Christian humour

Christians are boring, and neither God, the Bible, nor your average Christian have anything resembling a sense of humour, or so says Guardian journalist Peter Preston. Not so, says the Daily Gazelle, there's tonnes of funny stuff in the Bible, you just need to read it properly. Personally I feel sorry for Preston if his depiction of Christianity reflects on his experience, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were so. Actually, I don't think it's a question of Christians having no sense of humour, but rather they're unsure as to how to use it. It's fairly easy to crack a joke but then agonising to watch Christians wonder whether or not it's sinful to laugh at it or not. Perhaps we don't have a well-developed theology of humour - maybe that's something I should pursue for postgraduate study?

 Anyhow, here's my contribution towards a healthier relationship between theology and humour (apologies if you've heard it before):

Jesus was stood teaching a crowd when the Pharisees brought to him a young woman who had been caught in adultery. The Pharisees challenged him and asked him "Good Teacher, we know that you uphold the Law of our father Moses. Will you join us in stoning this adulterous woman?"

Knowing they were trying to trap him, Jesus replied: "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." Suddenly, a middle-aged woman stepped forward from the crowd, picked up a rock, and hurled it at the adulteress. The rock struck her squarely on the head, killing her instantly.

Jesus turned to the middle-aged woman and said "You know Mother, you can really irritating on some occasions." 

Wright, Borg, and the Resurrection

I'm not sure if it's ever a good idea to try and conduct an autopsy on someone when they are still alive, but you will probably have noticed the sounds of poking, chopping, slicing and dissection throughout the blogosphere this week as N T Wright once again faces a barrage of rather ugly accusations and insinuations stemming from an article published a few weeks ago in an Australian newspaper. Just to refresh your memories, here's a brief excerpt:

I have friends who I am quite sure are Christians who do not believe in the bodily resurrection. But the view I take of them - and they know this - is that they are very, very muddled. They would probably return the compliment. Marcus Borg really does not believe Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. But I know Marcus well: he loves Jesus and believes in him passionately.

The philosophical and cultural world he has lived in has made it very, very difficult for him to believe in the bodily resurrection. I actually think that’s a major problem and it affects most of whatever else he does, and I think that it means he has all sorts of flaws as a teacher, but I don’t want to say he isn’t a Christian.

I do think, however, that churches that lose their grip on the bodily resurrection are in deep trouble and that for healthy Christian life individually and corporately, belief in the bodily resurrection is foundational

The issue of whether or not one can believe in the resurrection and still be a Christian is important and in all fairness has mostly been conducted with a fair degree of rationality across the internet, though what exactly constitutes a "resurrection" is by no means universally agreed on across the blogosphere it seems.

So what is the issue at stake? It seems that Wright's apparent unwillingness to denounce Marcus Borg as an unbeliever because he does not believe in a bodily resurrection has caused a bit of a stir in some quarters. One blog inparticular chastised Wright for his failure to take Borg to task and give him a swift dose of hellfire and a kick in his theological backside. Quite apart from presuming to know an awful lot about Borg and Wright's (private) friendship, even a small amount of research into Wright's back catalogue would show that he and Borg have in fact hammered out some of these issues both in public lectures and most of all in the book The Meaning of Jesus. There's really no substitute for researching your facts before spreading unhelpful rumours about them.

Borg and the Resurrection

Rant over, let's get to the nitty-gritty. First of all let's be clear that Wright's own view of the resurrection is both conservative and extremely well-defended. He believes in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus and also in the future bodily resurrection of believers, and statements to contrary suggesting that Wright is "muddled" about what he believes about the resurrection, or that he doesn't believe in it at all are at best based on ignorance and at worst on malice.

So what of Marcus Borg? Borg does believe in a resurrection, and it becomes clear upon reading Borg's work that the issue is not whether or not he believes in the resurrection, but what he means by the term. Here is Borg in his own words:

"Easter is utterly central to Christianity. "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the foundational affirmation of the New Testament. About this Tom [Wright] and I agree. We also agree that the best explanation for the rise of Christianity - indeed, the only adequate explanation - is the resurrection of Jesus. We also agree about its central meanings. Put most compactly, I see the meanings of Easter as twofold: Jesus lives, and Jesus is Lord. Both claims are essential: Easter means that Jesus was experienced after his death, and that he is both Lord and Christ. Though each of us might add further subpoints of meaning, we agree about all of the above."

So we can at least hold off with the pitchforks and torches for a moment. Where Borg deviates from a more orthodox view (and my own view) is in precisely what constitutes a resurrection. So now already we see that it's not so simple to say "well, Borg clearly isn't a Christian because he doesn't believe Jesus was raised from the dead and N T Wright is also probably not a Christian because he's friends with Marcus Borg", since his beliefs about the resurrection are by no means explained away simply.

Borg says that the truth of Easter does not depend upon whether or not the tomb was empty, since the resurrection was not the resuscitation of Jesus' lifeless body, it was a resurrection. He notes that in the earliest writing on the resurrection in 1 Cor 15, the empty tomb is not even mentioned, and so there are no grounds to make it the central factor in proclamation of the resurrection.

