Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Worldview By Borg

In a book he coauthored with N. T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, historian Marcus Borg describes this prevailing worldview as the “worldview of mass culture in the West” and he explains – I think very correctly – how it works:

Like all worldviews, it functions in our minds almost unconsciously, affecting what we think possible and what we pay attention to. It is especially corrosive to religion. It reduces reality to the space-time world of matter and energy, thereby making the notion of God problematic and doubtful. It reduces truth to factuality, either scientifically verifiable or historically reliable facts. It raises serious doubts about anything that cannot be accommodated within its framework, including religious phenomena such as prayer, visions, mystical experiences, extraordinary events, and unusual healings. 

For many people, to think that the shroud is real is simply incredulous. We don’t need proof; we just know it. We don’t need information; our worldview is all the information we need. We don’t need to think about it because worldview prejudges. We are, all of us, well practiced in the art of worldview nullification. Borg points out that religious phenomena are not easily accommodated to the modern view of reality. C. S. Lewis said something similar in his book Miracles. He wrote: “Nothing arbitrary, nothing simply ‘stuck on’ and left unreconciled with the texture of total reality, can be admitted.”