1. “It is clear that the historical Jesus saw his mission to be primarily to Jewish peasants living within the tradition of Judaism. Jesus did not intend to start a new religion, but to do something within Judaism. This does not mean that Christianity as a religion open to Gentiles is a mistake. But it does mean that a mission to Gentiles is post-Easter [i.e. invented after the death of Jesus], as the New Testament itself makes clear.” - Borg, Marcus J 2011, Jesus: Uncovering the life, teachings and relevance of a religious revolutionary, ch6.
  2. “[…] [T]here is also a second kind of wisdom, one that challenges the taken-for-granted cultural consensus of conventional wisdom. A counterwisdom, a subversive or alternative wisdom, it is what we find in Job and Ecclesiastes as well as in the teachings of the Buddha and Lao Tzu. All taught in a way that undermined conventional wisdom as the ultimate truth about reality and how to live. Jesus was this kind of wisdom teacher. […] Most mainline scholars (including me) do not think that Jesus spoke about his second coming. […] God’s kingdom was for the earth […] it is not about heaven. […] ‘kingdom of God’ was a political as well as a religious term.” - Borg, ch7.
  3. “Discipleship, following Jesus, is not about believing a correct atonement theology. It is about following the way of the cross - commitment to the path of personal transformation as symbolized by the cross, and commitment to the path of confrontation with domination systems, equally symbolized by the cross.” - Borg, ch10.
  4. “The empire of God as preached and enacted by Jesus is a place and a state of mind and heart where all people are welcome, where all people are ministered to, and where all people have enough, in contradistinction to Rome’s empire of hierarchy, scarcity and fear.” - Bohache, Thomas 2022, “Matthew”, in West, Shore-Goss, The Queer Bible Commentary 2nd ed.
  5. “Like Jesus, we must offer God’s hospitality to all, especially those whom society renders ‘impure’. […] Like Jesus, we must accept our prophetic, Christic role to criticize, change and replace systems and structures in church and society that perpetuates all kinds of oppression, not just homophobia and heteronormativity.” - Bohache.