A post inspired (glumly) by my reading of Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus. Here’s the first quote upon which to ruminate:

I understand why the doctrines that explain everything to me also debilitate me at the same time. They relieve me of the weight of my own life and yet I must carry it alone.

Some time ago, I read Marcus Borg’s The Heart of Christianity and, from my reading, it is my opinion that he would approve of the above statement by Camus—to a certain extent. You might say to yourself, “What? I thought that Christianity provided an all-encompassing explanation for life.”

If one adheres rigidly to the doctrine of one’s religion, it can impoverish the imagination and the intellect by keeping one focused on doing the right thing as defined by orthodoxy and not determining for yourself what it means to live well as a human being who follows Christ.

The weight of one’s life is one’s own to bear, even if they are a Christian, and it does not banish the despair that Camus considered part and parcel of the absurd human condition. And, in Borg’s view, God does not intervene in the affairs of humanity, not even to lighten their burdens.

Although he might disagree with the characterization, Marcus Borg satisfies Camus’ criteria for being an ‘absurd Christian’ because, as stated in this piece, he is agnostic about the afterlife, which I find remarkable.

It is possible to be Christian and absurd. There are examples of Christians who do not believe in a future life.

For Borg, there is hope in death because we “die into God.” It is not the pure annihilation that Camus assumes so, in that sense, Borg is not truly absurd. But his agnosticism about what happens after death “cannot be resolved by belief,” meaning that belief does not constitute knowledge.

If you do any further reading of Borg’s work, you may not recognize the Christian tradition in which you were raised and some are highly critical of his scholarship, perhaps for this reason. The Christian tradition is continually evolving and has adjusted many changes in human society and culture, most recently in a reactionary manner.

But Borg’s is a vision of Christianity that I might endorse.