Jesus and Religion, Friends or Enemies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY

http://rapgenius.com/Jefferson-bethke-why-i-hate-religion-but-love-jesus-spoken-word-lyrics

http://www.christianpost.com/news/why-i-hate-religion-but-love-jesus-poet-jefferson-bethke-talks-jesus-religion-67470/

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion/christianity/catholicism/hating-religion-loving-jesus-why-sentiment-flawed

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/13/does-jesus-hate-religion-kinda-sorta-not-really/

A video that was shared by a few of my Facebook friends has lingered in my mind since I watched it myself to sample what was so popular. Jefferson Bethke, only a few years younger than me (right around my brother’s age actually) speaks about how he holds Jesus in high regard, believes in his death as substitution for sin, but despises what he characterizes as religion in everyday Christian practice, but has also qualified in other contexts as false religion. This brings up a few issues, one of which is that sharp critique against the word and practice of religion. The phrase that “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion” while clever in use of alliteration (which I myself am quite fond of) is also mistaken even as it remains popular with newer generations growing up as young adults in this society that some might consider post-Christian, though what is meant by that is somewhat uncertain. Christianity is still fairly strong in its existence, even if some churches are losing members to much larger fellowships elsewhere. But the type of Christian religiosity has changed drastically. Many would say they are followers of Christ rather than adherents to the religion of Christianity for the same reason that many oppose various –isms that are self descriptive labels that have fragmented in the amount of meanings they have to each individual. I can respect that practice, since this sort of diffusion of labels and inconsistency on virtually any sort of agreed upon points in any system has made many people almost Pyrrhonist in their daily philosophy, if not in their more serious discussions, since they don’t feel there is any sense of security in institutions or communities. So what do they do? They reserve all judgment on matters of truth. But there is a problem I have as a student of religion with the claim from this clearly articulate youth that all religion should be regarded as the same, though he seems to have backslid on this slightly after the fact, but let’s take the video mostly at face value for the purpose of discussion. I may be secularist, but I cannot side entirely with those that want to eliminate religion, if only because the foundations of problems that are reflected in religious intolerance are deeper than simply believing in the supernatural. For someone to think Jesus hated religion or that you should hate religion and love Jesus, as the video itself paraphrases, is just as problematic as hatred of those beliefs and practices that are abused by the manipulative and take advantage of the hopeful, but in themselves could manifest in even secular contexts. Not to mention there’s the Christian context we can interpolate for considering what religion meant to the writers of the Bible, since it’s used intermittently, so clearly it wasn’t so important as it is today, but it wasn’t a taboo word. These two things in particular are my concern: modern Christianity’s development into a sort of “spiritual but not religious” category and whether Christianity was purely spiritual and not religious itself.

Jesus definitely opposed religious legalism, adherence to the letter, but not the spirit of the law, but he also preached religion, especially in terms of reconnection as opposed to bondage in the form of rote adherence which was the common antagonist in his parables and in real adversaries he went against in public. He was an observant Jew of his time as well. Regarding the political stuff brought up early in the video, there are probably just as many Democrats and Republicans that call themselves Christians and many vote Independent parties because they follow admonitions from the bible to vote godly people into office, which commonly suggests Ron Paul these days. One can critique hypocrisy in religion and politics and still adhere to a religion, since the word in any etymology doesn’t automatically mean multifarious intentions or the stuff Jesus criticized in the Pharisees. This is where church and state separation is very pertinent to consider.  I also wonder if the critique is of all Christianity or just Protestantism as it became more prominent in terms of televangelism and fixation on the church as a business before its primary function of worship. If he’s critiquing Catholicism, it gets into another area, since Catholicism is a two pronged system, deriving authority from scripture and tradition both, not just scripture as is the case with Protestants. In any case, the problem he has is what he perceives as Christians today thinking that they have to be charitable and do all these things to qualify as Christians, but the basic notion is simply a change of your paradigm to recognize the centrality of Jesus as God and how that affects your life, if I understand it even somewhat correctly.

Much of the poem written by Jefferson Bethke is indicative of modern Christianity, trying to sever itself from the older formulations that have become very strict and rigid in their application of the Gospel. One manifestation of this sort of “neo-Christianity” is nondenominational churches, and another is creedless churches, like Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ, though these have existed in some form since the 19th century. It is not an entirely bad sentiment to want to affirm yourself as unique and not conform to a crowd that is both displeasing and dissonant with what you personally believe to be the core teachings of Christianity. But many Christians reflect that this idea of salvation preached about in the video, such as “Religion says do, Jesus says done,” misses the nuance of works proceeding from faith. Works themselves as religious practice, what’s called cult practice in academic studies (not to be confused with cult in the modern sense of a group with dangerous beliefs and practices of brainwashing), do not merit salvation, that much seems fairly clear in Christian teaching (from what I understand as a nonbeliever). But the works should not be rejected as something that is part of a Christian’s daily walk. They are said to result from your faith, not due to any expectation of reward because of the quantity or presence of those actions, but the quality that inspired them.

There are a number of uses of religion in the New Testament and at least 2 are especially relevant. The first talks about what ideal religion consists in, James 1:27; caring for orphans and widows as well as keeping oneself unstained by the world. Whatever the second part exactly means is up to some interpretation, such as being in the world, but not of it, or more strict monastic vows. The verse right before James 1:27, 1:26, speaks about something Bethke seemingly neglected in part. To paraphrase, if you consider yourself religious then mind your words or your religion is worthless. Technically, the youth in question doesn’t identify as religious, but the tone and content of his message is religious nonetheless and thus he renders his religion worthless by what I and others could conceivably interpret as superfluous polemic. If he focused his critique on Christianity itself as practiced in churches or such instead of the public behavior of a larger and more diverse group of Christians, there’d be more agreement by the educated who see the distinction between false and true religion that is enumerated implicitly or explicitly in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament’s various letters. In painting most modern forms of Christianity and its identity as a religion with such a broad brush and subsequently condemning them, he doesn’t leave much to praise except within his own generation, which is self serving and counterproductive in speaking to older audiences who no doubt share many of his sentiments, but nonetheless adhere to what he considers religion and not “spirituality”, which is even more vacuous a word than religion is these days.

