In 1999, I had been the vicar of St. Marks Church in Sheffield in the UK for eleven years. St Marks had been known for being in the ‘liberal critical tradition’ in the UK, which in reality meant that we were pretty negative towards evangelicals, conservative Catholics and charismatics! We pretty much agreed with Bishop Jack Spong’s assertion that Christianity had to ‘change or die’. Yet this wasn’t good enough, it all felt too negative, we needed a positive vision about how we understood and embraced Christianity.
Then one of my colleagues, a retired priest, walked into church one Sunday morning carrying a copy of ‘Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time‘. He said I ought to read it! I hadn’t heard of Marcus Borg, he wasn’t a well known name in the UK at that time but after reading this book, I knew we needed to get this guy over to address a conference here in Sheffield. Marcus came in the year 2000 and there began a relationship with Marcus and his work which transformed our church and I can truly say, transformed the thinking of all those who attended that first conference.
From that time onwards Marcus was a regular visitor to Sheffield and to other UK destinations.
In the year 2003 I decided with my church council to set up a Centre for Radical Christianity, which became known as ‘St Marks CRC’. Marcus gladly agreed to be a patron and to have his name associated with the centre. That Centre is still going strong and continues to invite eminent speakers from across the world to encourage people to dig deep into the roots of the Christian story. My last face to face conversation with Marcus was when I drove him back to Edinburgh Airport in 2010 after a very successful weekend conference at a prestigious church on Princes Street Edinburgh. There in that church he had captivated his audience with the clarity of his thinking, the warmth of his person and the challenge of his message. The then Bishop of Edinburgh was pleased to have been in his company.
In my experience churches in the UK are not always fertile territory for overseas speakers, especially form the USA. At a time when the historic denominations here are facing serious decline, challenges from progressive voices from across ‘the pond’ are not always well received. Marcus was different. In his books he offered positive and wholesome ways forward by which open minded people could once again read the bible with respect and reward. Marcus enabled people to ask the big questions about God and Jesus, Prayer and Church and to gain insights into how to learn and experience afresh these aspects of the Christian faith. He encourage his listeners to value silence and meditation, to go deeper into that mystical experience of God.
One of the greatest tributes which could be made to Marcus was the oft repeated conversations I was privileged to hear as people queued up to speak to him at the end of a conference. So often people praised Marcus for ‘allowing them to claim the word Christian once more’. I think it is no exaggeration to say that Marcus enabled thousands of people to feel ‘born again’ in relation to their own faith journey and commitment.
Through Marcus I have also been privileged to met others whom he valued and shared the road with. Dom Crossan came to Sheffield the following year after that 2000 conference and at our memorial Lecture in Birmingham only a few weeks ago we were delighted to welcome Diana Butler Bass to give the lectures in honour of Marcus. He would have been delighted with the day, truly grounding people in a spirituality fitting for this twenty first century.
I am delighted that his work will continue through the Foundation. Here in the UK the Progressive Christianity Network intends to hold an annual event honouring Marcus’s work and allowing speakers familiar and new to take us into new realms of thought and practice in our Christian journey.
So I pose this question to those on the journey:
What are the experiences and the convictions in your life which would make you proud to be called ‘Christian’? And how has the work of Marcus Borg helped you in this?
