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What do you think of when you hear the
phrase “born again”?
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Dr. Borg says that we may know of some
people who have been born again “in a remarkably unattractive way”. Do
you think of any examples of this?
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“When being born again leads to a rigid
kind of righteousness, judgmentalism, and sharp boundaries between an
in-group and an out-group, it’s either not a genuine born again
experience or it has a lot of static in it.” Discuss this statement
from p. 104 in The Heart of Christianity.
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What behaviors and
characteristics would you expect to see in people who have been “born
again” or who are centering their lives in God? What behaviors and
characteristics does Jesus expect in Matthew 25:31-46?
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St Paul says in Romans 12, “Do not be
conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your
mind.” Is this what is involved in being “born again”? What are the
pressures you feel to conform to practices and behaviors around you
that are not consistent with the expectations of Christ? How have you
dealt with those pressures to be squeezed into a mold?
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On p 118 of The Heart of Christianity
we read: “For the majority of us being born again it is not a single
intense experience but a gradual and incremental process. Dying to an
old way of being and living into a new way of being is a process that
continues through a life time.” How has your experience of being a
Christian compared to this statement?
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Is there a
phrase that captures for you the change and transformation image in
this chapter better than the phrase “born again”? What is it?