The crux of this whole burst of popularity for this still growing area of Christianity is to think before you speak, and then think some more. To make rash judgments in terms of politics, doctrine or otherwise is to show your foolishness to everyone instead of admitting ignorance and seeking out an answer. If religion is man made, but Jesus was at least partly man, then you already contradict yourself in implying man made things are opposed by whatever you think is opposed to religion. Jesus and religion are only on opposite spectrums, as another part of the video goes, if you purposely structure it so that they are in no way related except by people that would disagree with you. That sort of contrarian behavior is not conducive to a discussion. If you said Jesus opposed false religion, you’d at least be clear, but you wouldn’t have nearly as good a rhythm. But you didn’t even try to make that distinction between that and true religion, which is referred to in the bible itself. Evidently, there wasn’t wholesale opposition to religion, though this isn’t to say it isn’t without some imperfections. But any system has that. Even Christianity has flaws and bad examples, but that’s why you should strive to make Christianity more in line with what it actually teaches. Of course, the specifics of that is something I don’t want to try to touch on for a while. Hypocrites exist everywhere, so don’t point them out while you yourself already have flaws. Jesus himself said this, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” You want to fix Christianity as a whole, fix your part of Christianity first. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Christians, Conservatives and Capitalists

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/29/jesus-or-ayn-rand-can-conservatives-claim-both/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-06-05-Ayn-Rand-and-Jesus-dont-mix_n.htm

I imagine readers are a bit perplexed by my unusual alliteration, though there is something of a natural association between these three words in today’s American culture. Capitalism is widely accepted and advocated by politicians on both sides of the field for the most part and from Christian politicians in particular, such as Ron Paul. It also connects neatly in the area of conservative politics, also very popular these days as a contrarian sort of position. My own home state is more diverse, from what I understand, somewhat purple as opposed to red or blue majority. I’ll admit I can find some logic behind classical conservative values, actually aligned in part with classical liberalism as it originated in the UK. Valuing individual liberty, private property, fiscal responsibility and the like are things I can agree with even as an anarchist socialist of sorts if you asked me particular socioeconomic questions.

Christianity has a natural place of respect in American history, though not to the point of putting it on a pedestal for the average person who wasn’t raised in a hyper-Christian sort of culture as a child and at least knew in part of the existence of other religious believers in this country alongside them. I myself probably wasn’t explicitly aware of other religions until at least early teens when I began to question my home faith and looked into Deism especially, though Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism also held strong interest as they would for many Westerners. In terms of demographics, Christianity is still the largest religion in the United States and there is always the lingering group of people insisting even today that we are a Christian nation. But I’m not talking about that today, but whether you can be a Christian and a capitalist, among a few other ideas associated with the contrasting figure to Jesus Christ revered by conservatives, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was a Russian immigrant who is well known for her novel “Atlas Shrugged” as well as her system of Objectivism which was founded in three books: “The Virtue of Selfishness”, “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” and “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”. Many consider Ayn Rand very extreme in her atheist, capitalist and egoist principles of life and an antithesis on ethical grounds to the founder of Christianity. She said that altruism is not a primary virtue and that one’s own concerns should be first and foremost. Compared to Jesus she is on the other end of the spectrum of ethics ranging from other-focus to self-focus. The focus on capitalism seems a bit less obvious of a disagreement between Jesus and Ayn Rand. It’s actually, from what I understand, more contentious as to whether Jesus was or was not a capitalist. If anything, Ayn Rand’s version of capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism, could be said to be more “cutthroat” and based on radical individual rights, which is how it is defended as the most rational and moral system by Rand. According to Objectivism, only the system that enables people to realize their individual desires and protects those basic individual rights is both rational and moral. This is not to say Rand is an anarchist, which would believe fundamentally that we don’t need the state to defend our rights. In fact, she agreed with basics that Christians believe about politics, at least in the secular realm. The state is believed by both parties to be necessary to protecting people’s rights, even if Christians would argue God is the ultimate arbiter of rights to humans, being the Creator. But on basic principles, Objectivism and Christianity don’t have a fundamental disagreement except to Christians in a minority who believe Jesus was an anarchist, including most prominently Leo Tolstoy, also advocate of Christian pacifist nonresistance in The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You.

The biggest difficulty that exists here is not of incorporating parts of Ayn Rand and eliminating or ignoring the parts that you don’t think are logical or in sync with Christianity. Instead, there’s what might be called a problem of priority. On the one hand, Rand advocates and defends quite strongly in her novels and nonfiction the virtues and logic of capitalism unfettered by state control, which many Republicans today speak very strongly for in opposition to such things as Obama’s healthcare plan passed in 2009 and other actions he’s taken in his presidency. I get at least 5 emails a day, many times duplicates, from conservative groups that I subscribe to for research purposes, telling me about all the bad things Obama’s doing, only a small handful of them even agreeable to me, if any. Ron Paul’s more my kind of conservative from what I gather of his positions, even if I am admittedly also on Ayn Rand’s side of things. Ron Paul is pretty conservative in the vein of my parents’ generation, but is at least more for state’s rights on the big ethical issues and less government intervention, which I’m a bit ambivalent on at times with such issues as abortion and gay marriage.

The problem of consistency in Christian ethical and politics beliefs lies starkly with Ayn Rand’s ethics, advocating egoism and focus on one’s own interests above those of others, except when you can afford to be charitable, in the vein of billionaires like Bill Gates donating to charities. This position clashes with Jesus’ call to provide for the poor even at your own expense as a moral obligation. It’s hard to defend that you are fully following Ayn Rand and Jesus, but the two masters’ Biblical reference that Jesus himself makes is probably wasted on many politicians who only draw on Rand in terms of defending socioeconomic policy changes such as they desire. In terms of ethics they have replaced Ayn Rand with Jesus as suits them. In that sense, there isn’t an explicit conflict for politicians to say they owe their involvement in politics to Ayn Rand’s writings, but they cannot say they fully follow her not only because it would put her above Jesus, but it would also create explicit dissonance in their worldview, since Rand was not only an egoist but a huge critic of religion, an outspoken atheist used as an older representative of atheism in between Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Dawkins.  I imagine this could still pose a problem in terms of consistency, but in terms of loyalty, there is still the observation that one cannot serve two masters, for you will hate one and love the other, as said by Jesus in the Bible. Politicians don’t seem to serve Jesus in terms of secular matters, since Jesus has been argued to be an anarchist and socialist by authors, but in terms of spiritual issues, Jesus is much more strongly their leader in leading the moral crusades against abortion and gay marriage. In politics, however, it is no doubt observed that it’s very easy to serve two masters and still look as if you’re serving just one. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Jesus, Sex Scandals and Evangelism

