Category Archives: Christianity’s failure to deliver

The Great Resurrection Miscalculation

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How long was Jesus in the tomb before he ‘rose again’? Three days you say? Wrong! Read on and discover the secret of the Great Resurrection Miscalculation.

Resurrection

Jesus is wrong about no less an issue than his claim that he would rise from the dead after three days. In Mark 10.33-34 he prophesies:

the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.

On the surface, this seems pretty accurate for a prediction of events made some time before they actually happen (it wouldn’t be a prediction otherwise). Except, of course, this prophecy, like others of Jesus’, was written forty years or more after the event. Even then, Mark or whoever wrote the earliest gospel, can’t get it right. He tells us clearly in Mark 15.34 that Jesus dies at 3pm on Friday; Matthew and Luke agree. Jesus then reappears, fully recharged, ‘very early’ on the Sunday morning (Mark 16.2). But 3pm Friday to the ‘very early’ hours of Sunday is less than 48 hours – not three days, not even two.

What is the cause of this failed prophecy? For some reason, Mark assumes that ‘on the third day’, when he believed Jesus rose from the dead, means the same as ‘after three days’, the words he has Jesus prophesy. The third day after the crucifixion would indeed be the Sunday, but it wouldn’t be, and isn’t, three full days after it, as Mark’s Jesus seems to think.

The problem is not Mark’s alone, however. Matthew’s Jesus is even more emphatic that he will be buried for the three complete days:

For just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12.40)

Thanks to Jesus’ insistence in Mark and Matthew that he would spend three days in the tomb, the belief that he must have done so – contrary to the ‘evidence’ in those same accounts that it was less than two – appears to have become securely established by the time of the fourth gospel. Its writers, however, find their own unique way round the problem. Their thinking seems to have been along the lines that ‘if Jesus said he was going to be buried for three days and three nights, then he must have been. He was the Son of God after all, and he wouldn’t get a thing like this wrong. Therefore, if, as we know, he rose on the Sunday, he cannot have been crucified on the Friday. He must have died on the Thursday’. And so the writers of John’s gospel shift the crucifixion back a day, to around noon on Thursday (John 19.14). It’s an ingenious solution. Thursday to Sunday – near enough three whole days. There’s even some neat symbolism as a bonus: the earlier execution equates with the slaughter of the sacrificial lambs on the Thursday, ready for that evening’s Passover. Problem more than solved!

Except it creates a whole raft of new ones, not least the glaring inconsistency between the synoptic gospels’ accounts of the crucifixion on the Friday – after Jesus’ and the disciples’ celebration of Passover the previous evening – and John’s gospel’s account of the crucifixion during Thursday afternoon, well before the Passover meal would have been eaten. Significantly, no-one in the history of Christendom has ever been persuaded by John’s Thursday crucifixion, otherwise we’d remember it on ‘Good Thursday’ instead of ‘Good Friday’, and have a different day off work.

Does any of this matter? Probably not, but it does demonstrate that:

i) if Jesus’ words in the synoptic gospels are to be taken literally, then either he can’t count or he badly misjudges the timing of his resurrection. If scheduled for three days after the crucifixion it should have occurred on the Monday;

ii) the resurrection probably didn’t happen at all, and more than forty years later Mark and Matthew trip themselves up trying desperately to convince people that it did, and that Jesus knew it would;

iii) the gospel writers are prepared to rearrange already highly improbable events to make equally unlikely prophecies appear true;

iv) because the Bible cannot get its own faked, after-the-supposed-event prophecies right it can’t possibly be trusted about other claims it makes. 

Happy Easter, y’all.

Adapted from my book Why Christians Don’t Do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead. Buy it on Amazon UK or Amazon US.

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Which Christians won’t be resurrected after they die?

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Robertson

All of these well-known Christians are unworthy of the Kingdom of God and won’t live again after they’ve died. See if you can work out why:

Billy Graham, Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury), Desmond Tutu, Pat Boone, Mel Gibson, John Sentamu (Archbishop of York), Stephen Green (Christian Voice), Bono, Her Majesty the Queen, Sarah Palin (politician), Pat Robertson (700 Club), Joyce Meyer (evangelist), Bryan Fischer (outspoken radio broadcaster), Rick Warren (pastor of US mega-church), Rob Bell (ditto), George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Cherie Blair (barrister), Graham Kendrick (songwriter), Tony Perkins (anti-gay preacher), Scott Lively (ditto), Matt Barber (ditto), Peter LaBarbera (ditto), Tom Wright (theologian), Fred Phelps (late of Westboro church), Joni Eareckson Tada (writer), Mike Ratcliff (minister and blogger), Kirk Cameron (actor)… and, in all probability, your local pastor  – and maybe even you yourself, Christian reader.

