Shuck and Jive


Monday, April 09, 2007

The Easter Challenge

OnFaith, a web forum by Newsweek asked a fun question to its panelists: If the remains of Jesus had definitively been found, how would that change your view of Christianity? A number of clergy and scholars from a variety of viewpoints responded. You might find their answers interesting as well as the comments from readers.

As I mentioned in my second post on this blog, I don't think we would need to find the remains of Jesus to ask this question. I wrote:

I wonder if it would make that much difference if, beyond a shadow of a doubt, we found the body of Jesus or we determined that Jesus did not physically rise from the dead? What if we were certain that he died like the rest of us will some day. Would that shatter your faith? What would your faith be about?

I don't think we need to find the body. Critical study of the Bible and the study of comparative religions have combined to shatter the historicity of the resurrection. I would guess that many who call themselves Christian regard the resurrection symbolically. For many of us, the resurrection is a myth or a metaphor. We may understand the meaning of this metaphor differently. Perhaps it means that what Jesus lived for lives on in his followers. Perhaps it means that justice will have the final word. Or perhaps it is a reminder in fable that what we see isn't all there is and that mystery surrounds us.

Regardless how we interpret it, many Christians do not believe or think they should believe that the resurrection was an historical event. On the other hand, many Christians think that the resurrection was an historical event. As far as I am concerned, both types of Christians can co-exist and celebrate life together in worship.
The task for an authentic faith is to deconstruct before we construct. Sometimes our faith invites us to challenge what we thought was central in order come to a deeper understanding of the mystery of God. We are on a journey. We don't have to have a final answer. It is really all right to live with the mystery. I think it is important to ask questions and to encourage questions. Even since I wrote that post last August, I have begun to think again about resurrection. I am exploring the connection between resurrection and consciousness thanks to the work of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin. My point is that it is good, at least I think, to continue to learn and to seek. A vibrant church, in my view, is one that encourages this work by offering permission and a safe place for search and discovery and growth, even as we challenge one another to articulate more clearly what we are finding.

Last night I read some of Uta Ranke-Heinemann's book, Putting Away Childish Things: The Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, and Other Fairy Tales You Don't Need to Believe to Have a Living Faith. The title is a reference to Paul in I Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a chld, I spoke like a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became an adult, I put away childish things." Had I known this book was so good, I might have suggested it for our Thursdays with Jesus group rather than the Spong book.

The book provides necessary deconstruction before we can begin construction. She has a wonderful chapter on Easter. I quote a paragraph:

The Christians have misunderstood the resurrection of Christ pretty much from the beginning. Equating the empty tomb with his resurrection, they mistook the one for the other. They looked on the empty tomb as a sort of consequence of the resurrection, and then they classified it as proof of the resurrection. But an empty tomb can be empty for the most varied reasons, and it never proves that any resurrection occurred. Converely, a dead man may certainly lie in a tomb: Such a fact is no obstacle to faith in his resurrection, because resurrection is something different from a dead man's coming back to life. (p. 134)
If you are curious about the empty tomb narratives, you might try the Easter challenge. Thanks to King is Sailing, They Say for this link. The challenge is to write a coherent narrative about what happened on Easter morning without omitting any details.

Before you go there, here is my concern. Christianity is losing its most thoughtful people. They leave the church not because they are misguided or arrogant or think they know more than God or have been possessed by Satan. We lose our most thoughtful people because we insist on a literalistic faith and say choose this or choose atheism. Atheism becomes the obvious choice.

I am a Christian. I am a Christian minister. I refuse to give up on trying to understand the heart of the Christian faith in a credible way. I don't have the answers. I am searching and growing. I love the Christian faith. Jesus, the Bible, and the traditions have been an aid to me even though I know its dark side as well. I don't write or minister with my congregation as someone outside the fold. I am in it. I would hate to see this beautiful religious tradition turn into "choose literalism or nothing."

To become adults we must put away childish things. So take the Easter challenge as a tool for deconstruction. Then think about construction. Here is the challenge:

I HAVE AN EASTER challenge for Christians. My challenge is simply this: tell me what happened on Easter. I am not asking for proof. My straightforward request is merely that Christians tell me exactly what happened on the day that their most important doctrine was born.

Believers should eagerly take up this challenge, since without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. Paul wrote, "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." (I Corinthians 15:14-15)

The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts 1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8. These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what, when; and where these things happened.

Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to pretend to present a perfect picture--it only needs to give at least one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. The important condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical detail be omitted. Fair enough? (Read more)

30 comments:

  1. Many people are leaving the Christian faith because people like Bishop Spong and Pastor Shuck are teaching that most of the fundamental principles of Christianity are incorrect (e.g. Jesus is the Son of God who created the Universe; Jesus died in redemption of sin and rose from the dead; God has the power to work miracles; the Bible is the most authoritative record of Jesus' life, work and teachings; there is a moral code of behavior contained in the Bible; etc.,). etc., etc.). Spong and Shuck and their like are not merely quibbling over minor doctrinal differences-- they frontally attack the basic definitional concepts of Christianity.
    In our admirably free country they have every right to do this, but is hypocritical and inconsistent to do it from within the church they are destroying, with the benefits and position of leaders of that church. If they were consistent and confirmed in their beliefs they would have the honesty to leave the church whose teachings they have renounced, and proclaim their new religions of Spongism and Shuckism. And then see how many followers they could attract.

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  2. Christianity is losing its most thoughtful people. They leave the church not because they are misguided or arrogant or think they know more than God or have been possessed by Satan. We lose our most thoughtful people because we insist on a literalistic faith and say choose this or choose atheism. Atheism becomes the obvious choice.

    Exactly! People are offered a false dichotomy between literal belief in myths and atheism. It need not be that way. I just wrote a blog entry on the state of European Christianity, where I think the problem is even more acute than it is here in the US.

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  3. The "false dichotomy" only exists if people insist on a naturalistic worldview.

    Rational Christians (scientists, philosophers, mathemeticians, historians, etc) have accepted the claims of historic Christianity concerning the resurrection of the dead, just as irrational people have accepted those same claims because they have been open to the possibility of the supranatural.

    Similarly, irrational people have rejected the claims alongside rational (or at least rationalistic) people because they are either closed to the supranatural or are recalcitrant (see Rom. 1). The problem has never been an intellectual one, but is always a volitional one.

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  4. To assert that "rational Christians" have accepted certain mythological events as literally and historically true depends, I suppose, on how one defines "rational".

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  5. And I might add that the false dichotomy exists whether people accept a naturalistic worldview or not. The reason the dichotomy is false is that people don't have to choose between the two alternatives that are presented to them. The fact that it is presented as an either-or proposition that people must choose between is what makes it false--because, in fact, people are under no such obligation to choose between those alternatives.

    The problem is acute because it convinces many people that they have to make a choice that they, in fact, don't have to make.

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  6. "The fact that it is presented as an either-or proposition that people must choose between is what makes it false--because, in fact, people are under no such obligation to choose between those alternatives."

    Jesus always presented it as an either/or, and never as a maybe or a myth. Are you calling Him a liar?

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  7. Jesus always presented it as an either/or, and never as a maybe or a myth. Are you calling Him a liar?

    What Jesus did or did not say is precisely one of the questions that is subject to debate by rational people, so your question makes no sense.

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  8. Hi John
    I don't think we need to find the body. Critical study of the Bible and the study of comparative religions have combined to shatter the historicity of the resurrection.

    1. I'm scratching my head wondering what "shattering" you possibly could be talking about here. It sounds like a talking point, just like "put away childish things" is a talking point.
    2. If Jesus' bones were definitively found, my faith would be shattered and I'd leave the church immediately. Oddly, though, you are already convinced that Jesus rotted away. Your faith, something on a par with being a Jeffersonian I presume, is dependent on Jesus having been an ordinary Joe.

    What if you're wrong? What would you say in your defense? Now THAT is a fun question. :)
    God bless.

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  9. John Shuck, thanks for the article and for the reference. I posted my article, not because I have any desire to become an athiest, but to challenge my own long held Fundamentalist beliefs that seem implausible. A way of asking - "just what is it I am supposed to believe in"? The firestorm I have created over at my site is understandable. I just asked a handful of Christians to critique the very foundation of Christianity.

    Thanks for your site. I'll check it out more often

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  10. Well, "booger" pretty much validated Shuck's point. Christianity or athiesm, Christianity or ShuckySpongism. Here we go again, I'm a Christian, your not.

    Maybe I'll go over to a fundamentalist blog and tell them their not Christian because they spend more time quibbling over meaningless events instead of actual, real, meaningful teachings such as; Compassion, Love, Giving, Serving, Helping others, Lifting up. ...Oh, I guess I'm doing that too, so maybe I should just drop out of Christianity and go try and help the world of people in a more meaningful way where you don't have to defend personal beliefs of what did or didn't happen in specified historical events.

