This is a Companion to the book by Marcus Borg and is written with Tim Scorer as their joint initiative to add an experiential learning program for small-group study to extend an individual's reading of the book. From the FOREWORD (viii) > In the past few decades, an emerging vision of Christianity has begun to take root among both clergy and laity in mainline denominations in North America. . . . the emerging vision removes the unnecessary intellectual stumbling blocks generated by the earlier vision. Rather than seeing the Bible as an inerrant or infallible divine product, it recognizes that the Bible is the product of ancient Israel and early Christianity. As such, it tells us about our spiritual ancestors' lives with God: their experiences of God, their stories about God, and what they thought life with God involved. Rather than emphasizing a literal factual reading of the Bible, it recognizes that the Bible often uses the language of metaphor and poetry to speak about God and God's relation to the world. And rather than emphasizing what we must do or believe in order to have a blessed afterlife, the emerging Christian vision emphasizes a relationship with God in the present that transforms our lives in this life. Marcus Borg> Blockquote Blockquote