They’re not worthy of God’s Kingdom nor are they likely to be resurrected because they’re married. And who says this makes them unworthy? Not me… Jesus:

those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age (of God’s Kingdom on Earth) and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage (Luke 20.34-35).

So next time one of these famous Christians or some other married believer tells you you’re not saved, tell them that they’re not either. Jesus says so.

They won’t care, of course, because they pick and choose the bits of the Bible they believe. They’re more than happy to pretend this tricky bit doesn’t exist or doesn’t apply to them. Obviously, or they wouldn’t be married. Naturally this doesn’t stop them going on about about God’s plan for marriage™ even though it’s one they’ve made up themselves that flies in the face of what Jesus says.

Which means these same believers also have to ignore Jesus when he says, ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord”, and do not do what I tell you?’, which is a very good question.

Proof that God is real?

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Thor

Christians – can you prove God exists? J. Lee Grady of Charisma magazine thinks he can and offers ‘7 Things That Prove God Is Real’. Leaving aside the fact that it shouldn’t be necessary to prove God is real – the God of the universe, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Father of Mankind should be more… apparent, shouldn’t he? – what are Mr Grady’s incredible proofs? Glad you asked. You can read the full article here, but to cut a long story short, they are:

Babies, thunderstorms, flowers, the Bible, the global spread of Christianity, Jesus and a personal friendship with God.

I hope you’re convinced. I know I am.

Problem is, all of these things are also evidence that God doesn’t exist.

Babies: Babies are miracles, according to Lee. We’ve evolved to find human babies cute and appealing even when they’re yelling, pooping and spewing – it helps us nurture them. But they’re not miracles; nearly 37,000 are born every day. What’s more, over a million of them die every year on the day they’re born. Which might just suggest God is not real at all.

Thunderstorms: Mr Grady says that because storms are powerful they put him in mind of God. This, however, is not proof of anything. Unless of course it’s Thor, god of thunder in Norse mythology and star of Marvel Comics. Is this who you mean, Lee?

Flowers: Lee says flowers are proof of God because they’re pretty. He seems to be unaware that their appearance is the result of natural selection; it has developed in order to attract insects and birds who then unwittingly assist in the plant’s reproduction. Yes, flowers are pleasing to the human eye as well, but their job is emphatically not ‘to simply make the world beautiful’, as Lee claims. They are evidence of evolution, not of a flower-arranging god.

The Bible: Lee trots out the false assertion that the Bible, in spite of having numerous authors over thousands of years, presents a consistent message. It doesn’t. There are, for example, at least nine different ways of being saved expressed by writers in the New Testament (some of whom, including the one Lee quotes, are forgers) – and they lived within a few decades of each other! A book cobbled together more than 300 years after the supposed main event, by men – not God – with a vested interest in its success, is not proof of the divine.

The global spread of Christianity: Human beings have worked hard throughout the ages to spread their own particular version of Christianity – often converting others on pain of death. There are today over 34,000 Christian groups, sects and cults, which is ‘proof’ that there is no one Mastermind behind it all. Other religions spread too, so perhaps that’s evidence their God is real as well (or instead), and so do diseases. The spread of an idea only illustrates human preoccupation with that idea.

Jesus: Really? His broken promises, failed prophecies, impossible morality and shabby treatment of those who didn’t buy into his mission somehow ‘prove God’? Maybe Lee means that Christ proves God. But ‘the Christ’ is an invention of Paul’s and has little to do with the man Jesus. In any case, one mythical figure does not prove another. Unless it’s Thor, of course, whose existence definitely proves there’s an Odin.

A personal friendship with God: What goes on in Lee’s head doesn’t prove anything, never mind the existence of God. A person’s feelings are subjective, solipsistic and entirely unverifiable. Thinking he’s got a relationship with God doesn’t mean that he has. Unlike my friendship with Thor. That’s really real.

So, seven proofs of God that are no proof at all. Anyone else care to take a turn?

