Post-Easter Thoughts
I enjoyed the Easter service at Journey on Sunday – and I've been trying to write about it since then, but the kids had other plans for me. But the service was a good reminder that the point of the Resurrection is not that that it happened, but that we are called to respond to it. For most of my life Easter has been treated as simply an apologetics opportunity. Apparently if we know that it is possible to sweat blood, or the exact effect of crucifixion techniques on a body, or that the gospels were written too close to the event to be legends then we would have no choice but to believe it all happened. I think it's obvious by now that simply knowing supposed facts or even believing something happened does little to change our lives. But nevertheless, the events of Easter continue to be reduced to poor historical forensics. Not that that stuff isn't interesting or has a place, just that it really isn't what Easter is about.
The argument that really gets me (which was brought up at church during the discussion) is the whole "the Easter story is just too fantastic and imperfectly told to be made up. The disciples couldn't have made up this story if they had tried." I used to buy that argument, but I've come to realize it's utter absurdity. It's premise rests on two assumptions. One that the gospel story is so unique it has to be true, and two, that imperfections in the writing techniques lend credibility to the story because no good author would allow such discrepancies. My response to proponents of the first premise is – have any of you guys ever read literature or studied history?! Of course authors come up with far more fantastical stories on a daily basis – even in ancient times. Ever read the Epic of Gilgamesh of Greek mythology? How about the Odyssey? In fact many of those old mythological stories about dying gods coming to life are pretty dang similar to the Easter story. How about looking into why we call the day Easter to begin with. Even if the story is true, it is not unique.
And as for the second premise, it assumes that the point of the gospels is to convince people to believe. I guess if we have made Easter all about believing in certain facts, it is understandable that some would assume that the gospel writers had that same purpose in mind. But I have a hard time believing that these stories were written down as evidence to convince us to believe. Jesus didn't instruct the disciples to spread his story so that everyone would know it was true, he instructed them to train others in the disciplines of the Kingdom. The books we have are tools for helping us understand how to follow Christ. Not just to know what he did and believe it happened, but to live it out. We are to respond to the Resurrection in the ways Jesus called us to live. We can argue all we want about it happening or not, but in the end that does nothing to serve Christ. Choosing to respond and actually live in the way of Christ is where the true significance lies.
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
Yep. It's about continuing to build the Kingdom Jesus founded until the coming of Jesus and the resurrection gives us new life to do it.
Julie,
Thanks so much for this post!!! I was also raised seeing Easter as an apologetics opportunity, instead of a reality to be lived out in our lives. Its amazing how much meaning we lose when we simply reduce the whole point of the gospels to "proofs."
While I'm here, I wanted to thank you for all your blog posts (here and elsewhere). They've been a great blessing to me as I struggle to recover my faith and myself as a person and as a woman after growing up in extreme fundamentalism. Thanks for all your work!!!
God bless.
Interesting thoughts.
I guess I look at Easter and Christmas as this – it should be geared toward people who don't believe. As a Christian I have the opportunity to reflect and celebrate the re-birth and birth of Jesus every day of the year. I don't (or at least shouldn't) need special days to celebrate that.
Non-believers are an entirely different story. They don't have that opportunity. Many people only go to church only on Christmas and Easter. If you can reach out and change one life, that's worth it.
Of course the only method to do that isn't through an apologetics-heavy message. But many people have never heard a real "defense of the message." I know I hadn't until a few years ago.
Well said, Julie.
It seems so silly to convince others to believe in our faith, when it's so much more compelling to respond and show Christ's impact on our lives.
Thank you.
I will be quoting you in my sermon this Sunday, Julie! (last two sentences are great summary) Thanks!!
Wow, that's exactly what I experienced this past sunday – the apologetics experience complete with the arguement that the disciples couldn't have made it up.
My husband's frustrated response was…. in the end, it doesn't matter anyways because people aren't convinced purely by logic. Besides, we came to Easter service to worship, not to have something proved to us!
