This week we ran an article asking if Christians are indeed Christians if they question the resurrection.
The article posits, “Did Jesus literally rise from the dead in a bodily resurrection, as many traditionalist and conservative Christians believe? Or was his rising a symbolic one, a restoration of his spirit of love and compassion to the world, as members of some more liberal brands of Christianity hold?”
Rev. James Martin, author of the new book “Jesus: A Pilgrimage” belief in the resurrection is essential to Christianity. Other theologians, like Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong don’t agree.
“I don’t think the Resurrection has anything to do with physical resuscitation,” he said in an RNS interview. “I think it means the life of Jesus was raised back into the life of God, not into the life of this world, and that it was out of this that his presence” — not his body — “was manifested to certain witnesses.”
What’s your take?
Oops! We could not locate your form.
It depends on what you call a “Christian.” If by “Christian” you mean a person who was baptized as an infant, and who has never developed a personal relationship with Jesus, the Christ, then sure. These people go to the same place that the Pharisees went when they die. The Pharisees were the Jews’ Jews. Yet Jesus said that the devil was their father.
This is such a load question. What is the resurrection? If you say, can you be a Christian without believing in the Resurrection of the body — Well yes you can. Next, you did to have a discussion about what resurrection means. This starts with an understanding of who this Jesus the Christ is. It goes all the way back to Creation when God spoke Creation into being and when we put it together with lots of other scripture like John, we see that God spoke love into being. This Word, this Love became flesh in Jesus. In the sense that it happened in time and space — it was an emergence in the Evolutionary process of the whole of Creation (the universe and multi-verses). In older theological language — it was the power of Sacrament – the fullness of the divine elements of Creation embodied in humanity and the human spirit. This is why we say that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine or as Roman Catholics say, the Perfect Sacrament.
If your still with me, then Resurrection is also part of the Evolutionary Process of Creation. Resurrection is the very real affirmation that death does not lead to death but the embrace of death provides what is required for the birth of even greater life. From the Big Bang to the experiences of our own lives to the death of Jesus to our earn death. When we embrace this Resurrection experience and reality — it changes how we live and makes it more complete and fulfilling.
The Christian Holy Week when entered into deeply reveals to us these spiritual realities. If we skip it all and just go to Easter, not so much.
So, how should I answer your poll question?
1 Cor. 15:13-15-“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.…”
Can you call yourself a Christian if you don’t believe in a literal resurrection? Yes, just as much as I can call myself whatever I want and not have to adhere to parameters that others would deem necessary to be considered such. But Paul makes it pretty clear that Christianity is useless and fraudulent if a dead Jesus Christ did not come back to life. This isn’t just a theological topic, this is the very crux of Christianity. This has more far-reaching consequences than say, believing in a non-Trinitarian God, or believing that God actually had a hand in creating the universe. If Jesus wasn’t raised, then he wasn’t the messiah, which means he wasn’t the Son of God, which means that if the Gospel is true then God bore false witness to Jesus at his baptism, then God would be a liar, therefore God wouldn’t be righteous nor God technically. The resurrection is what makes Christianity, Christianity.
Why would you WANT to be a Christian if you chose to not believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? There are many other belief systems from which to choose. Why try to identify with this Jesus if he – and those nearest to him and those who wrote about him and those who’ve believed in him for centuries – are all wrong about this utterly fundamental aspect of his life and truth?
Great question and great point Mark. Some Christians, like Borg, believe the resurrection was metaphorical and therefore still want to be called Christians. If they believe in the metaphor, should they switch faiths?
Hi Tracy,
I reconsidered: I missed you guys, guess I’m supposed to be here.
I don’t know what faith they would switch to. They seem to want to believe in Jesus, but He is who He says He is in Scripture and no-one else. It’s not an option. I think they should just repent and believe that the true Jesus rose from the dead, because that’s the only way they will receive eternal life, otherwise they have nothing but the right to cling to an unsupported opinion.
Welcome back Dennis!
In regards to The Virgin Birth, do you all feel the same way?
I’ve never believed that the Virgin Birth was an essential doctrine or even relevant to salvation. It serves the purpose of confirming prophecy and showing the uniqueness of what God was doing with Jesus, but isn’t the only thing that points to him being the Son of God. Also Jesus doesn’t explicitly say that the Virgin Birth is a prerequisite, he just asked for them to believe who he said he was.
Mr. Elliot,
It is rare on this site to read such directly insulting language. God’s mercy be with you.
What does the phrase “the Jews’ Jews” mean?
When it comes to a mystery as wondrous and beautiful as the resurrection of Jesus, the word belief alone fails us. I encounter it, am awed by it, perplexed by it. I am held within it, and yes, I believe it. I was baptized at 2 months old, and I baptized my son at age 1. God’s embrace upon us depends not on my capacity to comprehend God’s works. That would be extreme hubris.
I think it is good to engage the question about belief and baptism, but I would be much more ready to discuss those ideas if the invitation was not accompanied by condemnation.
Bear with me for a long answer, because I really feel this question (especially your ‘why would you want to?’ follow-up to it, Mark.) I’m not quite sure how to answer either, but what I do know is that during the long, long periods of my life where I’ve felt shut out of Christianity, it was this kind of theological knot that shut me out. If the test of membership in your faith is an intellectual submission to a factual proposition that, (not to antagonize anyone else’s struggle with this question,) seems to cut against observable reality, then I’m not sure I want to belong to that.
What calls me back, though, is the occasional reminder that people of world-changing faith and virtue can still face those mysteries seriously- even humbly. We receive the words and the beliefs that make up Christianity as a perplexing, often contradictory inheritance, and there are ideas, like the resurrection, that sometimes demand to be doubted. To me, it’s a deeper exercise of faith to struggle with that doubt than to deny it.
I don’t recall where Christ ever told anyone that their hope, faith or vigilance to conscience didn’t ‘count’ in his vision of the kingdom, though, so I’d have to answer ‘sure, you can’. I don’t buy the resurrection as a historical truth, and I still feel welcome. If you’re a Christian and you’re reading this, then please take that as a ‘thank you’.
Mark, I guess I see something in Christianity that isn’t about getting the story right or wrong. I believe faith is something I’m called to pursue, not to agree with, and I believe pursing that faith can change us. Please understand I don’t say that to rebuke your question, just to answer it the best I can.
Gosh, Charlie, I love your turn of phrase, “ideas, like the resurrection, that sometimes demand to be doubted”! I agree entirely that such doubt is evidence of taking your faith seriously – it is a kind of holy wrestling, much like Jacob struggling with the stranger in the night. Please expect me to plagiarize you sometime down the road.
Charlie,
Being honest about the doubt is commendable, but also makes my heart heavy. These discussions almost always seem to come down to the same basic thought, is the Bible true or not? If it is then the literal, bodily resurrection is absolutely true. The NT teaching on it is so clear as to not even be arguable except to say,”Well I just don’t believe in the supernatural, so it can’t be true!” That’s honest. If you admit to not believing what the Bible says, it’s something that you will need to wrestle with in your own heart and conscience.
But if the Bible is true, then belief in the resurrection is essential in knowing God, trusting in Jesus Christ and receiving the eternal life He has promised to His own. We don’t get to decide what the criteria or method of salvation is, it is from God alone. Paul condensed the gospel in I Cor. 15:1-4. His substitutionary death, actual burial, and literal resurrection are the core of what a Christian believes. Again, it’s not men who determine acceptance, it is God alone who determines these things and He has revealed them in Scripture, that’s my belief.