It was a very strong field, but I’ve finally narrowed down Christianity’s greatest failures to a shortlist of four.
Coming in at number 4, it’s…
The Resurrection.
Yes, you’d expect this to be at number one, central as it is to Christianity. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, if Christ has not been raised then believers are to be pitied. But this depends on how he’s defining ‘risen’.
Paul didn’t seem to know anything about an actual person who had risen physically from the dead a decade or so before he thought he’d seen him. Paul’s Christ is a heavenly being who may only have existed for him in the spiritual realm where his Christ lived, was sacrificed and then rose again. Here’s 1 Corinthians where, in typical Pauline theobabble, he suggests just that:
The first man (Adam) was of the dust of the earth; the second man (Jesus) is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
So it’s possible to believe in the resurrection of a spiritual being which doesn’t entail an actual ‘earthly’ body dying beforehand. Indeed there are Christians today who believe this. Even though they might cling to the idea of a man Jesus who experienced an earthly existence, they don’t see the need for Jesus to have risen bodily from the dead. After all, ‘flesh and blood’ cannot inherit the Kingdom. For these believers, Jesus was reanimated in a spiritual sense. As Dr John Shepherd of the Anglican Centre in Rome put it in 2019:
The Resurrection of Jesus ought not to be seen in physical terms, but as a new spiritual reality. It is important for Christians to be set free from the idea that the Resurrection was an extraordinary physical event which restored to life Jesus’ original earthly body…
Jesus’ early followers felt His presence after His death as strongly as if it were a physical presence and incorporated this sense of a resurrection experience into their gospel accounts. But they’re not historical records as we understand them. They are symbolic images of the breaking through of the resurrection spirit into human lives…
Jesus lived … as a transformed spiritual reality.
Indeed the early gospels themselves suggest this. Matthew and Luke’s risen Jesus is ephemeral, never quite tangible and not always recognisable. He materialises and vanishes at will while passing through walls and locked doors. This spirit spends a lot of time (Acts 17:3) explaining to others how he’s really the resurrected Messiah, presumably by citing scriptures that point to a dying and rising Messiah (though as we’ll see later, none do). Would his followers and associates really need this reassurance if he had risen physically from the grave? It hardly seems likely. They’d know him surely and be convinced by his miraculous return alone that he was who he said he was.
No, the risen Jesus of the New Testament is a spirit that the religiously disposed saw in their heads, as Paul did (Galatians 1:15-16), or imagined they’d had a visit from. They then convinced themselves he was the resurrected Messiah by searching through the scriptures for confirmation, and believing they’d found it. The New Testament is awash with people doing just this. Such a Jesus didn’t need to have an earthly existence as a human. That would come later with the allegories that are the gospels.
The Christians who today believe in a spiritually risen Jesus are closer to the beliefs of the earliest Christians than those who think he resurrected physically from the grave. That bodily resurrection fails any test we might apply to it: there is no historical, scientific or rational basis for it. Safe to say, it didn’t happen.
The resurrection as most Christians now proclaim it is an emphatic Fail.
rejectingjesus, 
Fail? Not a chance in Hades.
Surely you know how this is likely going to pan out?
In time, a new ‘understanding’ will be proclaimed, probably by the Pope or someone with a similar standing.
The new ‘understanding’ (of the Resurrection) will be developed and assigned as Proper Christian Doctrine, whereas the previous, long-held belief of a physical, bodily resurrection will be declared False Doctrine based on human fallibility (God’s Word, the Bible, (Catholic version and later the KJV) still being right on point) and all those dimwits who cling to the old ‘understanding’ will be pitied (in the good old days of Proper Christianity they would be declared heretics and burned at the stake).
🤣 🤦
Gotta love them Christians, right?
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There’s always a story.
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Intellectual Christians (a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) may reach this new enlightenment but I doubt the millions who sit in front of today’s celebrity preachers ever will. It constantly astounds me that even second leaguers like Mark Driscoll, the Sedras and Joseph Prince can regularly fill stadia with thousands of the credulous, eager to lap up their ‘bodily resurrection’ shtick.
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After reading Michael J Alter’s book(s) on the “Resurrection”, I have been anticipating a “new direction” to somehow evolve out of the ether of theology. Fundamentalist and evangelical Christians are completely flat-footed on this ridiculous claim, despite the best efforts of Gary Habermas and his minimal facts nonsense, and it’s time for a re-write in real time!
Now, they have no other place to go but the “spiritual” route, Jesus was just a metaphor, or a spirit, or some otherworldly entity. Sure, that’ll work BUT I’ll bet not among many Christian cults that are going to want to hold on to their mythology like it’s a signed and dated Trump Bible!
That’s of course why there are so many variations of Christianity in the country and world today; they can’t even get their own story straight!
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After reading Michael J Alter’s book(s) on the resurrection I had a feeling that a “new” theological awakening would take place and here it is! Jesus’ resurrection was no longer a full, bodily, resurrection but only “spiritual!” Voila!
Even after Gary Habermas’ ridiculous tomes on his “proof” of the event, Christians find themselves on their back foot and in need of a new approach! Although I don’t see this anchoring in many of the thousands of “flavors” of Christianity, I’m sure there are some that will gladly sign-on. To me, it cheapens their stance even more and I think will turn many people off in the end.
I guess we’ll see……
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You may be familiar with Jackie and Shadow – two American bald eagles in Big Bear California who’ve become internet celebrities due to cams in their nest and surrounding area.
Jackie recently became very weak and couldn’t fly. She was taken to a raptor rescue where vets tried to treat her. She eventually died a week or two again.
Since then people keep seeing signs from or about Jackie. Today there was a photo of the shadow of a branch cast on the nest. People are convinced the shadow “looks like Jackie.” People shared a photo of a new female on the nest who appeared to be bowing her head “paying her respects” to Jackie. (The video shows the new female checking out the nest by bending down and pecking at it.)
Grief, even for an eagle you’ve never met, makes people imagine things. I put the resurrection firmly in that category.
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This is a really important point: there’s something like 20% of people that experience a close or sudden loss that report “seeing” the deceased at some point after their passing. Just like Paul, who never met or knew Jesus at all before or even after his “epiphany” reported a spiritual experience, not a resurrected body. I’m sure some of J’s close disciples may have experienced something like this as well. Between the closeness AND the suddenness of the loss may have facilitated such an experience.
But that is ALL they experienced; dead bodies simply do not come back to life and Jesus’ didn’t either. This is simply the ignorant belief of an ancient people under the influence of the fervor of religious fanaticism. Nothing more.
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Luke you, I’m convinced this is what happened. When read closely (i.e. without the presumption that the earliest accounts depict a physical resurrection) the Bible itself pretty much tells us this. Paul”s epiphany is a case in point. Jesus’ immateriality in some of the gospel appearances another.
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Absolutely. The difference being, Jackie actually existed!
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