    See my point? Do you want to include us in Christianity or don't you. Has Christianity become an exclusive club that follows the flow chart of secret handshakes and knows all the secret saying jargon? Jump through all the hoops of "belief" and get dunked in the tub or sprinkled?

    Or would Christianity be better by following the teachings of Jesus instead of infighting and rejecting members into the exclusive club called Christianity? WWJD.

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  11. Michael,
    Booger's point is quite valid. The Presbyterian Church USA has a statement of faith that is required of him to stand by. Declaring Jesus to be a mere "revolutionary" contradicts the obligation to represent Him as Lord and Savior. My point was then being a follower of Christ would be no different than being a follower of Thomas Jefferson, except that Jefferson would be a better choice than following a delusional carpenter!

    You believe exclusivity is wrong but how long before folks who think like you stop welcoming believers like me? I was part of Rick Ufford-Chase's PCUSA blog that I soon realized had no tolerance for any opinion that wasn't politically liberal. You have already played the "love me I'm a liberal" trump card with your inventory of Compassion, Love, Giving...that you presuppose Neanderthals like booger and I have not.

    Pastor Shuck wrote **We lose our most thoughtful people because we insist on a literalistic faith and say choose this or choose atheism.**

    There is some truth to that. Many in the church leadership are woefully negligent of keeping up with the latest developments in science and technology. There is a great opportunity for ministry (and new material) that is lost. At one church function I saw a guy in a T-shirt that read "Big Bang? - I don't think so! - God". Here was a great discovery for Christians to celebrate and they blindly oppose it. A good example of this anti-intellectualism was Ted Haggard's defense of the 6 24-hour day creation in Dawkins' "God Delusion". The answer however is not to be "so open-minded that our brains fall out", to quote Dawkins.
    God bless.

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  12. Re: Mystical Seeker...What Jesus said and did is contained in the Bible. Many of the things he said are repetitive and very clear, including belief in his Divinity and repentence from sin, and the Fact of his resurrection. His statements along these lines are so clear as to be virtually incapable of misunderstanding or interpretation, except by those who do not wish to believe.
    2) Progressives tend to finesse this by simply throwing out the Bible as authority. The problem then is that you have NOTHING on which to base your faith construct, except perhaps your own ego and intuition. The result is Shuckism et. al.

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  13. HeIsSailing,

    Great blog you have! 60 comments for the Resurrection challenge! It's a hot topic. Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were an atheist, I was speaking in general terms.

    Here are some further comments in response to all of these other fine comments:

    I think the resurrection challenge (try to harmonize the empty tomb narratives and Paul's testimony) is helpful for us in seeking to sort out what kind of literature the gospels and these narratives are. Here are some of my preliminary thoughts:

    They are not reports from eye-witnesses or to use another word, journalistic.

    They are not biographies of the life of Jesus.

    They are theological statements in the form of a narratives.

    Each is different from the other since they are not about an event that happened, but a theological proclamation about God's activity in Jesus.

    That is why I think basing one's faith on the resuscitation of the corpse of Jesus or the journalistic accuracy of the empty tomb narratives misses the point.

    But hey, if it is important to believe that these stories are journalistic, then go ahead.

    These next questions are most important for me. Regardless of whether you think these stories are history or theological story, what do they mean? What do they mean for us? How do they change our lives?

    Blessings,
    john

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  14. Biblical accounts Jesus' life do not actually differ that much as to essential events.Many scholars have been able to deal with concepts such as Synoptic Gospels, Q, and John's preference for Greek philosophy without throwing out the essential authority or accuracy of the Book.
    Dismissing the gospels as "nonjournalistic" is 1)a bald assertion which 2) ignores statements in the text suggesting they are based on eye witnesses and 3) ignores the many consistencies between the accounts.
    And in the end, if you throw out the authority of the Bible, what are you left with on which to base a Christian faith? You have no authoritative record of what He said, or did, or that He even existed. At that point, you are simply making it up as you go along, creating your own religion out of your own preferences. That's fine, but its not Christianity.

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  15. Jim Jordan,

    I like what you say about exclusivity. Its quite possible for some liberal types to be every bit as exclusive. I've seen it as well. It dosen't make it right either way.

    Minister Shuck's "next questions" above should always be the focus.

    The arguments of historical intricacies obscures the important questions.

    It takes two sides to argue and both are complicit.

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  16. What Jesus said and did is contained in the Bible.