A Story From The Bible…

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Luke 10.29-37 accurately translated from the original Greek

 Jerry&Sam

…And so Jesus told them a story to explain what he meant:

“There was,” he said, “a young man called Jerry Cohen who was making his way across the city late at night when he was set upon by some yobs. They kicked him to the ground, stole his wallet and phone and left him for dead. He lay in the doorway of a shop, blood seeping from the deep cut to the back of his head and pooling into the shadowed corner. With his teeth broken and ribs cracked, Jerry slipped into unconsciousness.

By chance, a group of people from a local church were out that night witnessing to the young people partying in the bars and pubs of the district and for whom, let’s be honest, this was an unwelcome intrusion. Some of these well-meaning church-folk noticed Jerry lying in the doorway as his life ebbed away, but as they couldn’t see all the blood they simply assumed he had passed out from an excess of alcohol. They decided to leave him where he was to sober up. ‘Let’s give him the Good News to read when he does,’ said one, tucking a tract called Salvation through the Redemptive Power of the Cross into his top pocket. 

Minutes later, an evangelist happened to pass Jerry, still curled foetally on the floor, and noticed that the premises next to where he was seemed to be one of dubious repute. Its lights blazed even at this late hour and there were over-sized, suggestive pictures of athletic-looking young men in the windows. He didn’t want to look too closely because he didn’t want the taint of sin to cling to him but it seemed obvious that if the shop was what he thought it was, then the boy next to it could only be a homosexualist, hell bent on foisting his perverted lifestyle on everyone and destroying traditional marriage in the process. And so he walked swiftly on, quietly quoting Romans 1.27 to himself: Men commit shameful acts with other men, and receive in themselves the due penalty for their error. ‘If ever there was a sign that the end times have arrived,’ he thought to himself, ‘it’s the likes of that degenerate individual over there.’ As he crossed the road, he failed to see another young man approaching in the opposite direction.

Sam Harrington wasn’t a homosexualist either – because really there’s no such thing – but he was a homosexual. He’d had been working late and was eager to get home so he too was taking a short cut through the centre of the town. He spotted Jerry in the doorway and before he could even think what he was doing, he had pulled his phone out of his pocket and had dialled the emergency number. While he waited for the ambulance to arrive, he cradled Jerry’s head in his lap, holding closed the gash to stop further blood loss and helping it start to heal. When the ambulance arrived, Sam went with Jerry to the hospital where he sat anxiously in Accident and Emergency for  two hours, waiting to hear how he was. When, finally, a nurse came to tell him that now the young man’s jaw had been wired together and his head stitched there was every chance he would pull through, Sam wept unashamedly.

With the last bus long gone, he began his long walk home. He didn’t have enough money for a cab and he didn’t like ringing his partner in the early hours of the morning to ask for a lift.”

“So tell me,” Jesus said finally, “which of the three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the yobs? Who showed him real love?”

His followers looked around blankly at each other, for surely this was a question that was impossible to answer.    

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 19: We’re living in the End Times

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Chicken licken

The belief that things are worse now than they’ve ever been before, is, ironically, a conviction that has been around for a very long time. Every generation, it seems, has held the view that it was all so much better back in some ill-defined time in the past and the likes of today’s wickedness and degeneration has never before been seen. With things as bad as they are, it can only mean one thing: God is going to intervene pretty soon to put things right.

This is how religions start. It’s what Jesus thought (Mark 8.38 and 13) and Paul (Roman 13) and most of the other New Testament writers (e.g. Ephesians 5; 2 Timothy 3). Many of today’s Christians believe it too:

There is no doubt whatsoever, that the signs of the end of the world in the Bible are pointing to our generation. Anyone can see the great moral degeneration that has happened over the past 50+ years. The moral depravation of this world has reached such a point that we are now like Sodom and Gomorrha just before God destroyed that city with fire … 2 Peter 2:6 …’And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.’

But really, things today are no worse than they were back in the primitive past and in many ways they’re a great deal better. In general terms, we live longer, healthier lives and more of us are literate and educated. Many of us enjoy a very comfortable existence. There are fewer wars and violence is decreasing. Equality and opportunity exist in many parts of the world for all kinds of people; we are more welcoming of difference and by and large we treat each other better. Of course there are problems, but there always have been. Life in the first century, when Jesus lived and died, was short, brutish and insanitary. The culture he found himself in was paternalistic, maintained by slavery and ruled over by invaders who were cruel and violent. Who can blame him for thinking it couldn’t get any worse? It did, of course, mainly thanks to his legacy, but it also got better. Either way, God did not intervene.

What’s more, he won’t be doing any time soon, no matter the strength of conviction of those who feel he will or should.

