Conflicted Feelings about Marcus Borg’s life and work

Marcus Borg has passed away. The news report can be found here. There will surely be, in the following days several pieces presented about his life and legacy. This paper is my writing this as a scholar in the field of early Christianity and the conflicted feelings that I have about what value and challenges he (and others of his ilk) have brought to the academic study of the field. There is certainly a conversation to be had about whether Borg was helpful or not for the devotional life of Christians, but that is not primarily what this post will be about. Instead, I want to consider his work for its scholarly sake.

Borg was both a scholar of the historical Jesus and an activist for progressive Christianity. He, along with John Dominic Crossan and Robert Funk established and maintained the controversial Jesus Seminar which mixed these two interests. For Borg’s purely academic work (mostly in articles, less in books) his scholarship was generally academically sound. In his books, however, he often wrote for a mass audience with sometimes some wildly fantastic claims. These claims were very helpful for his interest in a progressive Christianity, but less helpful for discussion of the study of Christianity in its academic field.

Borg can be placed among a number of scholars whose work was more or less helpful for mass current movements, but rather questionably helpful for the progress of the study of Christianity. With Borg can be placed figures like John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman, and Reza Aslan. These figures have clear social agendas and hope to convert their readers to their particular points of view. Frequently, when they do this, they sacrifice some academic acumen. Much like Borg, these figures, when they do truly scholarly work, are good scholars. When, however, they spend more time on challenging the mass audience to rethink their assumptions, they often sacrifice their scholarly strength to make a more shocking statement. All one has to do is to consider the difference between Ehrman’s very academic and valuable book on Christian pseudepigrapha Forgery and Counterforgery: Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics wherein Ehrman argues that pseudepigraphy was practiced as a polemical discourse for and against other pseudepigraphical texts. This tome is over 600 pages, well documented and is a boon for the academic study of religion. Then, compare that to his popular sensational book Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. In this second book, he abandons his argument that pseudepigraphy was a polemical discourse and instead just writes a book on why the mass audience shouldn’t believe the traditional authors wrote the Bible. This divergence is striking. In one, Ehrman does the hard work of furthering the conversation about the concept of authorship in antiquity; in the other, he just tries to stir up people’s convictions (both those who love the scripture and those who hate it).

Borg can be seen in a very similar light. The majority of his publications were not scholarly works. They were public appeals to a mass audience in order to stir up feelings that others may or may not have held. This was encapsulated most profoundly with the Jesus Seminar which held a council to decide which sayings of Jesus in the Gospel was more or less historical and even went so far as to create a book with the “authentic” sayings of Jesus based on some relatively vague principles. The study of the historical Jesus is an art rather than a science, but the resultant book of the process would not fit within even the academic study of the historical Jesus. It does not clearly show why certain pieces were included and others were excluded. It does not explain clearly why some key pinciples were selected. Instead, it is a book that is relatively useless in the academic sphere, but rather thought provoking for those in the public realm and certainly sold a lot of copies.

It should be briefly noted that it is not only liberal scholars who fall into this trap. Similar things could be said of Luke Timothy Johnson, N.T. Wright, and Raymond Brown. These figures also vacillate between very good exegetical and academic studies and popular works that really are not scholarly precise. Further, there are figures such as Karen Armstrong who only really work in the public sphere and never really make a contribution to the academy in any real way.

What are scholars to think of all of this? Was Borg good for the academic field of the study of religion? I would argue he was. Borg reached an audience who would have had absolutely no interest in the academic field of religion and got them interested. He brought people to the door – for the right or wrong reasons – that could challenge them to explore further into the field.

I did not care for most of Borg’s conclusions. He was either a buffoon or worse yet, just a propagandist. However, whatever he did, he got people to stop and ask questions. For the field of early Christianity, we should applaud all of these figures who take the time to try to reach a mass audience. While Borg’s conclusions were academically skeptical, the sources he dialogued with were the same sources that academics use. A vast number of people got interested in the academic field.

What is even more important is which people got interested due to Borg’s work. Borg’s work was universally despised among the conservative Christian groups. That audience was probably not reached by Borg and for the most part, his books were probably not even read. However, I am not sure this group really needed convincing that the study of early Christianity was valuable. Instead, he reached an entirely different group who were either disenfranchised to the study of early Christianity, or even more probable, those who had no interest in the first place.

Would I have preferred that Borg be more academically sound in his books? Of course I would. Elaine Pagels and Robert Louis Wilken have accomplished this  - they have written very popular books that have sold very well among laity, but retained their academic integrity. These authors, though, are rare. Few people are able to accomplish this task. Marcus Borg did not do this. While I would have preferred he act in that manner, then I am starting to critique him simply for not being exceptional. That is hardly a fair critique of someone’s career.

Some might challenge me that Borg’s conclusions were too popular and challenged the faith of some devotional Christians. That might be true. However, I would wonder if a book they read by a distant scholar really was more challenging to their faith than living within modern society where there are many who challenge faith positions of Christians. The only way that Borg could truly challenge the faith of someone is if the solution to this crisis is simply to ignore questions. As a teacher, that is not something that I can recommend. A faith seeking understanding must be the goal of Christians. Many would not find Borg all that helpful and therefore would not read his books at all. However, that does not necessarily mean Borg has done more harm than good.

The field of early Christianity is always in jeopardy. Horror stories are told of programs closing and jobs being lost. Borg’s work, then, should be applauded for making the field relevant – even if we don’t like how he made it relevant. A reader who gets interested because of one of Borg’s books very like will follow by looking at more standard scholars. That reader might well enroll in a class. No matter where one falls on the view of the historical Jesus, most all of us in the academy should believe that things that promote further education in our field are good. Borg did this. Perhaps in a way that some didn’t like, but rather than hanging him for poor conclusions, perhaps we should see the value in that he caused people to even ask questions – regardless of what conclusions he held.