    I understand perfectly well that you believe that. Not everyone agrees with you on this point. Just cuz you think something is true, that doesn't mean that everyone agrees with you. That is the whole basis of the discussion here. Simply contradicting opinions you don't agree with doesn't refute the existence of that other opinion.

    Put another way, a possible opinion doesn't necessarily have to be one that you agree with. That's why it's called possible. The problem with fundamentalism is that it repeatedly asserts the lie that there are essentially only two possible ways of responding to the Easter stories in the Bible--either literal acceptance, or atheism. This is simply not true. Whether you or anyone else agrees with any of those possible opinions is irrelevant. What matters is that there are more ways of viewing the Bible than some claim, and this assertion that there are only certain ways of viewing it are a way of controlling the debate and it is a denial of the reality that there more diversity of opinion than some people want to admit.

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  17. Hi John Shuck!

    What a pleasure to find your blog.
    Did anyone actually write an Easter story? I'm curious.

    Re. this conversation--these are my thoughts, regarding demythologization projects in general, and attempts to demythologize Jesus' resurrection in particular:
    1. If I am going to start out by saying something as absolutely preposterous as "I believe in God," there's no intellectual obstacle to just going the rest of the way and saying I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the healing and feeding miracles, and all the rest. Hence, I have no problem believing in miracles.
    2. When I preach (to a congregation that has extremely varied beliefs about miracles) I take the miracles as if they really happened, but I don't stop with "ooh, look at this amazing miracle"--it always goes farther back to the goodness, grace and love of God, given to us no matter our circumstances. Because a miracle without a gracious God behind it is just a parlor trick.
    3. But, maybe this style still alienates those who do not believe the miracles really happened... and they're just being too nice to say anything. :)

    Keep up the good blogging, I'll keep reading! HWR

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  18. Mystical seeker...I am not a fundamentalist, nor do I believe every word of the Bible is literally true. However, it is impossible to read the Bible without hearing Jesus say that he is the Son of God, that he would die and be raised from the dead, and that belief in his divinity is an imperative for salvation. If you "interpret away" unambiguous statements (and just by YOUR saying they are ambiguous or a matter of opinion does not make them so, when to cloud up their meaning often requires real logical somersaults), strips away any authority of scripture, which is the only objective basis for the Christian faith.
    If you want to interpret the statement "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, No one comes to the father but by me," or "Except you believe in me you will all likewise perish" as "I am a deluded good intentioned teacher who thinks he is God, so follow my precepts forever" you may, but why would you want to? As many have said, if Jesus was just a teacher, then he was a deluded and probably evil man for claiming god status.
    The whole point of this again is that you can believe what you want, but if you disparage scripture and deny its accuracy, how are you a Christian and on what do you base your perception of Christ? Have you had a personal revelation? God's voice whispering in your ear? What??

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  19. booger, I know the question was phrased towards mystical seeker, but may I answer it as well? Thanks!

    The Baptist in me says I'm a Christian because I decided to be a Christian. I could identify this decision/commitment with the point in time when I was saved. As very real as that was, it had absolutely nothing to do with believing that Jesus was in fact God and that I should worship a past human being. It also didn't have anything to do with a magical human sacrifice on a cross. But was I saved? Absolutely yes.

    "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, No one comes to the father but by me," or "Except you believe in me you will all likewise perish"

    I believe in those statements and I don't interpret them the way you suggest.

    Jesus was the Way, Truth, and Life in his actions and approach to life. The path is narrow in that you must "believe in me", but to me that means believing in the very basis of who he was, which was not a God. His very basis was a way of life, love, compassion, all those things you know the life of Jesus to be, even self sacrifice.

    One wonderful thing about believing in the very basis of whom Jesus was, is that it is very quite possible for humans to live in the way of Jesus without knowing whom he was and reading the bible. This dosen't make a reason to not study Jesus. I just point this out as who Jesus was is something very natural and at the heart of human kind. The Son of Man was/is the love in the human spirit.

    Now the Universalist in me says that being saved in the Christianity format that I was is not required. It can happen if you accept the "love" into your human spirit, "The Son of Man". And to be a Christian, you simply decide to be a Christian. There is no exclusivity test.

    I bear witness this to you.

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  20. Hi Heather!

    Good to hear from you again! Thank you for your kind words about my blog. I have added yours, Holy Vignettes to my blogline.

    It sounds like you are doing well.

    HeIsSailing who commented above, has a number of people who have taken the Easter (or Resurrection) challenge. I think it is a great exercise for people to learn the stories.