Julie, you seem to be mixing at least two different arguments here. On the one hand you seem to be saying you don't find persuasive the arguments that many have given for the historicity of Jesus's resurrection. On the other hand you seem to be saying that the "point" of the resurrection happening isn't just to sit and say it happened, but to be inspired/empowered by it to go and do something. I don't see those two topics as necessarily connected.
I've sat through ham-fisted resurrection proofs and graphic crucifixion descriptions too. But do you think it matters whether the resurrection of Jesus actually happened? Or is it sufficient for Jesus to have been a good and revolutionary moral teacher who died and became the subject of a resurrection legend, as long as we choose to "respond and actually live in the way of Christ."
I agree with N.T. Wright:
"[W]ithin the Enlightenment world of the last two centuries (as represented not least by liberal theology), we see a horror of any idea that God might actually act in the world. People produce fancy-sounding reasons for this, as though it would be quite wrong for God to step in and raise one person from the dead. Why didn't he step in and stop the Holocaust? And so on. But in fact the whole Enlightenment project is at risk. They want God banished upstairs so they can get on with running the world downstairs.
"But with the resurrection, we have God saying, "No, I want to put things downstairs to rights, thank you very much. I started doing it with Jesus and you'd better get in line." That's a shock to liberal theology, just like it's a shock to all kinds of other tyrannies—and liberal theology has become its own sort of tyranny."
. . . and with C.S. Lewis:
"The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences were the "gospel" or good news which the Christian brought . . . Nothing could be more unhistorical than to pick out selected sayings of Christ from the gospels and to regard those as the datum and the rest of the New Testament as a construction upon it. The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection."
. . . and with Paul:
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter,and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born . . . But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."
e barrett – I don't agree that Christmas and easter should be geared at nonbelievers, like kacie said Easter is more about worship. But even if it were the case that those holidays were just for outsiders, I don't think a litany of "facts" is the way to go. Like I said, such things have a place, but they are pretty hollow as far as real faith is concerned.
Karl – its a blog post about what the Easter service at my church made me think about. It works in my mind because I think the apologetics approach makes the gospels say stuff they never meant to say. But if it doesn't work for you that's cool.
yes, I think its important that the resurrection happened – but that is something I have to choose to believe. No CSI Jerusalem sermon loading on 21st century rationales is going to do much for me. Nor does it tell me why the resurrection is important.
Romans 5:6-8 (New International Version)
"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Then He came back to life. And good won. Evil lost. That's pretty huge.
I think we can serve Him only through believing & we can only "believe" if there's something to believe in. So, there has to be something to believe in…
It's hard and confusing because He died for those who don't "serve him." He died for the sinners… Yet when we know and believe that He died for us, the natural reaction is to serve Him. It's kind of crazy.
"yes, I think its important that the resurrection happened – but that is something I have to choose to believe. No CSI Jerusalem sermon loading on 21st century rationales is going to do much for me."
So, if someone just can't get past the improbability of a dead guy coming back to life they should just be told to "choose to believe" that it happened because there really isn't any other good reason to think that it did but if they'll choose to believe, things will go better for them? Or when a college student is scoffed at by her professor for believing that ridiculous myth is actual history, she should just tell herself "I don't need any evidence, I just choose to believe."? Sounds kind of pomo neofundamentalist, to me.
Jesus as God-become-man who died and came back to life is what was "a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Greeks." Sure we can't stop there, but everything else flows out of it. The New Testament seems to devote a decent amount of time emphasizing that the resurrection really happened.
I'm with Ron Sider on this one:
"Ron Sider, a leading evangelical advocate for the poor, tells about a conversation he had with German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. As they were discussing the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the theologian emphatically declared, “The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things: It is a very unusual event, and second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.”
That's basically the same argument I've heard N.T. Wright make in lectures as well.
