Putting Away Childish Things: a novel of modern faith

by Marcus J. Borg

Paperback

Status

Available

Call number

813.6 BOR

Genres

Christian Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

HarperOne (2010), 342 pages

Description

"We all know that Marcus Borg is a gifted teacher, biblical scholar, and writer of nonfiction, but it turns out that he's a master storyteller, too." -- Brian D. McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christianity Bestselling author, Bible scholar, and theologian Marcus Borg (Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, The Heart of Christianity, The Last Week) uses his core teachings on faith and the Bible to demonstrate their transformative power and potential in Putting Away Childish Things: the moving, inspirational story of a college professor, her students, and a crisis of faith.

User reviews

LibraryThing member DubiousDisciple

This is a story about believing, and Borg’s first-ever novel may be among his best books. The main character, Bible scholar and professor Kate Riley, is a progressive Christian with a devotion as strong as any fundamentalist believer.

For a glimpse of how Kate lives as a Christian, we might peek

into one of her lectures. In a discussion of whether the story of Adam and Eve is “true,” Kate teaches, “The identification of truth with factuality is a cultural product of the Enlightenment. The success of the scientific method led many people to think of truth as what can be verified, and what can be verified came to be identified with facts. Within this framework, if something isn’t factual, then it’s not true.” Kate explains her point a bit later, with a quote from Thomas Mann: “A myth is a story about the way things never were, but always are.” She tells her students, “A myth is not about something that happened, that’s not its point. But it’s about the way things always are. And [Mann’s] definition also provides a way of distinguishing true myths from false myths—a false myth is a story that’s not about the way things are.”

Perhaps writing fiction allowed Borg to dig down inside himself to personal levels that were not possible in his nonfiction works. He lays bare what life and Christian practice is like for a liberal Christian. As I said earlier, this book is about believing, a word that more traditional Christians have a hard time associating with progressive Christians. How can one have faith in God while at the same time denying a literal interpretation of the Bible? How can such a Christian claim to believe? Is a progressive (liberal) Christian a real Christian or a mockery of true Christianity?

Here is what makes this book fascinating to me: The climax of the story will prove disappointingly bereft of a climax for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the tension of literal-versus-liberal Christianity. But for anyone trying to understand the progressive viewpoint, the climax is beautifully sculpted. Kate’s transition by book’s end into a “believer” is a perfect ending.

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LibraryThing member Kellyannbrown

Here is a philosophy book with a plot! Wow! A smoking, beer-drinking professor at a private college has an important decision to make. While teaching the philosophy of religion to her students, the protagonist must wrestle with the decision to teach a seminary and risk losing tenure at her college.

One of her students has a difficult issue of faith challenging her. Through life and discussion, they examine their belief structure and how Christianity changed during the enlightenment. I found this book to be well-written and thought provoking. It's not a quick read, but it's not tedious either. I loved the way it showed how people of faith live their devotion daily.

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LibraryThing member CGSLibrary

Abstract: Kate is offered a visiting professor job at a prestigious seminary that employs the professor she had an affair with years ago. Students ask her views on Jesus, the Bible, and homosexuality, which leads to a parents' campaign for the school to get rid of her.

LibraryThing member michelleannlib

Ehhh. I had a hard time caring and figuring it out what the message was. I couldn't care enough about the characters to finish. I might come back to it. But I'm giving it a "just okay" rating.

LibraryThing member kvrfan

I enjoyed this book, though I suspect it's destined for a limited readership. It's really an apologetic for progressive Christianity (of which I am an adherent) in the guise of a novel. In a preface, Borg explains that this is exactly what he is doing, more-or-less admitting that he's not really a

novelist but an academic. That allows the reader (at least, it allowed me) to give him some leeway, because as a novel, it really is pretty clunky, the characters being more "types" than fully-fleshed realizations, and much of the dialogue being pretty stilted. But I like a good theological presentation, and Borg certainly knows how to make one in an accessible, popular way.

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LibraryThing member LivelyLady

Interesting book picked up at a used book store when traveling. Kate, a single 30 something religion professor, must make a career choice. Should she stay at the small school where she is almost guaranteed tenure or should she chance a year at a seminary, one with personal values more in line with

her beliefs. Faith and trust become over riding issues. An interesting read with lots of religious references and morality.

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LibraryThing member UnionCongUCC

Didactic is the word the author and many reviewers used to describe this novel. Marcus Borg is a great theologian and not a novelist, however the book provides an introductory review of progressive Christian theology. The characters are used to provide examples of how people accept, reject, or

analyze progressive Christianity. The story telling is good enough to keep the reader engaged. The characters can seem self absorbed with little character development aside from Kate the main character. While the theology is sometimes heavy handed, the novel is an interesting reprieve from similarly themed non fiction books. I would recommend this book to someone struggling with denser nonfiction on the topic.

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