He’s prevented from doing so chiefly by the fact he doesn’t exist (quite an impediment, I’d have thought) but also because for those in the affluent west – who are usually those who shout most about how dreadful things are – everything is pretty damn good.

As Jesus discovered (or was it Chicken Licken? I get confused) portents of doom do not bring about the end of the world. We might, one day, actually manage to destroy ourselves and this beautiful planet we live on, but if we do, it won’t be because our morals have changed for the better nor because we’re teaching evolution in schools (another sign of the end, apparently). And it certainly won’t have anything to do with a vengeful God.

If you stop thinking the world is going to hell in a hand-cart, you’ll very soon see that it isn’t.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 17: You get saved by being washed in the blood of the lamb (Romans 5.9 etc)

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Sermon

Not according to Jesus you don’t. And you’d think he being the Son of God – not to mention ‘the lamb’ in question – he’d be in a position to know. So how does Jesus say you find salvation? No magic formula for him; no quick-fix like the one Paul invents after Jesus’ death.

So how does Jesus reckon you get right with God? For once, he couldn’t be clearer:

If you want to receive God’s forgiveness, first you have to give it:

For if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6.14)

If you want to avoid God’s judgement… then don’t judge others:

Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. (Matthew 7.1-2)

If you want God to show you mercy, first show mercy yourself:

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. (Matthew 5.7)

If you want to experience God’s riches and blessings, first you have to be generous yourself:

Give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back. (Luke 6.38)

If you want God to show you compassion, first be compassionate yourself:

The King will say to those at his right hand… I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me… Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord when did we see the hungry and feed thee or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee?… And the King will answer them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me’.

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me… Truly I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it not to me’. (Matthew 25.34-46)

That’s right, Jesus sees being saved as a ‘measure for measure’ arrangement and uses that exact term repeatedly in order to get the message across. According to the ‘Son of God’, you get what you give. And, what’s more, his death has nothing to do with it. He starts preaching his ‘gospel’ message long before he’s crucified (Mark 1.14) and it most definitely doesn’t include any mystical piggy-backing on a death that hasn’t happened yet in order to gain God’s favour. Even Matthew, Mark and Luke don’t add it to their stories of Jesus, even though they wrote them after he died and after Paul’s invention of his magic salvation formula.

Jesus’ ‘measure-for measure’ gospel is very different from Paul’s – the two are incompatible in fact, though Christians refuse to see this. Jesus’ gospel is practical and moral: the way to God’s heart, he says, is through treating others, even those who might despise us, with kindness and compassion.

This, though, is too hard for Christians. They find Paul’s spiritualised, self-centred version of salvation much more to their taste.

What’s this ‘Biblical morality’ we keep hearing about?

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Is it feeding the hungry? Helping the poor? Visiting the sick and the imprisoned? Opposing injustice? Fighting against oppression? Giving away your possessions? Going the extra mile? Turning the other cheek? Respecting others? Loving your neighbour? Loving your enemies?

Or is just about sex? To read Christian web-sites and blogs, you’d think so. Jesus’ followers today are obsessed with it, which is why the God they make in their image is too. Sex that other people might be having, before marriage, during it; sex when it makes babies and when it doesn’t; sex with yourself; sex in the head, on the screen and in different positions; sex with too many partners, with the wrong partners and with partners of the same sex (the worst sin of all, apparently). They write about little else, because you see, what other people do in bed together is of great concern to God. It’s more important to him – or his self-appointed representatives on Earth, anyway – than hunger, oppression, slavery, injustice and genocide combined.

If only we all had sex like the Christian experts say we should (because it’s in the Bible) then we’d all be so much better off; civilisation wouldn’t be slipping into the abyss, God wouldn’t be so upset with us and we wouldn’t all be destined for hell.

End

But morality isn’t just about sex. In fact, it has little to do with who we sleep with and when. Rather, morality is about how we treat others, as Jesus said (Luke 6.31). Of course, how we treat others in a sexual context is important, but it’s no more important than how we treat them in other contexts. That’s because morality is, or should be, all embracing. It’s long past time Christians stopped banging on about it as if it was the only concern of morality. Instead they could start treating those who do sex differently from them as they themselves would like to be treated. That, if there really is such a thing, would be true Biblical morality.

