Dear Friends Our November 9 Second Saturday Conversation was post election. With our community in mind,  I suggested we focus on two concerns that are common to Second Saturday Conversation.  One, when we speak of God what are we talking […] The post Post-Election Conversation appeared first on The Marcus J Borg Foundation ..read more

On October 12, 2024 Second Saturday Conversation hosted Brandon Scott for an in-depth understanding of Christian Nationalism. Brandon is an historian, biblical scholar, and educator.  He identified Christian nationalism’s historical context (and noted that nationalism is growing in places other than the United States). In […] The post On Christian Nationalism (Featuring Bernard Brandon Scott) appeared first on The Marcus J Borg Foundation ..read more

September 14, 2024 we began a new Second Saturday Conversation program year.  I made some brief and general comments about where our conversations over the years have brought us. And then suggested what a different kind of theological discourse — […] The post Through a Glass Darkly: More Numerous of Windows, Superior for Doors appeared first on The Marcus J Borg Foundation ..read more

The Rev. Canon Marianne W. BorgMark 6:30-34, 53-56 St. Thomas Episcopal Church Dubois, WY July 21, 2024  Jesus is a healer.  Whenever word got out that Jesus was near, people left their villages or cities or farms to come closer to him. And […] The post Jesus is a healer appeared first on The Marcus J Borg Foundation ..read more

 I offered an overview of our year. Where I started in September 2023 and where we arrived in June 2024.  A non-linear recap for a non-linear year. But thematic threads ran throughout.   Our guests were Scott Holland who introduced us […] The post 2024 Program Year In Review appeared first on The Marcus J Borg Foundation ..read more

Transfiguration, Sisters, Oregon June 16, 2024 Mark 4:26-34 Rev. Canon Marianne Wells Borg Today’s Gospel is the parable of the mustard seed. All too familiar perhaps. I wasn’t raised in the church but by the middle of childhood the story of the mustard seed found its way to me beyond church walls. What I remember was that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, great things can happen. With faith, even the size of a little mustard seed, great things can happen. What an idea. What a word of encouragement. And I remember necklaces with a dangling little round globe and an even littler mus ..read more

At our Second Saturday Conversation May 11, 2024 Jeff Creswell hosted and invited reflections on a William Stafford Poem, “The Way it is”.  A major image in that poem is the thread.  Jeff invited us to identify threads in our own lives that have brought us along our way.  And a different image, our North Star, that serves as a compass as we navigate the changes and chances of life.  Enjoy this thoughtful conversation and take time to  invite your own thoughts and experiences evoked by Jeff’s invitation to reflect and wonder. June 8 will be our last Second Saturday Con ..read more

Dear friends For our April 23, 2024 Second Saturday Conversation I continued exploring dogmatics and poetics. In this session I contrasted theology and Theopoetics.   To suggest one contrast: Theology declares.  Theopoetics  invites. Both theology and Theopoetics are responses to the mystery of life and our existence. Arguably we need both; we have both. But I suggested that Christianity in the 21st century needs a strong dose of Theopoetics. I also played with three gospel stories and contrasted a theopoetic vs a propositional approach to interpreting the stories.  M ..read more

The Rev. Canon Marianne W. Borg  Trinity Episcopal Church, Bend Oregon April 7, 2024 John 20, 19-31 I was “converted” reading this story. I was 26 years old. I want to share a  little about what this text meant to me then. And what it means to me now. I want to preface by saying a little about stories. The story about Thomas is  just that. A story. Stories are something we make them up because there is no better way to describe what it is we are trying to get at. They are  imaginative. But that doesn’t mean they are not true. Like today’s Gospel, they are not to b ..read more

I began a conversation titled Poetics not Dogmatics. (Poetics is a broader category than poetry.) Poetics invites, provokes, engages imagination. Dogmatics are definitive and determinative. Poetics is open.  Dogmatics seeks closure. The language of poetics (and it is not always text) and the language of dogmatics are different. We live with both. But I suggested that what the world needs now is more poetics not dogmatics.  I tried to illustrate poetics, then drew from a blog LUCID by Ruth Ben-Ghiat about authoritarian language and ended with some thoughts on Lent and Easter.  I ..read more