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/14/top-evangelical-to-anthony-weiner-try-jesus/

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/01/fox-news-tiger-woods-brit-hume-forgiveness-evangelical/1

http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/06/14/theology-therapy-twitter-and-the-scandal-of-the-gospel/

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2011/06/anthony-weiner-sex-christ-mohler/1

I was vaguely aware of the sex scandal that came up with Anthony Weiner, mostly because I kept chuckling at his surname, but I’m clearly still immature at heart. I didn’t think much of it, relegating it to political lewdness that would be forgotten the moment some other more important story came up. But now Albert Mohler, occasionally referenced by me for claiming that yoga is evil or responding to the celebrations of Osama bin Laden’s death, has now thrown his hand into this issue by claiming that what Weiner needs to get over his problem is Jesus. In his own words, he says therapy is missing the point of our need to be reconciled to God through his Son. I hate to say this to a guy I somewhat respect on general positions, but he’s really missing the point of this issue when he goes into this uber-evangelism spiel. No one’s saying he doesn’t have the right to do it, but it’s focusing on the proverbial speck in someone else’s eye without seeing the plank in your own, to use Jesus’ expression.

What Weiner does need is therapy, first and foremost. I highly doubt he even cares about Mohler’s tweet about him needing Jesus to heal himself of this “sexual sin” (I guess?). And any person, Christian or otherwise, doesn’t need to pray to Jesus to help them with their sexual problems first and foremost, but should seek counseling, which Weiner is doing. At least he’s Jewish, so there might be more hope than Newt Gingrich’s last two escapades, though adultery is a bit stronger a claim for Gingrich than Weiner’s posting of a nude photo through his cellphone. It’s still bad, don’t get me wrong, it’s just a bit less serious than the whole cheating on your last two wives and marrying the women you cheated on them with that Newt did.

There isn’t a problem with a person believing in Jesus and Christian theology, soteriology, etc, but there is a problem with using scandals as opportunities to emphasize what is not really at issue. When you continually bring up issues of sin and redemption in contexts where they are only relevant to people fixated on it, you seem out of touch with part of Jesus’ message to simply engage with these people. When you talk as if you’re holier than everyone else just because you happen to be in a relationship with Jesus, you just isolate people that you could be friends with even if you disagree. Seeking treatment for sexual addiction problems does not mean one rejects a need for redemption, forgiveness and radical change in one’s life. Weiner happens to be Jewish, but it wouldn’t even be proper to bring up this “Jesus is the only way to salvation” thing even if Weiner was Christian. It just harps on his seeking treatment as if it’s a bad thing to seek psychological counseling. Praying and accepting Jesus as your personal savior does not automatically make you not addicted to sending lewd photos of yourself to women through a iPhone. I don’t think anyone’s saying that it’s a good thing that Weiner betrayed his wife, but the main problem is seeking help for his psychological and sexual problems he seems to have. Jesus and religion can come at a later date.

Mohler has a right to be focused on evangelism and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, but he seems to be overstepping his bounds ever so slightly in this situation. He could speak a bit more generally, saying something like “Jesus loves you through all this, but you just have to accept him,” The problem with virtually any formulation of preaching Jesus’ love is, as Mohler indicates on his own blog, is that there’s an offense involved. You’re basically telling someone that they’re not good enough and that they have to do something that you’ve done to get up to your standards, however imperfect and sinful you would claim you are. The fact that Weiner is Jewish makes this especially awkward, but I’m reminded of when Tiger Woods had his sex scandal a few years ago and Brit Hume, a Christian, said that he thought Tiger needed Jesus in order to truly get forgiveness for his adultery. Buddhists responded by saying that forgiveness is just as much a part of Buddhism as it is in Christianity, there’s simply not the need for the divine medium. Similarly with Weiner’s sex scandal, it’s kind of insensitive and myopic to focus purely on trying to save a person’s soul from damnation instead of comforting them and offering you support as a person. Mohler’s apparent inability to separate himself from his religiosity is what’s causing this problem. My parents wouldn’t be trying to convert a friend of the family when their parent dies if they happen to be Jewish or Muslim. They would offer their condolences at the visitation and/or funeral and go about their private religious lives without the need to keep saying to every non Christian/false Christian, “You need to accept Jesus Christ into your life,” I’m sure they still believe it and they have that right.

I don’t have a problem with Mohler teaching Christianity as a minister, but I have a problem with him trying to preach to everyone and using this political scandal as an attempt to inject his moralizing tendency into what should be a secular consideration at best. If Weiner wants to consider forgiveness and advice about it from rabbi, then he can do it privately as he has no doubt done. Mohler’s given himself a somewhat bad reputation overall since he’s called yoga a cult and accused Christians of being heretical and blasphemous by even practicing it. This is just another check on the bad list, which he admittedly is about 2 for 1 on the other hand of good things he’s done, such as commentary on the Osama bin Laden death celebrations and the justice of it. So until next time, Namaste and aloha. And Shalom and Amen to you too, Weiner and Mohler.

Attempts At Reconciling Creation(ism) and Evolution

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/10/my-take-jesus-would-believe-in-evolution-and-so-should-you/

I’ve never been much for blogging on the relationship between religion and science, mostly because I’m more interested in the topics of belief and nonbelief and the interaction between the faithful and faithless, but that’s more a future book topic than my wider range of blog topics. I’ve decided to broaden my horizons to an article whose subject I dismissed at first glance, but rethought it and am now trying to cover a wider range of topics, including some that really stand out from my usual fare, such as my recent piece on the varying Catholic perspective on IVF.