Karl – honestly most of the "proof" for the resurrection is crap science that will get more scoffs and laughs than someone admitting they choose to follow in the path of a certain faith. The faith is rationale, but I think we need to stop playing the rationalism game. Sure the atheists out there are just as dogmatic about modern scientific objectivism as many apologetic obsessed christians (and they generally have much better arguments and science on their side), but that is a worldview that i think the church has sold out to. It isn't faith oriented and it isn't biblical imho. Sure all this stuff is interesting – but focusing on it causes us to lose focus and miss the point of our faith. Sure dabble in it all you want, but don't make it the center.
Of course admitting that you "choose to follow in the path of a certain faith" won't draw scoffs and laughs in a postmodern world. What's controversial or revolutionary about that? If the belief is just an unfounded personal choice that helps motivate you to be nice to poor people, what's to be scoffed at?
You're right, saying that you actually think there is good reason for believing a dead guy really came back to life 2,000 years ago, will get you scoffed and laughed at. Just ask N.T. Wright.
You seem to not want to be scoffed and laughed at. I don't like it much either and I sure don't like the heavy handed overkill of some of the "proofs" or at least how they are sometimes presented. But I'm not willing to throw the whole idea of "hey there are good reasons to believe this really happened" out as useless, either. I'm all for various forms of truth, but sometimes happening matters. You may think what Wright is "dabbling in" is a waste of time that misses the point of our faith but I am glad he's doing it, and think he's actually right when he suggests Jesus's bodily resurrection is at the center of the Christian faith, is a picture of its future, and is the truth from which all the "doing" flows. And that a bodily resurrection is the best explanation of the historical record. Wright's "The Resurrection of the Son of God" isn't what I'd call "crap science."
Julie, science can't say much of anything positive or negative about the Resurrection. It's an unique event in history, not reproducible and not recorded in any way that could support any sort of scientific analysis with which I'm familiar. It is, however, an historical event. In that it is really very different from the stories of the dying and reborn gods of various mythos. I explored many of those religions, both in their ancient context and (for a few) in their neopagan revivals, with a possible eye toward belief. They tend to be tied to harvest themes. In some, the god dies each winter only to be reborn each spring. It's a cycle of death, rebirth, and renewal. They don't make claims about an actual man, a human being, dying and then being resurrected. It is a very different sort of claim in Christianity. You're conflating the two sorts of stories too closely.
And since it is an historical claim, it is subject to the same sort of analysis and critique we would apply to any other ancient history. That's where N.T. Wright's work is valuable. He is at heart still an ancient Rome historian. And he's familiar with most of the modern critiques of the historicity of the Resurrection. His very large book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, spends a great deal of time examining the landscape and building a credible historical argument.
This is what Christians have always done. You see it in Peter's first sermon. You see it in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians where he reminds them of, among other things, the early creed he was taught and passed on to them that essentially provided a list of those who had witnessed the resurrected Lord and whom you could go ask if you doubted the claim since many were still alive. The Resurrection as an historical claim has always been part of the Christian proclamation from the very earliest days. (That early creed has already neatly screened the women out. But that's a discussion for another topic. [g])
Now, with that said, I've also heard and read some extremely clumsy, shallow, and easily picked apart apologetics for the Resurrection. I also generally agree that such apologetics are not the point of Easter (or Pascha) or really any setting of worship. But then again, a lot of what passes for 'worship' in American christianity barely seems to be even vaguely related to anything that looks or feels like 'worship' to me so using the time on Easter for an apologetics session (whether or not it's even vaguely competent) doesn't particularly surprise me.
I think you guys are reading too much into my post and completely missing my point.
Karl – I don't give a crap about being scoffed at. I'm just saying that arguing people into faith doesn't work – it all comes down to belief in the end. And I will argue for my belief and live it out. I'm not stupid about my faith, I study, I know the rationales – BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF MY FAITH.
Of course Wright talks about stuff like this. We all do. Me included. I am not throwing it all out which you seem to be assuming I am. so that said – what is your real problem here or are you just arguing because that is all you ever do…
Scott – I did not say this was not a historical event or that it was just mythology. I believe it was real, but as far as stories go, it isn't this super creative never heard before bestseller. That argument in my mind doesn't hold water. Of course it need analyzed and explored and all that. But that analysis should never be confused for the foundation of our faith.
