The Tension of Faith

That's all great. It sounds like the Rotary Club. AS I said, you're a cultural Christian. Why on earth do you object to that?

You can call yourself whatever you like. Your statements speak for yourself. You agree that your beliefs are compatible with the majority of religions and even secular humanism. That is typical of the amount of hubris that very often is typical of your posts. Hardly Christian don't you think? Read my signature.

Lazarus experienced a resuscitation. He later died the same death that all of us experience. There is no account of Lazarus' revival being called a resurrection.Many Jews at the time believed in a resurrection at some point in the future when Yahweh would raise up the faithful to be with Him. Thus the metaphorical, (at least I believe it was metaphorical), telling of the the bodies of the saints rising from the dead and leaving their tombs. Matthew understood that this was not a simple case of bringing someone back to life, but a case of bringing someone back to a new form of life, or the new Adam of a renewed world. This is also consistent with the entire NT.

You say that some are. That's true for me too. Which of your beliefs as a Christian don't fall into that category? Thanks heavens we have you adults around to keep us children on the true path. Nope, no hubris there.

I read them all and none them point out an example of you holding onto any particular belief that can't be held by a secular humanist. You say you believe in the Nicene Creed.Here's part of it.

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Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

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Here is a quote from one of your earlier posts. If it didn't really happen Jesus is a delusional failed messiah, and there is no reason to believe anything He says. That wouldn't mean that the message of love, peace and forgiveness that is found in the Gospels is irrelevant. It simply means that we really need other sources to come to the conclusion that it represents a positive path in life. The bulk of secular humanists would agree.Here is Phat's definition of a cultural Christian.

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They basically say that "Cultural Christianity is a religion that superficially identifies itself as Christianity but does not truly adhere to the faith. A cultural Christian is a nominal believerhe wears the label Christian, but the label has more to do with his family background and upbringing than any personal conviction that Jesus is Lord.

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That fits you to a tee. I was raised as a Christian. I was baptized and confirmed and then decided it wasn't all that relevant and got on with life for about 20 years. I would say that following the life style and choices that Jesus espoused was a good thing and I more or less did that, but I considered myself more of an agnostic than anything else.I think another mistake you are making is that, correct me if I'm wrong, that you are assuming that I believe that by getting these beliefs right that I will be granted salvation. We are actually on the same page except that I think that I'm even less inclined than you are to claim who is on the right path when it comes to our lives. I do agree with you that it isn't what we give intellectual assent to that makes us right with God. You seem to think that ultimately it is about the lives we live that matters. I agree with that to a point but I don't think that it is so much about what we actually do that matters but our motivation for what we do.A simple example is that when we donate our time or financial resources to others less fortunate, but if it is really about the desire to be well thought of by our peers, it isn't the same as doing it just because we want to do the right thing regardless of any recognition. It is about choosing between loving selfishly and loving unselfishly. It is about the heart.We probably agree about what is the right path for our lives and we can agree that that path can be found in other faiths, including secular humanism but that is not the same discussion as to what it is about the Christian religion itself that distinguishes it from other faiths.

Sorry to be so long in replying. I get tied up with life. It wasn't simply rising form the dead to only continue aging and die again later. The account that the Gospels and Epistles give is of a resurrection into a renewed, not a revived body, that is eternal. It was a body that was there and then it wasn't. In modern terms it was a body that could move between God's dimension and our own.Paul writes this in 1Cor. 15:

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42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.

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Paul's point is that the resurrected Jesus is the new Adam of a renewed creation. Certainly we can reject this message but that is what the Biblical stories relate.

The part where you say this. The resurrection was the foundational belief of Christianity. The disciples scattered when the crucifixion happened, out of fear that they might suffer the same fate. They obviously concluded that they had backed the wrong horse and that Jesus was just another in a growing list of failed messiahs. The Gospel accounts without the resurrection make Jesus delusional and if that is the case then secular humanism makes much more sense than Christianity.

As you so often do, you return your method of making your point by mocking whoever it is you are having a discussion with. Not really that Christ like for a Christian. It doesn't make your view point any more convincing.Anybody can call themselves a Christian and so I suppose that would make them one, but I have yet to hear anything about your beliefs that would distinguish you from a secular humanist other than the statement that you are a Christian.

