An article I wrote about Marcus Borg was based on a lengthy telephone interview with him on March 25. Here are extended sections of that conversation. One deals with his own spirituality, the second deals with the two visions of Christianity he sees at work in the United States and the third deals with the differences between evangelical and mainline churches. You can read Borg's own account of his spiritual journey called "Me and Jesus -- The journey home."

Borg's own spirituality

(Borg talked about having had a number of mystical experiences in his life.) Those experiences made God utterly real to me, more real to me than the world I see around me. People who say, "I don't really believe in God," I'll say to them, "Tell me about the God you don't believe in."

Almost always, it's the God I tried to believe in as a child and a young person and found I couldn't - that notion of God as superpowerful, authority figure separate from the world. So long as I thought that was what the word "God" meant, I really struggled to believe and the bottom line is, I couldn't.

Then these mystical experiences that I had starting in my 30s led me to understand that the word "God" is a reality that is present everywhere and can be experienced and that the universe is shot through with the reality of God and that there are moments when we know that and experience that.

This has led me to see mysticism to be the heart of all the religions of the world. It doesn't mean that everybody has to have a mystical experience to be religious. I think it's OK for those who haven't had such an experience to take seriously what those who have had such experiences say.

One of the enormous gifts in my life have been those experiences because they have given me a center and a conviction that is not dogmatic but grounded in experience. I do bring that to my writing and my lectures, so I think one of the reasons people are willing to hear me out about the Bible being metaphorical and Christianity being one of the world's great religions but not the only way and so forth is because I so obviously take all of this so very seriously.

Two visions of Christianity

My central claim is that the major conflict in American Christianity today is between these two visions of Christianity.

The change is from an earlier Christian vision to an emerging Christian vision, or paradigm.

The earlier Christian paradigm, which is the product of the last 300 years or so - a reaction to the Enlightenment of the 17th century - emphasizes that:

• Christianity is primarily about an afterlife (it's about going to heaven);
• Jesus is the only way of salvation;
• Jesus' primary purpose was to die for the sins of the world;
• the Bible is the inerrant and infallible will of God;
• the Bible is to be interpreted literally;
• beliefs and believing are important.

This earlier form of Christianity tends to be either apolitical (Christianity is about our relationship to God, not about politics) or it tends over the last 30 years to be politically conservative. The Christian theological right and the Christian political right have tended to go hand in hand.

Another way that I sometimes describe that earlier Christianity is that it is the conventional Christianity of a generation or two ago. Most of us who grew 30 or 40 years ago got a form of what I just described.

The emerging form of Christianity - which is sometimes also called "progressive Christianity" - emphasizes:

• the Bible is the product of our spiritual ancestors;
• the Bible is often to be understood metaphorically, not literally;
• transformation in this life rather than emphasis on an afterlife (it does not deny an afterlife, but says the afterlife is not the purpose of Christianity)
• relationship with God rather than believing in God;
• worship and prayer as ways of deepening our relationship with God rather than as duties;
• that the other enduring religions of the world are valid ways of being in relationship with God;
• that it is politically progressive.

Another way of thinking about this is from conventional Christianity to intentional Christianity. A generation or two ago, most people became Christian for conventional reasons - there was a cultural expectation that everybody would be something. That cultural expectation has disappeared over the last few decades. The Christianity of 40 years ago was pretty conventional in its attitudes toward society as well: patriarchal, accepting segregation, seeing a patriotic duty to go to war.

Now the intentional part. Within mainline denominations today, the only people becoming Christians are those doing so with intentionality, because the conventional expectation is gone. This means that people coming into mainline churches are caught by a different vision of the way things can be.

Thus emerging Christianity tends to be more critical of conventional culture than Christians a generation or so ago were. It is intrinsically about practice. Yeah, there are convictions involved, but practice in the form of a daily discipline which is some form of prayer or what is commonly called meditation or Bible reading. There is an intention for personal transformation and there is typically also an intention for changing society.

The attraction of evangelical churches

The impression that evangelical churches are growing while mainline churches are declining is not correct. Mainline denominations are declining, but evangelical churches are pretty flat in growth. Evangelical strength in this country is significantly overrated. A book manuscript I just finished reading ... It's almost taken for granted that one out of four Americans is an evangelical Christian. This book argues that the figure is one out of 14.

It is true that there are impressive megachurches around. I think there are a number of reasons why people become part of an evangelical church.

For some, it is that they are looking for clear answers, a clear set of beliefs, a clear set of right and wrong...

For some, it's the worship experience that draws them. There is an enthusiasm in many evangelical churches that is quite contagious. These people may be there not so much for the theology or the strict moral teachings, but because the enthusiasm of the worship suggests there is something important going on here.

Most evangelical churches have a real strong sense of community. Evangelical Christians are likely to go to church more than once a week ... and for many people, church provides their primary sense of community. Evangelical churches are probably better at doing that than most mainline ones.

Some of the other reasons would be things that also draw people to mainline churches - they have a hungering for God or a hungering for a deeper spiritual life.