    Thanks for your thoughts on demythologizing. I especially like point 2--what do these stories (miracles) say to us about God and us?

    We all take an approach we need to take regarding ourselves and our congregations in terms of preaching.

    As I am reading comments here and elsewhere, an interesting theme pops up now and then that goes something like this:

    If the resurrection (meaning the resuscitation of the corpse of the historical Jesus) isn't factual, then either

    1) the whole faith is worthless. I can't trust anything the gospels say, and

    2) I might as well give up Christianity and become a Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, etc. as they are just as true (or not true) as Christianity.

    This leads I think to a real great question: Is Christianity better or more true than these other faiths? Does it have to be? If we believe in Christianity because to do so puts us in the right club as opposed to all other wrong clubs, then of course the whole package needs to be accepted.

    But if we allow Christianity to be one of many expressions of the Mystery, then we can appreciate its unique contribution to the human project but not insist on its superiority.

    That is a difficult leap for many folks to take.

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  21. However, it is impossible to read the Bible without hearing Jesus say that he is the Son of God, that he would die and be raised from the dead, and that belief in his divinity is an imperative for salvation.

    There you go again, setting yourself up as the exegesis police, telling other people what they can and can't believe. This is exactly the sort of problem that I am referring to, where people of a certain theological persuasion presume to tell others what categories of response to the Bible are acceptable and unacceptable. By offering a limited either-or choice that does not reflect the true variety of possible responses, they are trying to force people into a corner that they don't have to go.

    If you want to interpret the statement "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, No one comes to the father but by me," or "Except you believe in me you will all likewise perish" as "I am a deluded good intentioned teacher who thinks he is God, so follow my precepts forever" you may, but why would you want to? As many have said, if Jesus was just a teacher, then he was a deluded and probably evil man for claiming god status.

    Okay, now you've gone all C.S. Lewis on us. The fallacy of that is obvious, since you assume what you are setting out to prove--namely that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, which was written maybe 70 years after Jesus died, are an accurate reflection of what Jesus actually said. Maybe they are, maybe they are not. Just because you think they are doesn't make it so.

    The real problem here is that you are just confirming the very problem as stated originally. The original issue was that certain Christians insist that only certain responses or to the Bible are possible. You are continually confusing the possible response with that which you accept to be the correct one. I am not sure why it is so difficult for you to make the leap and understand that the word "possible" means just that, and is not the same as "that which I believe to be true". Not everyone sees it the same way. It is possible to believe that the Bible's accounts of miraculous events are not literally true without one being an atheist. Those who insist that you must either believe those stories to be true, or else you have to be an atheist, are a huge problem in modern religion, and they are driving people away from Christianity.

    That is the real problem that I see here.

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  22. I might as well give up Christianity and become a Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, etc. as they are just as true (or not true) as Christianity.

    John, you raise a very important point. There really is nothing wrong with people becoming Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, or whatever. Loyalty to a religion is, in my view, simply a way of finding a conduit to the divine. You choose a means, but that doesn't mean that others who choose a different road are "wrong". Some people seem to have a need to insist on the uniqueness of the road they have followed, and if the resurrection isn't true, then somehow they feel that there is no longer any reason to remain within the Christian tradition. This is a huge fallacy, but some people never get past that disillusionment. It is really unfortunate.

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  23. All I can say about this posting, along with much else in Pastor Shuck's blog, is this:

    "oh, dear." *shakes head*

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  24. M.S. C.S. Lewis is pretty good company.
    I'm not trying to be the exegesis police, but many progressive interpretations of scripture are similar to the old joke--"If you call an elephant's trunk a leg, how many legs does it have? Answer four, because calling the trunk a leg doesn't make it one." I'm talking about passages whose plain meaning is simply unmistakeable, to me, to any reasonable person. If you want to go to unreasonable lengths to interpret them to say something other than what they say, that is your business, but you are creating a belief system other than what is expressed by Christ or the Bible.

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  25. I'm talking about passages whose plain meaning is simply unmistakeable, to me, to any reasonable person. If you want to go to unreasonable lengths to interpret them to say something other than what they say...

    The world is full of people who are convinced in their own minds that the Bible has unmistakable interpretations on certain subjects, and yet those people manage to have completely different interpretations, and we now have hundreds of denominations in the US that are divided over various "unmistakable" interpretations that adherents are in disagreement on. Funny how that happens.

    For what it's worth, however, I would point out that some of these "unmistakable" statements that you attribute to Jesus in his lifetime are statements that I don't think he ever uttered. But, alas, I am sure that you are as convinced of the "unmistakable" fact that he really uttered those statements as you are of the "unmistakable" interpretation that you have of those statements.