I’ve always been aware of attempts to bring peace to a commonly embittered relationship of the natural sciences on the stricter end of evidential standards and monotheistic religions on the other end. There are atheists that are creationists in some sense, such as the Raelians, who believe we were genetically engineered by an advanced race of aliens, from what I recall, but for the most part, creationists and intelligent design advocates are most commonly believers in “God” as the so called “creator”, whatever that might mean. There are two out of three major scientific theories related to physics and biology Christians are more commonly opposed to: Big Bang and abiogenesis. The first is an answer to the philosophical quandary of why something came from nothing that Christians find unacceptable because it doesn’t involve their creator. The second tries to solve the question of where life originates on the earth, yet again not satisfying the devout because instead of God creating and breathing life into proverbial clay, the “clay” becomes living on its own through time. The issue of chronology is always pertinent, moreso to Young Earth creationists than to Old Earth Creationists or Intelligent Design advocates. With the literal belief in Genesis and the span of time supposedly entailed therein, a blockade of strong mental resistance is made against believing in Big Bang, abiogenesis or evolutionary theory. The ability to even compartmentalize the most pertinent and everyday of these three is a miracle in itself. But the notion that science and religion are separated into non-overlapping magisteria; an idea advocated by Stephen Jay Gould, a famous agnostic biologist; which states religion and science occupy distinct unrelated areas of concern, morals and nature respectively; is not only unjustified, but a result of blinders similar to biblical literalism and fundamentalism, along with idealistic ideas of science and religion. They can overlap at ethical considerations, but their methods tend to conflict by design, further negating the idea that they are separate, since they butt heads almost necessarily.

The author of the article is in a reluctant minority within Christianity, from my experience, limited as it is. However, any notion of science being correct is tempered by even these thinkers with a transcendent consciousness behind the world, which created the world as we know it with a purpose, usually understood in Christianity as redemption from sin in a narrative modeled in the Bible. There is some good that exists in this line of thinking of compatibility between science and religion. The claim that the Bible itself doesn’t hold the answers of scientific importance; about how nature works, the mathematics or formulae behind gravity, etc; is a step towards healthy skepticism. Anyone trying to read those ideas into the Bible’s anecdotal, historical and otherwise more interpretative concerns within the humanities is, according to this splinter of Christian thought, missing the point. It’s actually connected to the division of believers between biblical inerrancy and infallibility. The former suggests that the Bible holds all the answers humans will ever need, while the latter is realistic enough to limit the Bible’s scope of validity to spiritual/religious issues of faith and the Church.

The fixation upon Genesis’ need to be taken literally exists on a few levels, the most obvious one being that its relation to evolution is not realized by a person who thinks God conjured all the varied creatures “according to their kind” along with humans and they never diversified by species, etc as biological organisms tend towards. This seems especially odd when you consider that a worldwide flood is also a belief from a literal Genesis, something that would’ve radically changed the environment. That seems to create a situation for adaptation and natural selection, if I understand evolutionary theory at all. The literal interpretation of Genesis also insists on a point that many Christians, however conservative they might be on other issues, are more flexible on here, excluding extremists like Ken Ham. Augustine of Hippo, overall respected theologian in Christian thought, was fairly conservative on issues such as appreciating holy music. There are Christians these days who’d share the initial sentiments he seemed to support: that is, music leads people into sin because of our love of the sounds it presents to our ears, just as revealing clothes and the skin they show “tempts” our eyes. But Augustine, as much as he admitted that he tended towards strictness on those areas, was a non literalist about Genesis being a 7 day event, and no doubt also about the chronology of the Bible amounting to the entire history of the world compressed into six to ten thousand years.
The importance of the Genesis narrative, according to any Christian you’d come across, isn’t that God created the world in some strict timeframe, but that God created it (and initiated the evolutionary process over time?). Which would most believers in God find more important: the nitpicking details or the tenets of faith, such as “God exists and created the world”?

The Bible, to most believers, is not something strict and precise about every detail. Many things have to be worked out indirectly, such as the accounts we have of angels and demons. People who take it too seriously are the start of this phenomenon of literalism. No one’s telling people they can’t believe the Bible as a religious text, but claiming it’s a scientific source betrays any sense of what the Bible is at its core; a series of revelations from God, not a checklist of do’s and don’ts never to be violated or adjusted to circumstance and eras. The Old Testament enumerates 600+ commandments, most of which the average Christian has no idea are even in the Bible, let alone takes seriously as a believer in a spawn of the Jewish religion. Like I subtly implied in my “Religion and Secularism’s Questions and Answers” post, the more we begin to understand things, like the Bible, from a believer’s perspective, the more we can understand the diversity in any believer’s worldview about the Bible and its relation, or lack thereof, to scientific pursuits, such as evolutionary theory. Until next time, Namaste and aloha

Jesus' Importance: Divine or Human?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/27/john-dominic-crossans-blasphemous-portrait-of-jesus/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/07/my-take-why-jesus-needs-to-be-supernatural/

This is a topic that’s even less discussed by me, because I honestly don’t really crack open a bible much except to combat Christian apologists or just look up random quotes people throw at me. The Gospels in particular are my main interest, alongside Ecclesiastes and Proverbs just for philosophical scrutiny of ethical/moral aphorisms. On the subject of the Gospels, the topic I speak so little of is the relevance of Jesus Christ/of Nazareth to the modern world. It’s usually a tendency in one of two directions; one is that he’s as pertinent as any American president or other major historical figure. He’s bigger than even someone like Martin Luther King Jr., because without his existence, he wouldn’t do what he did or reference those sayings. The other is that Jesus is simply a good person, a teacher, a rabbi. Believing Jesus never existed and is completely made up by other writers as a myth is something that no doubt resulted from the controversial Jesus Seminar, which apparently started two years before I was even born, but has only recently gained popularity in the early 2000s with books like The Jesus Myth and even more immediately with Bart D. Ehrman’s Forged, who claims half of the New Testament is a forgery. So now, we’ll get into the dialectic of Jesus: man of God or God as man?

The person of central importance for a modern and moderate position about Jesus is John Dominic Crossan, who isn’t well thought of by many theologians, from what I understand. While considering himself a Christian, he is rather unorthodox in his exact regard towards Jesus. He says you don’t have to believe Jesus was God incarnate, performed miracles or resurrected from the dead to see him as important on the same level as other nonviolent protestors like Mohandas Gandhi. On such things like his resurrection and the majority of his miracles, he says they should be seen as spiritual parables. Jesus’ resurrection is seen as the vindication of the values of God against the values of Rome which crucified him; including nonviolent resistance, which is a rather minority position in Christianity these days. His approach seems to hinge on metaphorical interpretations, which have always been uncommon in popular Christianity. Literalism works better with a common and uneducated community with a few literate and educated elites that have the capacity to read and understand the bible, usually in one particular way that seems best.

