This weekend, I was fortunate enough to see three lectures by the theologian Marcus Borg at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church. St. Matthew's is a large parish in suburban Louisville, with a sanctuary built in 1965 in an attractive modern style that befits the theologically liberal stance of the parish. Borg spoke on his most recent book, Speaking Christian (which of course they had for sale; I was glad to buy one for him to sign).
The main theme of Speaking Christian is that familiar language from the Bible used by Christians does not have the meanings that most "common Christians" (American Christians from more conservative or traditional backgrounds) assume it does. For example, the word "mercy" is used where a better translation would be "compassion." Mercy is what you show when you are in a position of having to punish someone, and the use of that word reinforces the focus of common Christianity on heaven and hell, of avoiding punishment. Compassion emphasizes the sense that we are to feel a need to help others who are in need or pain. Another word commonly misunderstood is "righteousness," which means a thirst for justice rather than a personal rectitude or avoidance of sin. Borg stressed that Christianity should be understood as being about transformation in this life, not on the afterlife.
Borg's message emphasized the political content of Christianity and the Bible; the Prophets and Jesus protested against the "dominion system" that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of the few, and left the many in a state of bondage. Borg pointed to how the book of Exodus was read in the civil rights era. At the end of his third lecture, Borg made his own progressive political beliefs quite plain as he detailed at length the political and economic injustices of today. For example, he said our military is as large as the next 13 countries combined. He also mentioned that the largest air force in the world is the US Air Force, but the second largest air force is that of the US Navy. (This observation charmed me, by the way, because my father was a Navy aviator; he was a navigator on a sub-hunting aircraft, a P3 Orion. This was in the 1960s, but remarkably, Wikipidea says that the P3 Orion is still in service.) Borg indicted conservative Christians for collaborating with the wealthy by using social issues to encourage people to vote against their economic self-interests.
I suppose a conservative or evangelical listener might say that Borg is not reclaiming correct meanings of Biblical language but instead projecting his own political beliefs onto the scriptures. Borg does seem to deny or be uncomfortable with traditional language in the Episcopal prayer book; he mentioned that some parishes in his diocese only say the Nicene Creed on alternating Sundays or only once a month, using contemporary creeds in their place. Or else, they sing it, under the theory that no one pays attention to the words of hymns; he mentioned the old hymn Come, thou font of every blessing, which has the peculiar line "Here I raise mine Ebenezer." (Actually, not in the Episcopal hymnal; there, it is hymn 686, and the line is rendered "Here I find my greatest treasure." Google led me to an article in Christianity Today by Gary Parrett, who bemoans this change of words, and explains that "Ebenezer" is a "stone of help"; the reference is to 1 Samuel 7:12.)
My own understanding of the Bible might still be closer to what Borg described as "soft" traditionalist---acknowledging that much of the Bible cannot be taken literally (e.g., the Garden of Eden, or the Virgin Birth), but believing that the "really important" things can be taken as factual, in particular, the Resurrection. But I share with Borg a difficulty in accepting the atonement theology, which to me is atavistic. (Thousands of years after the Jews destroyed the cults of human sacrifice, are we to understand God's saving acts as this kind of cruel and illogical transaction?) Borg said the atonement theology was first formulated by St. Anselm in the 11th century. My understanding of the significance of what Jesus did is carried in the Resurrection: God's love for us survives this world and its suffering---the disciples of Jesus had experiences of the risen Jesus, experiences that convinced them that Jesus was still with them and that God's love was real. As I mentioned above, Borg said that the phrase "eternal life" is more about transformation in this life than it is about an afterlife. But he said this is not to deny there is an afterlife. However, he did not actually affirm there was an afterlife, a question I wanted to ask him after his lecture. It turns out he gives a clear answer in Speaking Christian: he says he is an agnostic on this matter; he simply doesn't know. He mentions the possibility of reincarnation, which some Jews at the time of Jesus, and many American Christians, believe in; he also points to the intriguing subject of near-death experiences. He concludes his discussion (p. 201) with a simple affirmation that echoes Romans 14:7-8: "I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know." I cannot disagree with this conclusion.