{Marcus J. Borg. Putting Away Childish Things: A Tale of Modern Faith. HarperOne 2010. 352 pp. $25.99}

Reviewed by Martha K. Baker

Putting Away Childish Things: A Tale of Modern Faith is didactic. Usually labeling any book “didactic” is the kiss of retail death, butMarcus Borg’s most recent book also courts a second smacker: it’s a novel, a teaching novel.

Borg, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University, has written best-sellers – Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Jesus, andThe Last Week; these works of non-fiction cover religion, Jesus, the Bible, God, and Christianity, and so does this latest book. But for his first novel, Borg exploits fiction as a fact-delivery-system. The result, rather than being dry as kibble, is downright creamy. Maybe it’s because the main character is one Borg is familiar with, and maybe it’s because the character’s field of expertise is Borg’s, or maybe it’s because he eases academic information beautifully into what he calls “a didactic novel.”

Borg sets Putting Away Childish Things at Wells College, a liberal arts school, in Willow Falls, Wisconsin, staffed by conservative, tenured professors and administrators. Prof. Kate Riley is liberal, a Christian, a happy, 30-something spinster, and a very popular professor of religious studies. She smokes (only six a day), she drinks Guinness (two, tops, per sitting), and she likes red shoes (no limit). She loves her job, she likes Wisconsin — even the mid-December days when the story opens — and, after five years of teaching, she looks forward to settling down for good as a tenured prof. But soon after winter semester starts, she receives a proposal to apply for a one-year teaching post at a seminary. [Read more...]