Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most

Convictions was the last book published by Marcus Borg before he died in 2015. Although I was familiar with Borg referentially, this is the first of his books that I have read.

I was attracted to reading this book by Borg as a result of a long and deep felt need that I had and have to frame and re-frame my faith. What is now described as “de-construction” is simply a 21st century way to describe what Borg discusses in his book: learning what matters most.

Curt Whiteman was one of my professors in college and as a naïve freshman I grappled with a statement he made in class one day, it has stuck with me with no need for notation: “Every generation of Christians must examine their theological statements and restate them so that they make sense to the generation they live in.”

WE aren't very good at that. We are much more comfortable learning the statements of our faith and sticking with them. Our language and our values become dated and irrelevant to all but the informed, and our convictions remain cloistered. But maybe more importantly, we don't feel the freedom to engage, think, re-frame, and challenge the ideas passed on to us. When we do, we endure ridicule from those who taught us.

Borg gives a framework for working through this challenge. He wrote this book at age 70 noting “if we aren't going to talk about our convictions – what we have learned about life that matters most – at seventy, then when?”
Full review at: https://thetempleblog.com/book-review-conviction-by-marcus-borg/