We are in Victoria, British Columbia, attending the "Epiphany Explorations" conference at First Metropolitan United Church of Canada. We are among over 800 people who have come from all across Canada to hear Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Miriam Therese Winter, Lois Wilson, John Bell, Ron Klusmeier and many more.
The first two of these are best known for their scholarship researching what can be known about the historical figure of Jesus. Both have been featured on our series, "Living the Questions 2.0" that our church has hosted at 11:30 a.m. and 7:00 Wednesdays. Both represent a progressive theological stance quite different from more common expressions of Christianity heard today.
For Borg, the pre-Easter Jesus was human. He was not God. He was an extraordinary human -- and a mystic. Borg describes Jesus as the defining expression of God for those of us in the Christian tradition. Instead of BELIEVING in certain things about Jesus, Borg thinks that the way to be Christian is to FOLLOW the way of Jesus.
For Crossan, anyone trying to grasp the New Testament language about Jesus -- "Lord," "Savior," etc. -- would do well to first understand the "matrix" of the Roman Empire in which the Jesus story unfolded. Crossan views Jesus as a revolutionary who would overthrow the domination systems of empire, where-ever they are established, even when they are established in the church.
These little paragraphs don't begin to express the power of this event. This event gathers members of a thriving, international movement of a faithful and progressive Christianity that has been emerging in the past couple of decades. We've been moved by great new music for today's worship, by the sense of being in a standing-room-only event, and by the realization that God is still speaking...
We'll update our experience over the next couple of days.
Bobbie and Chuck
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