The alternative, of course, is at the very least that Jesus is supernatural, and that it is necessary to see Jesus as such for the Gospels to make sense. Many would say that Crossan’s reductionistic view of Jesus ignores a massive amount of evidence in historical connections of the New Testament to secular history, especially the allegation that a messianic group like Christianity could not have gotten off the ground if they were claiming metaphors about Jesus to convince people that he was the Messiah spoken of in the Jewish prophets. To say that Jesus’ resurrection was less important than his radical social teachings about helping the poor and downtrodden and turning the other cheek, as he preached in his Sermon on the Mount, is to teach a Jesus that is accessible but not challenging. Many Christians would no doubt say this picture of Jesus doesn’t make you face your alleged sinful nature before God and just makes you want to challenge the system in a sort of jaded way many people in my parents’ generation tried to do and supposedly failed miserably on some level. My own generation might be said to have more potential for change in the technological era we live in, being able to spread our message across cyberspace within seconds. This sort of dialectic is a good way to continue the discussion, however much they’re at each others’ throats.

The key point here is whether there is any common ground between these sides that exists. To start this conversation out right; yes, there are agreed upon values that Jesus taught in the Gospels that both flavors of Christians, metaphorical and literal (along with more cherry picking varieties) can find quickly. The socially radical nature of Jesus’ teachings, his challenge to Roman and Jewish authority of the times, preaching love and compassion tempered by a strong faith in God, all of these and more resonate equally well with Christians of both stripes, albeit with differing approaches. Of course, many might question whether such metaphorical Christians actually believe in God or are just masquerading as such with academic credentials. This is always an issue I’ve found with studying theology and religion of theistic varieties; you can understand a great deal about the believers, but you can’t get to that level of understanding how they come to believe as they do. There’s always an existential plane that others can’t get to, which applies equally to the condescension that many believers throw upon nonbelievers. The dialogue is a double edged sword in that believers don’t always try to understand where unbelievers are coming from and vice versa. Of course, this has a similar difficulty as any sort of dialogue about the value of religious studies, as I observed in “Religion and Secularism’s Questions and Answers,” I can try my best to understand things from a Christian’s perspective, but “true” Christians would say that I can’t truly understand this because I don’t believe. The problem with that is it presumes a similar mistaken idea as in religious studies; that is, you have to be religious in order to study religion academically. Otherwise, people allege, you’re just looking at it in some scientific fashion. But that’s simply not true. If I’m anything of a representative of religious studies students, I don’t view religion as strictly predictable like the law of gravity, nor do I view it purely as a private matter. As much as the personal aspects of religion are important to me and others, the cultural and communal relevance of religion and Christianity in particular with America, is something I can study without needing to actually believe in Jesus as anything more than an admirable human being. Do I have to believe Buddha was some super entity after he achieved enlightenment as is still portrayed occasionally in popular media? No. And similar to Jesus, one can believe many things people claimed about Buddha, but those neither have any importance for Buddhism as a philosophy/religion, nor do they determine whether you’re a true Buddhist. Christianity, being more focused on orthodoxy, is going to always be in a state of conflict with Christology, since Jesus is not only the founder, but to most, God incarnate, who saved the world, in a spiritual sense, from itself. Christianity is a fascinating cultural and religious phenomenon, but you don’t have to see Jesus as God in order to appreciate him as a teacher. Unitarians (believing God is one) and Adoptionists (believing Jesus was adopted as God’s son and made divine from a human state) attest to this, however much in the minority they appear to be. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

WWJD: Why Would Jesus Divide?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_alabama_governor_christians
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/18/alabama-governor-touches-off-controversy-with-christian-comments/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/19/alabamas-new-governor-apologizes-for-christian-comments-rabbi-accepts/


This week, Alabama brought itself into the faith news world with Governor Robert Bentley making a difficult to swallow statement regarding non Christians in his state. While he was doing this from a church pulpit and thus might be excused on the grounds that he was in a religious context and speaking to constituents that were part of the Christian religion, he quickly apologized afterwards. The Anti Defamation League jumping in quickly after his initial statement and many people in and out of the state, including my own parents, a generation behind me, found it problematic for him to say that. The main issue people have is not that he said it as a personal religious statement within a church environment in a worship or fellowship context. Non Christians wouldn’t have grounds to be offended in that context since it’s really part and parcel of the Christian faith to evangelize and be missionaries of their message to all people. Bentley saying “anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother [or sister]," was not meant in the ‘insider language’ of Christianity to disparage people as less important than believers in Jesus, but simply being welcoming in wishing people the best as they understand it; being in a relationship with Jesus and such. And btw, here's the two verses he's no doubt referencing indirectly or directly: Matthew 12:46-50: Jesus speaks on his spiritual brothers and sisters (the disciples); Matthew 13:54-57: Jesus having literal brothers and sisters.

The difficulty lies with Bentley’s position as a representative of the state as a whole and not merely Christians, however much Alabama may be a predominately Christian state, especially Southern Baptist. Since he spoke in such a way at his own inauguration, I don’t see how he will persist in overall popularity across the South or America as far as governors go, but if his many followers are any indication, they’re willing to forgive what they regard as a slip of the tongue. Some even take offense that people would take a politician’s words so seriously and pick at them, even though that’s to be expected with any situation where you’re in such an important position of authority. President Obama is in a similar, albeit higher, type of position, with people taking anything he does, from bowing to the Japanese emperor and his wife to more potential sparking controversy in saying the U.S. is not a Christian nation. Anyone thinking the governor of Alabama, speaking in such a harsh fashion to people that don’t believe in his messianic pariah, shouldn’t be criticized on some level, puts their leaders on too high a pedestal I’d say.

Governor Bentley’s quick and, some might say, rushed apology only seems to reinforce the difficulties that exist in the Bible Belt. The persistence of ideas that church and state should have broader boundaries or allow more significant representation or expressions by individuals are what creates these issues about their separation on a practical level. When people don’t think that the Constitution of the United States; the same one they speak so highly of in terms of their rights to: bear arms, free speech, freedom of assembly; provides a clause that any representative person or body of the government or the public should not express favor towards one religious tradition over others, on the basis of impartiality to all faiths by the secularity of a government that provides for all citizens to choose their faith, we already have a problem in the dialogue that should begin.

With those thinking the church, while separate in terms of the eventual future of the world (what with the Rapture and what not), should still be able to be part of people’s lives and allowed expression, there is a fine line between those that think that one’s private convictions about the afterlife and divine metaphysics affect your decisions about policy and those that think that you should determine your policy based on antiquated traditions that existed on the other side of the world when democracy and socialism weren’t even a glimmer in the eye of a single person. I don’t have a problem with people voting for particular laws or regulations based on ethical principles pulled from the Bible over time and history, but when you start stepping into telling people what to believe or how to behave beyond necessity, we’re going to have difficulties.