So now I am in need... hmmmm You keep repeating that statement without addressing the point that I have raised more than once including the post to which you are responding.And you still have failed to point out anything that differentiates your beliefs from that of a secular humanist except that you attend a Christian church and call yourself a Christian.The Nicene Creed is made up of numerous statements of faith that stand alone. Just what is it that you don't take out of context. Help me understand.

I found this on the internet which explains far better than I can what is meant by resurrection in the Bible, so I thought I'd send it along as well. Resurrection

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The Resurrection of Resurrection

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(N. T. Wright, Bible Review, August 2000. Reproduced by permission of the author)

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Christianity was born into a world where one of its central tenets, the resurrection of the dead, was widely recognized as false—except, of course, by Judaism.

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Jews believed in resurrection, Greeks believed in immortality. So I was taught many years ago. But like so many generalizations, this one isn’t even half true. There was a spectrum of beliefs about the afterlife in first-century Judaism, just as there was in the Greco-Roman world. The differences between these two sets of views and those that developed among the early Christians are startling. Let’s begin with the Greeks. Some Greeks (and Romans) thought death the complete end; most, however, envisaged a continuing, shadowy existence in Hades. Homer, for example, tells of a murky world full of witless, gibbering shadows that must drink sacrificial blood before they can think straight, let alone talk. For Homer, Hades was no fun[1]. The soul in Homer, though, was not the real person, the immortal element hidden inside a body, but rather the evanescent breath that escaped. The true self remained lifeless on the ground.

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But there are happier variations on the theme. For Platonists, death’s release of the soul from its prison was cause for rejoicing. And even within Homer’s scheme, some heroes might conceivably make their way to the Elysian fields, to the Isles of the Blessed, or, in some very rare cases, to the abode of the gods themselves. Hercules, then the Hellenistic rulers and finally the Roman emperors were believed to follow this route. Mystery cults enabled initiates to enjoy a blessed state in the present, which would, it was hoped, continue after death.

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All, however, were agreed: There was no resurrection. Death could not be reversed. Homer said it; Aeschylus and Sophocles seconded it. What’s it like down there? asks a man of his departed friend, in a third-century B.C.E. epigram. Very dark, comes the reply. Any way back up? It’s a lie!

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In Greek thought, the living could establish contact with the dead through various forms of necromancy; they might even receive ghostly visitations. But neither experience amounts to what pagan writers themselves referred to as resurrection, or the return to life, which they all denied. Thus, Christianity was born into a world where one of its central tenets, resurrection, was universally recognized as false.

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Except, of course, in Judaism. Resurrection was a late arrival on the scene in classic biblical writing, however. Much of the Hebrew Bible assumes that the dead are in Sheol, which sometimes looks uncomfortably like Hades: The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence (Psalm 115:17). Clear statements of resurrection are extremely rare[2]. Daniel 12 is the most blatant, and remembered as such for centuries afterwards: Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2). Daniel is, however, the latest book of the Hebrew Bible.

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In the postbiblical period, the Jewish group known as the Sadducees famously denied the future life altogether. The Sadducees, according to the first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus, held that the soul perishes along with the body (18.16). Other Jews spoke, platonically, of a disembodied immortality; according to the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, at death the philosopher’s soul would assume a higher existence, immortal and uncreated.[3] Still others appear to display some kind of resurrection belief, as in Josephus and the Wisdom of Solomon. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over people, and the Lord will reign over them for ever (Wisdom of Solomon 3:7-8)[4]. The clearest statements of resurrection after Daniel 12, however, are found in 2 Maccabees, the Mishnah and the later rabbinic writings. In 2 Maccabees, a martyr on the verge of death puts out his tongue, stretches out his arms and declares: I got these from Heaven, and because of his Laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again (2 Maccabees 7:11). According to Mishnah 10.1, All Israelites have a share in the world to come; and these are they that have no share in the world to come: he that says that there is no resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Law.

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Remember, resurrection does not mean being raised to heaven or taken up in glory. Neither Elijah nor Enoch had been resurrected in the sense that Daniel, 2 Maccabees and the rabbis meant it; nor, for that matter, had anyone else. Resurrection will happen only to people who are already dead. To speak of the destruction of the body and the continuing existence, however blessed, of something else (call it a soul for the sake of argument) is not to speak of resurrection, but simply of death itself. Resurrection is not simply death from another viewpoint; it is the reversal of death, its cancellation, the destruction of its power. That is what pagans denied, and what Daniel, 2 Maccabees, the Pharisees and arguably most first-century C.E. Jews affirmed, justifying their belief by reference to the creator God and this God’s passion for eventual justice[5].

