Sociology of Religion: Outline 4
I. Groups: "Speaking of Faith".... Take about 20 minutes to present short summaries of the program you chose and decide on a program to recommend to the larger group
II. Fieldwork assignment: our list and a clearer statement of the assignment
III . Borg, chapter 9. Resistance: the Kingdom and the Domination System
"The Bible is personal. It is about our relationship with God as persons.... The Bible is political. It is about God's passion for a different kind of world..."
A. Jewish Responses to the Domination system
1. Accomodation
2. Violent resistance
3. Passive nonviolent resistance
4. Active nonviolent resistance ...Borg sees this last one as Jesus's way
a. The way he entered Jerusalem for the last time: in keeping with a passage in Zechariah (Jewish Bible, Christian Old Testament)
Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king [ a ] comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the war-horses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River [ b ] to the ends
Contrast with a Roman procession entering the city at the same time, the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, with imperial cavalry and foot soldiers
b. The cleansing of the Temple.... calls it a den of robbers and warns of destruction unless those who worship there begin to practice justice
c. Debates with authorities in the Temple: the Vineyard owner and the tenants, Render unto Caesar
d. Jesus as a prophet: indictment of the Temple authorities, lamenting the future he foresees
e. Nonviolent resistance... Do not resistance an evildoer with violence, but do resist.... creative nonviolence (Gandhi going to the ocean to "make" salt)
V. . The kingdom of God
A. on earth? this is the way Borg sees the Lord's Prayer, or the passage in Matthew and Luke that says: "Strive first for the kingdom of God and God's justice."
B. imminent eschatology: last days and the second coming of Jesus... Borg's view that this viewpoint emerged in the post-Easter Christian community... he sees Christian theologians as split evenly on this issue
C. still coming and perhaps soon.... evangelical Christianity: Tim LaHaye and the "Left Behind" novels
VI. Ch. 10: Executed by Rome, Vindicated by God
A. Substitutionary sacrifice
a. Took over a thousand years for this interpretation to become dominant in the Christian church (see p. 268)
b. Think about it in relation to "Genesis: The Test" and Abraham's sacrifice
c. Not the work of the Jewish authorities: they were limited to stoning (p. 271). Why is this important?
d. "Virtually a human inevitability," given his nonviolent resistance and the attention he was getting... John the Baptist before him; Paul, Peter, and James after him
B. Easter: Vindicated by God
1. Public factuality? In Mark (the earliest Gospel), no story of an appearance by the risen Jesus... In the longest story, in Luke, two of his followers meet him on the road to Emmaus but they don't recognize him.(see p. 286: this is the story Borg would use to make the case of these post-Easter stories as parables)
2. Followers of Jesus continued to experience him after his death: Paul's experience on the road to Damascus... visions and their meaning... no one else in his group saw Jesus
3. Resurrection as God's "defeat of the powers"... dominant Christian understanding for the first thousand years of Christianity (290)
4. The Way of the Cross... personal transformation. Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ..." ( p. 291)
VII. Epilogue: Borg's more personal statement, including what he calls a "bedrock" statement of how the "emerging paradigm" views Jesus (p. 304) and what Borg thinks that implies for how Christans should live(p. 308).
A. Churches as "communities of resocialization"
B. "An unending conversation" (p. 310)
Social psychology and symbolic interaction