Not to mention the persistence of the ideology that America is a Christian nation and should therefore give favor to Christianity because of where our laws and Constitution come from. But I challenge any reader to point out any law or Constitutional principle that is explicitly derived from the Bible, and also demonstrate that there aren’t any parallel ideas in other traditions across the world. And even if there were somehow principles of our governance derived from a text that even in Jesus’ day, was not exactly looking into political issues to begin with, it doesn’t mean that the government ought to favor Christianity as a religion in any way, because more Christians could emphasize that God’s kingdom is not of this world than those in the Tea Party mentality who say that we need to “get back to God” and other like tropes.

One can imagine that Bentley’s learned to use some discretion in the future and maybe even be a bit more considerate to non Christians in general; not just in the political sphere of encounters with varying types of believers. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Identity Crisis of Faith

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/11/should-christians-practice-yoga/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/11/my-take-islam-is-a-religion-of-peace-or-it-isnt/

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13294084

Albert Mohler Jr. is not my favorite person to read about in news. It’s not as if he doesn’t make good points occasionally; such as noting that people’s acceptance of divorce but opposition to gay marriage shows dissonant thinking about the public’s view of marriage. However, with his recent accusation that Christians shouldn’t practice yoga because of “spiritual dangers”, I remember why I’m fundamentally at odds with him in terms of worldview. His insistence that America needs to get back to its “Christian heritage” is already a historical revisionist idea that shows how willfully ignorant otherwise educated people can be to feel secure in their personal identity. America is hardly a Christian nation any more than it’s a democratic nation in a classical sense of either term. Demographically, America is divided and fragmented in terms of what people identify as; between religious, nondenominational or otherwise and spiritual but not religious, distancing oneself from institutionalized religion. Being Christian is becoming an empty label due to the ambivalence as to what the person believes exactly about Christian doctrine, the first question many people might ask after expressing their happiness at them being “saved”. There’s also the question as to how a believer in Jesus is supposed to connect to a government they believe is unjust, which seems to be the case for a growing minority; or a shrinking majority with people drifting apart in considering lines that have been drawn and redrawn in the proverbial sands. Mr. Mohler’s warning about yoga reflects 1) a mistaken understanding about yoga as a practice that, like Tai Chi and martial arts, can be separated from its initial religious/spiritual context and has in fact already been integrated into Christian spiritual practices and 2) insecurity about modern Christianity’s identity and definition of itself. The existence of syncretism and eclecticism both reflect Mohler’s fears that Christians are becoming less unadulterated in their Christian beliefs. Though his definition already seems at odds with how Christianity has evolved in terms of initially defining itself based on creeds and now more in its ultimate concern, to use Paul Tillich’s more accessible method to consider religiosity. If Christianity’s ultimate concern is Jesus and the salvation he supposedly brings, the differences between various believers should be the least of their worries of distinguishing themselves from other faiths. I have to wonder if Mohler is also threatened by interfaith discussions or even *gasp* ecumenical discussions between denominations within Christianity itself. Time may tell.

Alongside the difficulties Christians have in defining themselves, there is a discussion by the American Muslim community about the understanding of Islam as a “religion of peace”. It seems to be less common in America than they would imagine. This strikes me as odd since accusing Islam of being a violent imperialistic religion was hardly anything for people to get up in arms about before 9/11 happened. With any issue Americans develop with a foreign presence, it boils down primarily to a feeling of being threatened. With Japanese during World War 2, it wasn’t the rumors of spies getting secret information that was the first thought on people’s minds so much as the idea that because certain Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, all Japanese were potential traitors to America. This is troubling because there was a Japanese presence in America before the wars. And similarly, a Muslim community has existed in America for a significant amount of time, and yet because certain Muslims took an extremist position that involved crashing planes into major buildings in America, people have begun to believe in a spreading delusion that all Muslims are deceiving Americans just to invade our country and enforce Shariah law, etc. You could ask a sample of Muslims from the top 5 populated cities in America and you’d probably have a majority of American Muslims opposing this kind of violence and intertwinement with politics in the Middle East, especially with recent immigrants. With later generations, the difficulty is worse, because they were born and raised in America and existing alongside Christian and Jewish children in school and few if any parents objecting in the decades before 9/11 occurred. It always seems to strike some unseen nerve in Americans when they feel personally offended or threatened by some group. This compels them by some psychosis/neurosis to discriminate against that group. The problem does go away in time, but only after further tragedy has struck, innocent members of whatever group was deemed dangerous being hurt physically or psychologically by those who are otherwise sympathetic to the plights of people in similar positions that their own ancestors may have been in. Overall this is just more ruminating on my part about a flaw in humanity that only reinforces my misanthropy. But I remember that the same people that can behave in such a reprehensible way can also be very compassionate. It seems, therefore, that a minority of people behave in such ways by their own ambition; the majority of those that commit such atrocities are ill educated or socially pressured followers that feel they have no other choice to make a difference. If we pursued greater education and fought against such coercion and threats of ostracism, then perhaps this would happen less. And the humanist ethic would seem less threatening and more aligned with even Christian thought. Until next week, Namaste and aloha.

South Park and Muslim Censorship

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/21/south.park.religion/index.html?hpt=C2
http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/22/south-park-gets-modified-by-comedy-central/?hpt=T2

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/south-park-episode-is-altered-after-muslim-groups-warning/

http://tv.yahoo.com/south-park/show/492/news/tv-news.en.reuters.com/tv-news.en.reuters.com-20100422-us_southpark_muslims

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-south-park-20100423,0,5940860.story?page=1

I haven’t kept up with South Park beyond season 11, but I can always appreciate its humor. Even when it poked fun at atheism, being an “atheist” myself in some sense, I didn’t take offense. It was clear that the message was not about poking fun at any group in particular, just people that took their beliefs too seriously to not be considerate of others. And I barely remember the episode that involved Mohammed before (Super Best Friends, I believe), but now Comedy Central has finally caved in to Muslim protests. I don’t know what censorship was involved with the most recent episode, but it seems like it’s taking out a point key to the episode’s overall message that intimidation and fear are not the way to communicate to a differing group. This reflects similarly on the group Revolution Muslim which purports to be using their constitutional right to free speech and civil protest. But in reality they seem to be hiding behind that to make a threat that Matt Stone and Trey Parker will end up just like Theo Van Gogh, the Danish filmmaker who was killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 for making a film exposing the abuse of women in some Islamic societies. If that isn’t wishing violence or advocating it upon the two creators of South Park, I don’t know what is. A Muslim by the username of Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, from the same group that says they don’t advocate violence, Tweeted a prayer that Allah would kill Trey Parker and Matt Stone and posted a picture of the deceased Theo Van Gogh in their threat. According to the leader in New York, Younus Abdullah Muhammad, this is just posting evidence, but it’s a tad morbid to point out the dead guy almost 6 years after the fact. Not to mention the persistent error of correlation and causation. The man was killed by a Muslim extremist; it doesn’t mean everyone killed by them is killed for the same reasons. Depiction of Prophet Mohammed is not the only way to get death threats from Muslims in shorthand form, so the alleged evidence is patently false. If I was an apostate from Islam as opposed to Christianity I could have a death threat issued on me.