Christians ignore Jesus

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Optional

Christians are commanded to ‘take up their crosses’ to follow Jesus (Luke 9.23). That means, amongst other things, doing what he commands. Yet Christians don’t just fail to do as he tells them, they replace his agenda with their own and completely ignore him. Being a Christian, according to Jesus – and you’d think he’d know – is not about pointing out the failings of others, nor about defending God’s honour (as an omnipotent being he’s more than capable of doing that himself) and it isn’t about condemning those you don’t agree with. It’s about treating others as you’d like to be treated, loving your enemies… things like these, in fact –

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get (Matthew 7.1-2).

Yet Christians judge relentlessly and tell us they’re justified in doing so: ‘you’re a sinner’, ‘you’re going to hell’, ‘gay people are of the devil’, ‘you’ve got the wrong set of beliefs’. We can only suppose they’ve don’t have a problem with the judgement they themselves will face as a result (because they don’t really believe there’ll be any such judgement.)

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5.44).

What Jesus really meant to say here, surely, was ‘criticise those you don’t like, claim they’re infringing your rights, sue them if need be’. Yes, that’s it.

Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you (Matthew 5.42).

Really? Let’s give it a go. Beg a Christian to pay off your mortgage or ask to borrow the cash for new car. See how far that gets you. The problem here, as with all of these commands, is that Jesus really has no idea. No wonder Christians ignore this one.

How can you say to your neighbour, ‘let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye’ (Luke 6.42).

Another ‘don’t judge’ command, to which Christians respond, ‘What log? Your speck is more of an eyesore than my log. My log doesn’t impede my vision at all. It’s you who can’t see.’

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt (Luke 6.28).

Yeah, right.

Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6.31).

From which we can only conclude that Christians really must want to be treated as shabbily as they treat others (see links above)  

So how about it Christians? Maybe if you were doing what Jesus commands instead of judging the rest of us, we might take you a little more seriously. And, assuming he’s up in Heaven watching you – though even you know he isn’t or else you’d be doing as he tells you – so would Jesus himself.

As he says in Luke 6.46: ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and don’t do what I tell you?’

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For more on this topic – Christians’ failure to take any notice of Jesus’ commands – see my book Why Christian Don’t Do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead, available from Amazon.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 16: Christians treat others as they themselves would like to be treated (Luke 6.31).

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Gun

Jesus promised his followers, back when he was alive, that they would take over the world when God’s new Kingdom arrived: ‘Blessed are the meek,’ he’s reported as saying in Matthew 5.5, ‘for they shall inherit the earth.’ He failed to tell them that this inheriting wouldn’t be any time soon, even though he himself thought it would be (Mark 13.26-30). Even so, Christians today fully expect JC to return any day now to vindicate them and turn the world over to them. Then, the meek – assuming that Jesus meant ‘Christians’ when (and if) he used the term – will inherit the Earth, whatever that actually means.

Back in the early 1980’s, when I was a Christian myself, I campaigned, in a very small way, for persecuted believers in the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union. Together with others in my church, I spoke out against the clampdown of Christian worship, restrictions on the availability of the Bible and the harsh punishments meted out for exercising faith. Certainly believers in Russia were meek and humble then, because they had no other choice.

How things have changed in the intervening thirty years. Now in Russia, under Putin, faith is supported and encouraged and formerly persecuted Christians have the upper hand. They have the ear of the Kremlin and are influential in deciding policy especially in so far as it relates to ‘morals’.

And do those Christians, having known the scourge of persecution, say, ‘we cannot support the persecution of others; we disliked it when it was done to us and, in the words of our saviour, we recognise we should treat others as we ourselves would wish to be treated’ (Luke 6.31)?

What do you think? You think the meek, having found acceptance themselves and inherited positions of respectability and influence, use their new prominence to defend other minorities who are now being persecuted?

Of course not. The church in Russia endorses, supports and influences the policies of state that have lead to the persecution of people who have ‘non-traditional’ relationships; LGBT people and those who support them. Watch the Channel 4 Dispatches programme ‘Hunted’ (on 4 On Demand, with clips on YouTube) to see how gay people in Russia are hunted, tortured and humiliated. Witness a so-called Christian proudly relate how he shot a young gay man in the face with a ‘non-lethal weapon’ because he was carrying a rainbow flag. See Father Sergei Rybko from the Russian Orthodox Church demonstrate true Christian love when he says:

Even cattle don’t engage in this (homosexuality). I just consider them spiritually and morally ill. Something is not right here (in their heads)… they’ve started to plant the idea in young people’s minds that this is normal, that they are just a bit different… Well excuse me, paedophiles and sex offenders are just different too. Murderers and thieves are just different – so we should also give them freedom to do what they want? Where gays are allowed, paedophilia will soon flourish. Permitted evil gives rise to more evil. Paedophiles, gays and people like this are basically serving the Devil.