Sorry for reading to much into your post. Of course people could conceive of the idea of people coming back to life in all sorts of contexts and cultures. To pick just one famous one (though his effort ultimately failed) the story of Orpheus clearly illustrates that people could conceive of the idea. In the parts of the world where they did not believe in the transmigration of souls (a very different idea than resurrection), they just didn't believe that resurrection could actually happen to a real person. That was the shocking and unbelievable part, not the idea.
Julie, you have invited dialogue on your blog and I sometimes respond to what you write. I like to read and discuss ideas from a lot of points on the spectrum, whether I agree with them or not. If your blog is only for people who agree with you to comment on, then you can screen my comments out. I try to be respectful and polite, and to affirm agreement where I can. I try to be careful not to name call or resort to personal attacks, and to stick to the issues themselves. But if only agreement is permitted, I'll stop commenting.
Your initial post was a pretty one-sided rant that conflated two distinct ideas and made some pretty strong (and I think unwarranted) overgeneralizations. You have complained in the past that people more conservative than you theologically aren't interested in staying in dialogue, that they just do a drive by or two and then disappear. With responses like the one you just gave, I'm not surprised more people you disagree with don't stick around. I think the things you post about are often worth discussing though, and the discussion is often more valuable (for me anyway) when differing viewpoints are represented.
You wrote: "The argument that really gets me (which was brought up at church during the discussion) is the whole "the Easter story is just too fantastic and imperfectly told to be made up. The disciples couldn’t have made up this story if they had tried.” I used to buy that argument, but I’ve come to realize it’s utter absurdity." Well, you (or someone) had better email N.T. Wright and tell him to stop embarrassing himself because I heard him give a lecture on the resurrection in which that was one of the (absurd?) points that he made, although he did it with more sophistication than a lot of evangelical pastors might.
I agree with you that (1) arguing by itself rarely if ever brings someone to faith. Living the faith, loving others and telling the story is more attractive and compelling. I also agree that (2) the evidence for the resurrection falls far short of "proof" and I don't like sermons or talks that imply it can be proven, as if only a hardheaded idiot wouldn't be able to see the truth. Those are points easily made, and aren't that controversial.
But there are many people who have intellectual barriers up against faith because they believe some of the pop objections to Christianity. Sometimes gently helping to clear those barriers away is what is needed for them to be able to respond to the deeper and more compelling pull of the story and The Way. I think you way overstated the "uselesness" of apologetics and did it in a snide and condescending way. And along the way I think you way understated the importance of an actual, historical resurrection, virtually reducing it to a footnote. Your last reply to Scott M clarifies where you stand more clearly than the earlier stuff. Sorry if that is offensive to you. I'm not commenting on your person or character – just the substance of what I've read here.
I'm nervous to enter the fray here, but I have a couple things to say.
First, I actually interpreted Julie's thoughts as wanting to emphasize the actual, historical resurrection. Trying to explain it and make it "make sense," or trying to clear away the mystery from it in order to convince non-believers actually feels more like you are trying to convince someone of something fake, in the whole Macbeth "methinks she doth protest too much" sort of way. Living one's life based on the resurrection, on the other hand, means that the reality of the resurrection is so real that it reorients your life, and that its reality is so real that it's not even worth arguing about.
I disagree with the sentiment that the resurrection is the center of Christian belief, or that convincing someone of the resurrection is the first and most important task of sharing the Christian faith with those outside the church. This is why I'm not a big fan of apologetics, because the focus on defending the faith seems to get in the way of living the faith. Trying to convince my atheist friend that the resurrection is real is a harder and more fruitless task than telling my atheist friend about what God has done in my life and how I have experienced the good news of the resurrection. It's perhaps a subtle difference, but an important one.
If faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see," then it seems out of character to try bring people to faith by telling them that we'll prove to them our faith through historical and even theological arguments. The thing about sharing the good news by simply telling the story and telling our faith stories is that we have far less control over the outcome of our words. So it "guarantees" us fewer "results." But if we believe that God can and does work in the world and in people's hearts, perhaps we need to be a bit more comfortable with this uncertainty, and live more like people of the resurrection rather than scientists proving the resurrection.
And just so I don't get yelled at for it, when I said "I disagree with the sentiment that the resurrection is the center of Christan belief," I'm not saying that the resurrection isn't at the core of the gospel message, or that the resurrection isn't at the heart of what it means to live the faith, or anything like that.
I'm just saying that I too have heard Easter messages that try to convince people to come to Christ because they can prove that the resurrection happened, rather than inviting people to meet the Christ who died and rose for our salvation. Does that distinction make sense? One approach tries to prove Christ by proving an event, and the other approach tries to share Christ by sharing the story in faith.
Melissa, I agree with you. Few if any people are going to come to faith by being argued in, and certainly not by being shouted at or belittled. Most end up saying that it was something deeper that drew them in, somethiong at a heart and relational level.
But I think it's unnecessary to take an either-or approach on resurrection as if we either talk about reasons to believe the resurrection was a real event in time, or else we live the way and tell the story. Looking at the New Testaement it looks like they did both, and they usually started with saying that the guy who was crucified had really come back to life. All of the power flowed out of that event. I'm arguing for an N.T. Wright approach, not a Josh McDowell approach. It sounds like in the end, so is Julie. I probably overreacted to Julie's post, but it was pretty strongly worded and I didn't think it was entirely fair.
I agree that it is necessary to talk about both, however for me, only one of the two makes for good sermonizing. The post from the CC blog, "Say What Needs to be Said," (http://theolog.org/2009/04/blogging-toward-sunday-say-what-needs.html) gets at this a bit.
At least in my tradition, preaching is different than teaching, and so the point of a sermon is to proclaim the good news by drawing out the law and the gospel in the text in a way that makes it also relevant to the current context.
In my opinion, the space to explore the historical accounts of the resurrection, the theologians who have written on the resurrection, etc. is in a teaching setting, not a proclamation setting. And so Easter sermons should be about sharing the message of the resurrection, not about dragging worshipers through the historical or exegetical mud.
Things, of course, get sticky in seeker-oriented churches, or in churches where worship/preaching/teaching are all conflated. I have my own distinct opinions on this subject, but they are probably better discussed elsewhere.
Karl – Let me first say that I really do appreciate your contribution here. You disagree with respect. I do my best to respond to you because you are thoughtful and aren't just attacking. But sometimes I get the impression that you always have to find something to argue with just for the sake of arguing. Your comments in this post felt like that. I think in many ways we do agree on this topic. My post came from my experience – Easter in the churches I've attended and the plethora of ads from the local Austin megachurches this season promoting their "Resurrection: Fact or Fiction?" or "CSI: Jerusalem" Easter Sunday sermons. Like I said, that stuff has its place, but it shouldn't be the center of our faith. I think we agree on that – so I was confused as to why you kept arguing against stuff I wasn't saying. And I was a bit put off by how you were using NT Wright in the argument – as if my entire perspective would come crumbling down if you could show me that someone I like did something you thought I didn't like. I am not opposed to disagreement or debate – I want that here, but I want it to be based on stuff I really say not what people assume I must be thinking. And its my fault if I wasn't clear – but I appreciate the chance to clarify and defend before being attacked.
I'm not arguing for an either/or approach. Just one that isn't so imbalanced towards knowledge about an event over letting that event transform our lives.
And for the record – the tone I was going for was not snide and condescending, but exasperated. I've been the apologetics-loving believer who thought I knew all the right answers to skeptics' questions. I was smug and condescending. But as I've started listening, really listening to atheists, and moving beyond sound-bite apologetics I see the hollowness and inadequacy of those answers. They are often poor answers that don't stand up to scrutiny. Does that mean I think they are wrong – no. Just that I've learned as Melissa said that faith is part of a life lived, not a series of memorized answers. The witness of my life is what speaks to unbelievers more than pseudo-science (in their eyes) they readily dismiss.