Though they may not be directly calling for Muslims to kill them (just Allah, because that’s totally different), they are implying that there are Muslims beyond their control that may decide to try to take their lives. If you’re trying to be somewhat accessible, why not decry the use of violence against people that supposedly insult Islam instead of saying, “Oh we don’t advocate violence, but we think you’ll get killed for doing this even if people unassociated with us happen to be the ones to kill you. It’s not our fault if we spread a message and someone takes it the wrong way”. Except it is your fault if you are speaking to a group that is not managed apart from individual clerical authority or the influence of a text written by a supposedly illiterate ancient Arab. If you try to dance around issues of violence as interpreted in the Qu’ran by saying that “terrorize” just means striking fear into unbelievers with protests and opposition instead of bombing their buildings or killing them in the streets of Amsterdam, then you’re just making yourself the lesser of two evils. From what I’ve read on their recent post on their blog (http://revolutionmuslim.blogspot.com/) their argument is even more obscene than I initially thought. They argue that it is not a matter of advocating opposition that could be taken to mean violence by extremists, but that they are just following the law of shariah, the overarching ethos of the Muslim religion. And according to an overwhelming consensus (of 5 Imams, apparently) the interpretation of the shariah law on insults to the Prophets (Moses, Jesus and Mohammed for three examples) is that whoever does this deserves death (or a threatened conversion to Islam before they die). So it’s not a misunderstanding of Islam by radicals, according to Revolution Muslim; it is the moderate Muslims in America that don’t understand how serious shariah is and thus are not proper Muslims. So those that welcome violence and death to those that insult the Prophets are being peaceful in their own twisted fashion.

Frankly, I don’t see how I can respect any representatives of a religious faith or culture that advocates striking fear into people (through threats of death from above or being countercultural in the extreme to provoke responses) to get their point across. The creators of South Park have not been prone to hide away from controversy, in fact, usually taking it at face value and accepting the publicity and moving on. People have complained about episodes poking fun at Catholicism (one involving Catholic priests raping children and another involving a supposed miracle with a statue of Mary “menstruating”), protested by Bill Donohue of the Catholic League or Scientology (where Tom Cruise and John Travolta are involved with Stan entering the cult) which caused Isaac Hayes to leave the show. There have been other times when Comedy Central has caved in to pressures, though admittedly their wording for why they censored the use of Mohammed’s name and his personage in this particular episode is less about religious tolerance of Islam as opposed to the threats that they will get blown up. But even this disappoints me. If you let the fear thrown around by domestic terrorists in one form or another affect you, then you are giving them the power they want in an institution that does not let people getting offended by something override a person’s right to present the offense. In South Park’s case, there is no ill will towards the religions themselves, so much as towards the fundamentalism that alienates people and otherwise gives off a negative portrayal of the religion. However much they may argue they are countercultural, there is a difference between protesting through art or literature and actively praying for Allah to kill people because they poke fun at the issue in Islam of depicting Mohammed. That’s the kick in the balls about this; there doesn’t even have to be a depiction of Mohammed in the episode, which could be the entire point. The episode is poking fun at the absurdity that comes about when you can’t depict Mohammed at all to the extent that you can’t even hear someone speak his name. There’s no ill will towards Islam, and quite frankly, Mohammed’s last appearance was as a superhero, stopping David Blaine from creating a cult of worshippers. Although apparently, even that episode has been removed from http://www.southparkstudios.com, so this whole issue is getting blown out of proportion. I can only hope Comedy Central eventually gets over this fear of perceived Muslim attacks and take the publicity the way it works best for them, getting more people to watch the episode on TV in the future and thus promoting tolerance. Controversy is not always the best way to communicate a message, but in a society where satire is commonplace, the creative use of it in controversial ways may be the best method to communicate ideas falling out of popular knowledge. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha (and may disorder continue to collapse the Muslim extremists)

Who Cares What Jesus Would Do?

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Spirituality/father-edward-beck-asks-cares-jesus/story?id=10319427

Having heard much in the news in the last few weeks regarding the Catholic Church confronting the sex abuse scandals as well as seeing the many prominent tragedies or issues that plague the world at large, the common phrase popular in the 90s (though I would think it went as far back as the 60s; not sure on that) What Would Jesus Do? (hereafter abbreviated as WWJD) still resonates with many people. But this article really puts the idea in perspective and points out a fatal flaw within it. The gist is that we’re putting Jesus on a pedestal and using all his actions as the standard to which we must reach. And even if you’re not Christian, you can appreciate the radical nature of Jesus’ behavior and seek to emulate it. He reformed culture, he got people to follow him and preach his ideas in one way or another, not to mention he stood up to authority that had taken itself too seriously or insisted on powers beyond what were allocated to it (Pharisees and the Roman army respectively) But if you take what is supposed to be God incarnate in the Christian vision and make that the standard to live up to, you’re inevitably bound to fail at it, or appear so self righteous that you alienate all those around you by behaving as if you’re superior just because you’re celibate.

