The Great Debate

They came, to my surprise, by the hundreds. Serious-minded folks from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco seemed keen to spend an evening listening to two Jesus scholars—Marcus Borg and me—continue in public a decade-long private debate. A snapshot of one moment in that debate had just been published; that was the official reason for the meetings.a But that by itself doesn’t explain the enormous interest. I should perhaps explain my surprise. Most people where I live (Great Britain), including most churchgoers, are not aware that there is a debate about Jesus and wouldn’t take much notice if they were. […]