    Dogma is a wonderfully comforting thing. Oh, to be so sure that one is on the side of "unmistakable" truth.

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  26. Hmmm... dig up the corpse of Jesus and you get to claim that your faith is not beholden to fact because you can make it a metaphor or just dump the whole "realism" project.

    Dig up something an anthropologist claims is a human ancestor and you demand that everyone's faith claims have to change in accordance with that "fact."

    Anyone else smell inconsistency? (Hint: it smells kind of lemony.)

    Evolution and relativism = "unmistakable truth" over which only the mentally deficient can disagree.

    orthodox Christianity = misogynistic powerplay for privileging a narrow "western" view.

    A most fascinating hermeneutic....

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  27. Hey I scored a 42 on that test - apparently I am close to 'heretical' but not quite (and in some senses - they are right). Oh well, life rolls on.

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  28. Well, no one has it quite right. Of course the bible must be taken literally, but one must first decipher the hidden code; that’s what is literal! Of course, according to that, we were wiped out by nuclear war and earthquakes last year. Logically then, we must conclude we are now existing in an alternate reality. Perhaps in this new paradigm we live in there can be room for personalized and varied interpretations of Christianity.

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  29. "If the resurrection (meaning the resuscitation of the corpse of the historical Jesus) isn't factual, then I might as well give up Christianity and become a Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, etc. as they are just as true (or not true) as Christianity."

    Wow. There are so many problems with this kind of thinking I don't even know how to begin.

    Christianity is not a club. It does not belong on a continuum with Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca etc... which are also not clubs. The truth or falsehood of individual claims of parts of some of the traditions that identify themselves as Christian does not have any necessary or logical connection to the truth or falsehood of other religions.

    Faith is not chosen like a commodity off a shelf from a variety of options. We are not presented in our lifetime with a myriad of brands of the same product from which we choose our own favorite. This kind of talk is so reductionist it is insulting.

    To be clear, I am not accusing John Shuck of this, as he is only paraphrasing what he hears others saying. Let me make 3 responses to those using this kind of argument:

    1) Being Christian is NOT about having an answer which other people do not have. If you are a Christian because you think that Jesus got it right and Mohammed got it wrong - then you don't get it at all.

    2) Traditions of faith and practice like Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity that we refer to with the shorthand "religions" are immensely complex, internally diverse and completely different! It is only ignorance that lets us make easy comparisons between them. As someone who has spent considerable time living amongst and learning from people of many of these traditions I implore you in the future to simply treat them as if they have ends and means that are totally different from one another. What applies for Christians may or may not be at all applicable for the others.

    3) Let's all acknowledge that a huge reason (if not the whole reason) that we identify with any one tradition is largely life circumstances. Were we born elsewhere, or raised by different people we would not have been exposed to the things we have, believe the things we do, or choose the things we choose. We'd like to believe that our faith is 100% conscious cognitive assent, but that is just foolish.

    Lest anyone think I am denigrating their tradition (christian or otherwise) please be assured that my whole purpose is to keep each of the traditions in the highest possible respect by arguing for them to be approached on their own terms only, rather than from a universalist "bird's eye view" hermeneutic.

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  30. Let's all acknowledge that a huge reason (if not the whole reason) that we identify with any one tradition is largely life circumstances. Were we born elsewhere, or raised by different people we would not have been exposed to the things we have, believe the things we do, or choose the things we choose. We'd like to believe that our faith is 100% conscious cognitive assent, but that is just foolish.

    Absolutely! I think you are completely correct on this point. I personally acknowledge that the reason I hang around on the fringes of Christianity is that it is the religious faith I was brought up and it is the one that I feel most comfortable with. If I had been raised Buddhist or Bahai or Hindu, my religious choices as an adult would also be different. I realize that I have spiritual needs, and the religious tradition in which I feel most comfortable in pursuing the satisfaction of those needs is Christianity, so that is why I hang out in Christian circles. It is as simple as that. Once one realizes that religious loyalty can boil down to a kind of loyalty that might have no calculated or rational basis--by analogy, the love we have for our significant others often defies reason and logic--then one can simply work to make the best use of the religious tradition that one identifies with. This approach recognizes that other religious traditions can also be value means toward an end.

    I was called a "Christian sufi", by the way, by the Mad Priest in his own blog when I made a similar comment there about why I associate with the Christian tradition.

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