By all means you can ask “What Would Jesus Advise You To Do?” since this affirms his authority, Christian or otherwise, as a teacher, but does not suggest that his standard of excellence is what we should hold ourselves to; no more than every martial artist should hold Bruce Lee as their goal to reach. In both cases, we’re talking about men that were the best of the best in what they did, albeit Bruce Lee never made alleged claims to deity. But like Jesus, he took his practice and lifestyle very seriously and taught it as best he could to others in hopes that they might follow the ideals and practices that he had used in his lifetime. To try to take either teacher and make their life’s example as the be all and end all of what you should seek to do is not only dangerous in that it borders on a personality cult, but like a personality cult, it saps you of your individuality and self expression. You can emulate Jesus in that you forgive others that do you wrong, while also pointing out to them that it wasn’t exactly right of them to do whatever they did to you. But to react exactly like Jesus is not only predictable, but it stifles any notion that you’re supposed to be you and not Jesus. As the author, Edward L. Beck, notes, Jesus “was never married, never a parent, never a woman and never fell victim to sinfulness as the rest of us do,” With his lack of complete accessibility to every human, people should take his more universal ethical teachings to heart instead of thinking they can perfectly emulate him through less than expected methods or being notoriously nonconformist to the point where you are conforming to a standard of nonconformity. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.

Resurrection in Modern Times

http://www.newsweek.com/id/235418?GT1=43002

With Easter coming up, the issue of the resurrection of one Jesus Christ is at the forefront of discussion in churches across the world no doubt. While the article’s author suggests that 80% of people believe in heaven, a particular flavor of the afterlife where people are rewarded for eternity in return for their faith and works associated thereof, there is a large array of positions on what the nature of heaven is. The absurdity of this debate becomes clear if you consider this; since heaven is taken on faith, no clear and coherent definition and explanation of heaven should be attempted or said to exist. Theologians would be the ones at fault, though it’s more likely in human nature to inquire and investigate everything, even if we also believe we’re taking such things as real by virtue of faith. Even such things as God’s existence, Jesus’ resurrection or the afterlife are not so mysterious to believers that they can’t push past the veil and question about what each entails; which leads to the myriad forms of heaven and the resurrection that are believed in by the countless sects within Christianity.

The general description in popular culture of heaven embodies our desire for incarnation; that is, a concrete and tangible existence. We can feel, see, hear, taste, smell and overall enjoy the things we did when we were physical vehicles of our souls. Such things as driving your favorite car, eating your favorite ice cream, or speaking with relatives long past; or the more heinous idea of 72 virgins in heaven for martyrs in a particular flavor of Islam. In all these cases, we want physical bodies, albeit the usual idea communicated is that of a perfect physical body. It will never age, it will never suffer illness and theoretically you’d be nigh indestructible. Not to mention other things that would come about with such an idyllic existence. You’d never run out of gas in your Corvette, you’d never run out of ice cream or get fat from said dairy product, and you’d never get bored of talking to grandpa about his war stories. All of this is very well and good, and I could point out the hollow nature of this fantasy, but for the moment, I’ll focus on the discrepancies within the faith itself on this stereotype about heaven.
One issue that has existed since the dawn of said thesis of bodily resurrection is the funerary process of cremation. The problem lies with destroying and otherwise ruining the consistency of what is supposed to be a creation of God, a vessel for your soul and a template for your perfect spiritually resurrected body. If you’re just ashes scattered to the winds or the seas then one asks how you can have a resurrected body. The obvious theological answer, which is just as easily believed as ignored, is that God, being all powerful, could reconstitute you from even a mere atom of your physical body. Or in such a case as your body is vaporized in a nuclear blast or such things, then the problem would be solved in a similar fashion: God can do things humans cannot imagine, so remaking a human body from scratch should be like putting together a child’s puzzle.

Another problem is the complexity of institutions like marriage. The most readily available example is the challenge of the Sadducees to Jesus of the problem of a Jewish marriage practice. If a married man dies and has no heirs, then his brother is obligated to marry his brother’s wife and produce an heir. But the issue that comes up in such a situation is this: if all the brothers don’t succeed and are all married to the woman and subsequently die, then if they are all resurrected, who is married to the woman? All of them, none of them, the original husband? Jesus’ answer is something to the effect that marriage will not be relevant in heaven, so the question is moot.

There is a secondary but equally compelling argument about resurrection concerning the immortality of the soul itself. This one originates in Plato, it seems, and suggests that the body is left behind and the soul communes with God in heaven in some mystical way for all eternity. An objection to this idea lies with how a mere spiritual existence can enjoy such things as driving a car or eating ice cream. But I would imagine a theologian could reply that with the soul encompassing our mental states and memories, it could be easy to make a lifelike simulation of events like enjoying a ride in a sports car or tasting rocky road for the first time.

But either way, there are further problems that can conflict the notion of bodily resurrection in Christian thought. There is the avoidance of the credibility of an actual resurrection of the body by some thinkers today in suggesting that the term resurrection is a metaphor for some change in the worldview or perspective of the believer. I would imagine this is appealing to the majority of people because of the simplicity. One can believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but not have to confront such problems as what a resurrection would mean for you if you happened to be cremated or wrecked beyond imagination in a horrible accident. But people would object to this because Jesus coming back from the dead in the spiritual/physical body that could both be touched and pass through walls is intrinsic to Christian belief. The consensus among believers is that if the resurrection could be proved false, Christian faith would fall apart. Though somehow I doubt this would happen (even though I’m not a Christian myself), the centrality of this belief in a bodily resurrection is undeniable in any investigation into Christian theology. There is a minority position that suggests that when we first die our soul merely “sleeps”, found in Seventh Day Adventist thought, but there is a parallel still with the bodies resurrected, or more precisely resuscitated it seems, and the real difference being that there’s no bodily parallel of hell. Instead, the unrighteous are burned to nothingness and cease to exist.

The problems of bodily resurrection would also persist in considering the flip side of the afterlife. Without a physical body, one cannot imagine the damned suffering in agony and anguish with hot coals being shoved in places you don’t want them, being poked by pitchforks or suffocating in brimstone. But I’ve noticed a general leaning today of believers towards the idea that hell is merely separation from God’s presence and is not necessarily to be viewed as literal physical suffering or torture, but instead the absence of what they believe to be the source of all purpose and happiness. In short, it is a similar idea to the “soul only” idea of heaven where one’s spiritual essence communes with God instead of the body. And I suppose a case could be argued that psychological and emotional suffering are more in line with what the Bible explains about hell and being unsaved, so the objections fall on the same ears that believe in the righteous counterpart to the “lake of fire” (literally speaking, in the opposite case)

In conclusion, however you stand on the issue of the afterlife, resurrection, reincarnation or annihilation, it’s important to understand how diverse the issue can be even within the resurrection crowd. Don’t even get me started on the mistaken association of the term reincarnation with Buddhism (rebirth is more preferable). So, until next time, Namaste and Aloha.