By: Jim Taylor
I'm excited about the "emerging paradigm" that
theologian and professor Marcus Borg describes.
Borg has written several
books and many articles on the subject. If I dare summarize, the "emerging
paradigm" is the freedom NOT to believe many of the dusty doctrines that
have been part of church tradition for so long that most people can't remember
why they were once considered crucial, let alone find them meaningful today.
Borg suggests that the
Christian church is splitting into two streams - those who cling to those old
doctrines the way a drowning person clings to a sodden lifejacket, and those
who have decided they can swim for shore better without the lifejacket.
But I'm noticing that it
seems a lot easier for people to describe the outdated beliefs they've
discarded than to define what they still believe.
So let me take a very
brief try at what I believe.
First, God is God. I can
no more define God than I can levitate. Whatever I am capable of thinking, God
already is. I like the Hindu description of their supreme being Brahman:
"tat tvam asi,"
- "that thou art."
Besides, it's not up to
me to define God. Whatever words or images or analogies I might invent, God is
more.
Second, of all the
Christian doctrines that have filtered down through the centuries, I believe
most deeply in Incarnation. Incarnation is the core of the Christmas story, the
idea that God chooses to be embodied in mortal flesh.
I believe that's God's
mode of operation, God's way of communicating.
Most traditional
theology limits God to a single Incarnation, in the person of the infant Jesus,
the Messiah (Hebrew) or the Christ (Greek).
But I'm not willing to
limit God. So, to borrow words from the late Clarke MacDonald, one of my mentors,
I believe that Jesus is the window through which I can see as much of God as
humans can comprehend.
Indeed, I'll go further
- whenever anyone attributes qualities to God that are not also evident in
Jesus, I'm skeptical.
That belief doesn't
preclude the possibility that God has also chosen to be embodied in
Or in
me, or you, or anything else.
Could God choose to be
embodied in a sparrow or a lily?
Why not? I refuse to
treat God as the private property of any one faith or of any one species. I
cannot instruct God where and how to relate to the universe. If God chooses to
be a field mouse or a grey whale, that's up to God, not to me.
But even the possibility
requires me to treat field mice and whales, sparrows and lilies, with respect,
in case I'm dealing not with an inferior being but with God embodied.
Finally, I believe that
when we who are embodied die, we are gathered back into God. And God is somehow
richer for our experience.
If you have comments or questions about Jim's column, write to him
directly at jimt@quixotic.ca
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Copyright © 2006 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study
groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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