You Can Believe and Still be a Jerk

Having shared a humorous reference to Marcus Borg recently, I thought I ought to share something more serious that he actually wrote. In the image and in the text below, is an insightful statement from Borg about the problems which arise when one defines Christianity in terms of believing certain things to be true, rather than about a transformed life (HT Kissing Fish on Facebook):

You can believe all the right things and still be a jerk.  You can believe all the right things and still be miserable, still be in bondage, or still be untransformed. So, the emphasis upon belief is, I think, modern and mistaken. It’s also very divisive – once people  start thinking that being a Christian is about believing the right things, then anybody’s list of what the ‘right things’ are becomes a kind of litmus test as to who’s really a good Christian and who’s not. Being a Christian is really about one’s relationship with God. And that relationship with God can go along with many different belief systems.

— Marcus Borg in Living the Questions