prevail if they knew I also enjoyed and learned from it.
The book is less a comprehensive treatment than, as Borg puts it, a primer. His purpose was to reclaim the language used in the Bible that has been distorted by modern Christianity, e.g., salvation, righteousness, Ascension/Pentecost, believing and faith, Jesus, Easter.
Each word, or, really, term, because Borg is arguing for the original monosemy of each word, gets its own little essay. Just like a primer, we begin with basic terms and our definitions build accumulate, contributing, by the end, to a new perspective. The dude is pretty radical, but he’s easy going enough that you don’t feel like his revisions pull the rug from under you.
On the negative side, the book mostly gestures at good arguments, without always doing the real work to prove things. This is, primarily, because it’s written for a popular audience. I suspect Borg covers all the ideas at greater length in his academic writing.
I made this its own post, because I don’t hear much about Borg here, but he is almost certainly a Universalist, though I’m not sure how he identifies himself. The book does much work towards Universalism without mentioning it by name.
