Saturday, July 27, 2013

Believing as 'Beloving'

I’ve picked up again and started re-reading Speaking Christian by Marcus Borg. Maybe it’ll give me a good framework for my upcoming course ‘Spiritual Quests and Popular Culture’.

He talks about “believing” (chapter 10) as coming from the Old English be leof which meant “to hold one dear.”  “Believing” in a conventional sense as ‘believing that some notions are true’ is to be contrasted with ‘believing’ as ‘holding something dear’ or ‘beloving’. Only the latter has the ability to save and to transform the person. In other words, believe should be taken in a relational way.

No comments:

Post a Comment