Church condoned persecution of homosexuals is what we can expect when God’s Gentle People inherit the Earth. We know this because it’s happened before, many times in history. When Christians get the upper hand, others suffer, whether they’re Jews, women, children accused of witchcraft or LGBT people.

Mercifully, Jesus was wrong, as he was about so much, when he promised the meek would inherit the Earth: they will never hold sway over the entire globe and for that, we should all be eternally grateful.

Is your marriage a Bible-based marriage? Find out in this simple quiz.

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Marry

1. If you’re male, have you got more than one wife? If female, has your husband got other wives as well as you?

If you answer ‘yes’, score 20 points: all the heroes of the Old Testament had multiple wives: Abraham, Esau, Jacob, Moses, Gideon, David, Solomon… Clearly, polygamy is acceptable in the sight of the Lord (Exodus 21.10). Even Jesus approves of it (Matthew 5.17-18 & 25.1-13). Well done if this is you! No points for a ‘no’ answer – you’ve a lot of catching up to do.

2. Are you married to your brother/sister?

20 for yes, nothing for no. God approves of this kind of marriage in Genesis 16.1-3 and as we know, the answer’s always in Genesis.

3. Ladies, were you a virgin on your wedding night?

Score 20 if you were. Otherwise, get your husband to have you stoned to death on your dad’s doorstep, like Deuteronomy 22.13-21 says he should.

4. Were you under-age when you married?

No problem. In fact, the minimum age for marriage in the Jesus’ time was 12 for girls, 13 for boys so award yourself 25 bonus points if you were still a child when you married. Nothing though if you were ancient… like say, 20.

 5. Have you taken a slave as a partner?

Another 30 points if you have. God’s quite happy with this arrangement. The slave might not be, but who cares? Not God, that’s for sure (Numbers 31.17-18).

6. Men, did you buy your bride off her father? Ladies were you bought?

To really qualify as a bible-based marriage, this how it should be. You gonna argue with Genesis 34.12 and Exodus 22.16-17? Score 50 if money changed hands. Nothing if it you did it all for love: that’s not biblical at all.

7. Have you married your brother’s newly widowed wife?

70 points if you did – it’s what God expects (Genesis 38.9 & Deuteronomy 25.5-10). Just don’t spill your semen on the ground on the wedding night because, as Onan discovered, sex-obsessed Yahweh will smite thee if thou doest.

 8. Do you frolic naked round a garden with your partner without bothering with a formal marriage service?

Score 50 if this Adam-and-Eve arrangement is for you – they didn’t bother with marriage either. You get nothing if you keep your clothes on while gardening.

9. Do you hate your spouse (and children and your father and mother)?

Jesus says you should, in Luke 14.26, so that you can follow him more zealously. If you really can’t stand the person you’ve married to, score 100 points. You get nothing if you’re soppy and still love your wife or husband.

10. Christians, have you shunned marriage altogether?

Your Saviour says you should (Luke 20.34-35) otherwise you’re not worthy of a place in his Kingdom (offer good only in the first century, admittedly). Award yourself 200 points if you’ve been obedient, nothing if you decided this instruction wasn’t for you and you went ahead and got married anyway!

11. Have you castrated yourself for Jesus’ sake?

He thinks you should, you know; see Matthew 19.12. Score 500 (though not much else) for taking this final step. You get nothing for deciding – again! – that this isn’t for you. What are you? A man or a wimp?

12. Have you divorced your partner and married another?

True, Jesus doesn’t approve of divorce, but more ‘bible-believing’ Christians divorce in the USA than non-believers (32% compared with 30%) and they can’t all be wrong. What does Jesus know anyway? Add an extra 100 points to your score for every additional wife or husband you’ve had.

So how did you do?

0. Forget it. You marriage is worthless in the eyes of the Lord.

5-100: What must God think? You’ve really let him down. He offers you all these attractive, biblical options – multiple wives, slaves, siblings  – and you’ve not gone for any of them. For shame.

100-199: Get serious! You think biblical marriage is negotiable?

200 and 499. Pretty good. You’ve avoided marriage, just like JC says you should.

Over 500: You’ve definitely got a bible-based marriage. Or rather, you haven’t, and no balls either.