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The doctrine remained, however, quite imprecise and unfocused. Josephus describes it, confusingly, in various incompatible ways. The rabbis discuss what, precisely, it will mean and how God will do it. Furthermore, the idea could be used metaphorically, particularly for the restoration of Israel after the Exile, as in Ezekiel 37, where the revived dry bones represent the House of Israel.

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If you are looking at it strictly as a matter of what God wants from us then I agree. It is the heart that he is interested in. I also agree that an atheist or a secular humanist can have a heart that is more consistent with my signature than many Christians. I’m not talking about who is going to be on the right side of God at the end of this life. What body of evidence is there that says the resurrection is not an historical event? The only evidence we have one way or the other is the NT and we can either choose to believe what is in there or not.
In the Nicene Creed we are stating that I (we) believe what I quoted above. You aren’t prepared to say that you believe those things to be historical. Obviously they were meant to be understood as historical. They may have gotten it wrong but I believe they got it right and you apparently don’t and say that it is immaterial. I agree. As I understand Unitarianism it is as much about semantics as anything else, and probably both of us could find some common ground with them.I don’t get your point, but I don't think that it's relevant.

Sorry. Forgot this one. Thanks Percy. Actually it all fits. Because of the resurrection the early Christians had to sort out what that meant to them by going back to their Scriptures and to what Jesus had told them both before and after being resurrected. This account is written only in the Gospel of Matthew and it is typical of early Jewish apocalyptic writing. It is the one Gospel that was specifically pointed at a Jewish audience.The point was that because of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus it met certain things. The Jews had believed that God could only be met behind the veil behind which was the holy of holies in the Temple, and then only by the chief priest. Matthew is saying that God was now not just accessible to the chief priest but was accessible to all.Many Jews believed that there would be a resurrection of the righteous at the end of time. Matthew is saying that because of the resurrection of Jesus it meant that the saints had been raised with Jesus. It is Matthews attempt at understanding what the resurrection of Jesus meant to and for his Jewish readers.

Fair enough. I meant to make the point that the Bible and other Jewish books have a more specific understanding of what resurrection means.Edited by GDR, : typo

It is my belief that Matthew is telling his Jewish readers what the resurrection means to them and told in the way things were usually told in that day and that culture. His point was that as Jesus was resurrected this is what it means. His view point was that it meant that God was accessible to everyone and that death had been defeated and that physical death is not the end.From the time of the resurrection onward the bulk of the NT is a case of the writers and others studying Jesus' life and words within the context of the resurrection to better understand the nature of God, what He wants of us and what He has planned for the future.I think that this is a case of that happening. Possibly there was an earthquake that that caused things like graves being opened and the veil being torn but it is my opinion that it was a case of Matthew using Jewish apocalyptic wring in metaphor or parable form to tell a spiritual truth. Firstly I understand the Scriptures this way. God inspired, (not dictated) men to write down their stories. In the Gospels Jesus is constantly referring to what was written in the Hebrew Scriptures, sometimes confirming them and sometimes correcting them. In order to understand Jesus in His Jewish context as told in the NT, the OT is indispensable. In order to understand the OT it has to be done through the lens of what Jesus taught.The key to it all is the resurrection. It is fundamental to the Christian faith. It is written about extensively in all of the Gospels and the book of Acts as well as being taken as a given in the Epistles.In this case the take away message that Matthew is giving to his readers is what I outlined above and as long as the message is understood, then whether he is talking in parables as Jesus so often did or describing an historical event is a matter of opinion. It seems to me that it is so much like other Jewish apocalyptic language that it is very reasonable to assume that it is a metaphor.

Yes and no. The thing is they already had the message that Jesus brought. For example when asked which commandment is the most important commandment Jesus said it was to love God and neighbour which is Jesus referring back to the Torah. If you notice my signature is an OT quote. There were also many cases in the OT of people acting out of love.I don’t see it as necessarily a case of them not getting the whole story but more about them more often than not getting it wrong. To a very large degree Jesus brought clarity. Now when we see a story about Yahweh ordering genocide we can look at through the lens of Jesus who told us to love our neighbours and we can know that they got it wrong.As I said, I don’t think it has changed all that much today in our own cultures. We still very often look for a warrior god, and we still very often approach God with the idea of what is in it for me. I used to have a thing on the fridge that said: most people want to serve God but only in an advisory capacity.