Julie, I'm guilty as charged and I'm sorry if I have been too combative or have played unfairly (both of which I probably have done).
When I was a little kid I loved to wrestle and roughhouse with other kids, but I wasn't very good at talking with them. So, my way of showing another little kid that I wanted to play was to go up and give them a shove! It wasn't meant as intimidation or bullying – just a nonverbal "wanna wrestle?" It caused my mother all kinds of embarrassment and probably scared the crap out of a lot of other kids and moms. I'm afraid I sometimes do a version of that with internet discussions. I enjoy discussion and debate and even argument, not just for their own sake but also because I think some of these issues are really important and I like interacting with other perspectives. But sometimes I may just jump in too combatively and come across as more personally attacking than I mean to be.
And I probably am prompted to comment most often by things I disagree with. Some topics may just not be up my alley or I might not have anything to say. Other times I totally agree – I try to remember to comment when I agree with something but often I don't, just give a silent inner affirmation and move on. It's the "hey, I disagree with that! Or, "I think that needs clarifying or correcting or nuancing or something!" feeling that usually motivates me to actually comment. So yeah, I can see where it would seem like the main thing I do is disagree or nitpick. In "real life" I don't think I'm that way face to face, at least not as much. But when reading stuff on the internet and deciding whether to comment or not, that's probably how it is for me. Like maybe if you were reading Jesus Creed you'd be more likely to comment about something you disagreed strongly with than to just give Scott an "attaboy" for something you liked? Or maybe it's just me – it very well could be.
We're actually pretty close in what we think about this topic, though my guess is we disagree a little. I think the resurrection arguments when well stated aren't quite as hollow and poor as you say or as an atheist would suggest. Maybe when presented by the tacky church services you mention, but not when presented by someone like an N.T. Wright – who does use many of the same arguments just with more nuance and erudition (I'm not trying to beat you up with Wright but use him because I know you respect him and wouldn't automatically dismiss him). I think the reason the arguments sometimes seem hollow is that they've been touted as amounting to logical proofs, when they're not. To an atheist demanding some kind of modernistic logical proof or a Christian who thinks they have to be logical proofs or they're nothing, then yeah they are hollow. But I think that while falling short of "proof" they are still often helpful in making people realize they don't have to check their brains at the door of the church and the leap of faith, while still a leap, isn't a totally blind or unreasonable one. And yes the arguments are hollow if they are treated as the sum total of faith – believe that it happened and stop there. I agree; that's no good. I'm argued out and feeling kind of sad. Like you, believe it or not I'm conflict averse in "real life." So, I'm sorry for not treading more gently and for causing offense.
Karl – thanks for your response. I hope I wasn't too harsh, I just really was confused by the conversation. And I have to say – your description of you as a kid is exactly what my daughter is like. I'm the one getting the teachers reports that her requests to "play" are a tad too aggressive… And I totally understand about commenting when I disagree, I'm so bad about finding time to comment these days that I usually only comment when I really disagree.
And I agree the "check the brains at the door" stance is scary. Apologetics can help with that, but I've also seen that some of the strongest advocates for apologetics are the most closed-minded, unthinking Christians. Its a really strange issue. But yes, my main point was simply that this cannot be the sum total of our faith – not matter how interesting or meaningful it is.
Anyways, thanks for explaining things.
Julie and Others,
A Blessed Easter and Pascha! Theophilus of Antioch (169 AD) said regarding this that "God became man so that man might become God" [found in the NPNF series]. Many associate this saying with St. Athanasius (who came about one hundred fifty years later), but this quite early teaching no doubt preserves the apostolic emphasis on the Incarnation.
What is so great about this saying is that it weds both ideas under discussion here: namely Truth being incarnate in the Annunciation and the baptized believer's "working out of this salvation with fear and trembling". The latter is made possible by the former, for the Logos' assumption of human nature frees us to be truly human- truly "God-like" having been made in His Divine Image in order to grow in His Likeness.