Welcome Mark! I hope your experience on this site will be fruitful and engaging. I watched your video and heard you mention Marcus Borg. I had the pleasure of listening to him and Richard Rohrbaugh do a series of talks this past weekend. I picked up his book, "The Heart of Christianity" and am looking forward to starting it this weekend. Have you read it?

Welcome mark_andrew78 - hope you'll stick around - there's lots to discuss here!   Sounds like you're definitely on a voyage of discovery, which is wonderful. 

Thanks somegal, 

Yes, I have read The Heart of Christianity and co-led a study group on it at a Unitarian church that I used to attend. There's a study guide that you can buy that goes along with it (I think called "Re-discovering The Heart of Christianity.")  Where did you hear him and Rohrbaugh?

Mark Andrew

Hey Mark,

Welcome aboard. I'm from Kitchener originally (grew up there through the 70s and 80s) and still have family and friends there. I'm currently UU (have been for about a decade) but grew up in the United Church. I've checked out Unity a bit, too (I know some people, including ex-UUs, at the one in London where I live now) but it didn't quite click with me. My UU fellowship here in London used Reading the Bible Again for the First Time for a study group that I was in and I quite like Borg (missed him when he came to London last, though). Will give your video a look and look forward to hearing more from you on here.

Mendalla

Dear Mark Andrew,

Thank you so much for inviting us into your living room. I really enjoyed listening to your story. Welcome! 

Rishi

Hi Mark,

I'm a student at UoG - we're practially neighbours! I really enjoyed your video, and I can really relate to many of the things you spoke about. I am particularly interested in the book you mentioned, God the Possible. I think I will check out the library to see if I can find a copy!!

I live in Victoria, B.C. and there's a United Church here that puts on an annual conference called Epiphany Explorations. This year, as part of that conference, the two of them did a 5 part series called "Culture, Text and Context: Speaking Christian, Then and Now." You'll a link to it in the thread I started called, "Epiphany Explorations Online." If you click on the link, you'll be able to watch the whole thing (plus many other interesting speakers).

Mark,

Have you read Bart Ehrman?  He too started out as a fundamentalist and pretty well leads as a Christian scholar.     I am convinced that Borg just uses his material, but I guess among gentlemen & scholars it is called "borrowing".  Very interesting fellow, at any rate

Hi Mark:

Unfortunately, I am hearing impaired and could not follow your video, despite my high tech hearing aids.

Many of us here on WC started out as fundamentalists, then went on to explore other spiritual directions, including atheism, and ended up as progressive or universalist Christians.

Welcome to WC!

welcome!!

i started out catholic myself.... but i totally identify with the idea of a radical shift in your faith journey that brings you into a new understanding...

thanks for joining us!

Welcome Mark let me also welcome you to the diveristy of Wondercafe. Pull up a chair and have a cup of wonder tea.

Just  a small correction Borg does not use Ehrman but uses earlier scholars and did his own research - Claremont Grad school was investigating stuff befor Ehrman began his work - I encountered it with Otto Betz James Robinson Burton Mack in the 70:s And later Burton Mack again in the early 90's.   Ehrman gets press because he is knowledgable in using pr - better scholars than him.  For is extreme fundamentalist background is reworked in his fact fundamentalism of liberalism.

Hi Mark, Wecome! What an interesting journey you're having. I look forward to you joining us in the discussions. As you can tell, we all come from diverse and often changing points of view. I find this place very interesting and open, often challenging...but I have learned a lot here. I hope you do too!

Hi Mendalla,

Good to hear from you!  How long have you attended the UU fellowship in London? A few years ago my friend Rev. Felicia Urbanski was an interim minister there. Then she did an interim term here in KW, and now she's a United Church minister in sort-of-rural Ontario!  

Mark Andrew

Actually when I was in the States a couple months ago and Borders book chain was going out of business, I found Ehrman's book Lost Christianities on sale for something like 6 dollars, along with Spong's "Eternal Life," Brennan Manning's "The Furious Longing of God," and more.  I really look forward to reading Ehrman.  Though I think my next "Christian" read is the Quaker minister Philip Gulley's book "The Evolution of Faith."

Thanks so much for the message Arminius. If there's one thing I've learned is that the spiritual journey is just that..a journey. And I hope to never claim that I have God figured out. 

mark_andrew78 wrote:

Hello Friends,

This is my first post on WonderCafé!  I'm Mark Andrew from Kitchener, Ontario, and I have a fundamentalist evangelical background. I grew up in a small town in southwestern Ontario, then moved here to attend Bible college. Then my theological beliefs started to change drastically, and everything changed.  Actually, I just posted a video on YouTube about it if you'd be interested in checking it out!  I talk about exploring the UCC, Unitarians, and now Unity. I also am inspired by Buddhism and some contemplative Christian authors.  Thanks!

Mark Andrew

Kitchener Ontario

Hello Mark Andrew. Welcome to wondercafe. Judging by your video you certainly have had an interesting past. As others have said before me, you'll find here on the cafe a variety of faith views represented. I myself am a Baptist who is currently a student at a southwestern Christian university. Again, welcome to wondercafe.

This is an interesting statement.  What I think you are saying is that you believe Ehrman is a fundamentalist liberal?  What do you mean by that?  Expand please?

I would have to find Otto etc. to understand more about the synthesis.  It is quite acceptable to reroute research into one's vernacular, if this is what Ehrman does.  Whereas you have to admit that Borg and Spong are pretty watered down  messengers rather than creaters and interpretors.  

Ah, a mutual connection. I was chair of worship when Felicia was here and did several services with her over the two years she was with us. We keep in touch a bit. She invited me to work on the CCPC conference here in London last fall but it fell at a bad time for me.

Mendalla

Welcome. I was raised Southern Baptist but left that behind ages ago so I can relate.

No human phenomenon in this global age is more controversial or confusing than religion. But two things are clear: secular prophecies to the contrary, religion is not going away. And despite the hopes of certain nostalgic believers, religion will not regain, at least in the West, the social ascendancy it once enjoyed.

we are all outsiders. All of us, no matter what we believe, stand outside traditions to which the vast majority of other human beings belong. The lesson to draw from this inescapable fact of the human condition is the need for a profound humility about one's own beliefs, especially when they are the kinds of beliefs that one cannot fully test in the company of others. In "The Predicament of Belief," these facts compel us to call for a "religious minimalism" across the world's traditions. For example, those whose religious experiences and values give rise to inescapably Christian convictions become Christian minimalists when they learn to hold their beliefs with humility and a certain lightness of touch.
We suggest that the humility of religious minimalism is the right stance for everyone, believers and non-believers alike, to adopt -- especially in an age in which the rich plurality of human beliefs has never been more evident, more exciting... or more dangerous.