1 Cor 15 does say that Jesus appeared to the disciples, to Peter, to 500 other witnesses, to James, and finally to Paul himself (1 Cor 15:5-8) and herein lies one of Borg's key arguments against physical bodily resurrection (and I think this is what Wright meant when he said that Borg does not believe in bodily resurrection at all). Paul uses the exact same word ("appeared") to describe how both he and the disciples saw the risen Jesus, yet in Paul's encounter with the risen Jesus he sees him in a vision (Acts 9, 22, 26), a vision that those around him cannot see. So clearly Paul's own resurrection experience (according to Borg) did not involve the presence of a real physical body, and Paul places his experience in the same category as those of the disciples - so perhaps they too experienced Jesus in the same way that Paul did?

I disagree with Borg, but his argument at least shows that attempting to describe precisely how physical Jesus' resurrection body was is extremely difficult. He also notes that later in 1 Cor 15 Paul says that Jesus' resurrection body is spiritual, not physical, and we might also want to discuss 2 Cor 3:17 at this point ("the Lord is the Spirit"). Interestingly for this controversy, Borg even says that "Paul affirms a bodily resurrection", but the question is: what kind of body? What does Paul mean by a "spiritual" body? These questions are profoundly difficult to answer (especially since we have but one resurrection by which to evaluate the question!) and there should be no rush to anathematise Borg on the basis that he "denies the resurrection" since a) he does actually believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and b) he does believe that it was bodily. The controversy is over what exactly that kind of body might be like, to say nothing of its theological meaning.

Borg also notes with a great deal of irony that those who use 1 Cor 15:14 to refute his arguments against a physical resurrection rarely seem to appreciate that Paul is saying it in a passage that seems to affirm the spiritual nature of the resurrection body rather than the physical. Wright has called this reading of 1 Cor 15 into some serious question (see here, especially chapter 7) but in closing this outline of Borg's position I'll put him in his own words:

"We [Borg and Wright] both affirm the resurrection of Jesus and see it as central to the New Testament. But we understand the historical events or ground behind this event differently. My position is that experiences of the risen Christ as a continuing presence generated the claim that "Jesus lives and is Lord" and that the statement "God raised Jesus from the dead" and the story of the empty tomb may well have been generated by those experiences. Tom's position is that the fact of the empty tomb and the appearances generated by the claim "Jesus lives and is Lord." But we both affirm the claim. This is who Jesus is for us as Christians."

Conclusion

So perhaps now it is easier to understand why Wright was a great deal more hesitant to say that Borg is not a Christian than some bloggers have been. Both Borg and Wright believe in the resurrection, and both believe in a bodily resurrection - they differ in their understanding of what exactly constitutes "bodily". This distinction in and of itself is not sufficient (even with a well-aimed 1 Cor 15:14 for good measure) to demarcate the boundary between who is a Christian and who isn't.

In closing I'll point out a few other interesting posts on the matter. Michael Bird's post reaffirms the centrality of the resurrection in Paul though both Borg and Wright would agree with all four of Michael's points (which just goes to show how tricky this debate is). Ben Myers replies to Michael, and I think he hits the nail right on the head: there is a difference between believing in bodily resurrection and holding to specific theological interpretation of it, which seems to be the essence of the debate between Borg and Wright. Finally, Christopher Petersen has a series of superb sit-down-and-read-with-a-cup-of-tea posts on the resurrection here.

The Daily Gazelle

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...The Daily Gazelle

The Daily Gazelle is a brand-spanking new Chrisitan website run by Dwight Swanson that seeks to offer an alternative Christian perspective on current events, both inside and outside of the church. It's way better than your usual God-is-a-republican-and-Hilary-Clinton-is-the-antichrist kind of "Christian news" blogs and written from the somewhat unique perspective of an American expat living here in the UK. Here's a brief taster of what to expect:

"At the same time that I was increasingly looking at the UK from an ‘insider’ point of view, I found myself looking at my home country, the US, from a distressingly ‘outsider’ angle. This was heightened by 9/11. Watching the Twin Towers burn and collapse, I felt personally attacked. After 20 years as an expatriate, I had come to think less and less about myself as an American in distinction from the people I lived among (even though the ‘natives’ never let me forget!). Being an American was an external to my self-consciousness. But, 9/11 suddenly caused me to realise that, deep down, that is what I remain.

However, my reaction to that pivotal event was very different from that of many who received the Occasional. The response was sometimes strong, and surprised me. Whereas that event had made me feel most American, as I read the reactions, not only of those who responded to my letters, but also in the US newspapers and websites, I came to realise I had grown to be ‘outside’ the mainstream of American thinking. I existed in a contradiction; simultaneously I found myself both most-and-least American. The sense of alienation grew.

The invasion of Iraq seemed to widen the gap. My expression of opposition to the war resulted in a stronger reaction from some readers than I expected. Though there were many who indicated their agreement with me, the depth of polarisation in American discourse came home to me very personally. I have observed the growing harshness of debate over these now 25 years of living outside the US; I have heard and read the shouting grow louder on each side of the conservative/liberal dichotomy—with no one even attempting to listen to the other, however shrilly each side screams. When I got caught up in this phenomenon from people close to me, it came as a shock to my writing system. I would sit down to write an Occasional letter, and not be able to complete the first sentence...

...Out of this discovery comes this new form of the Occasional, as a commentary feature in the revived Daily Gazelle. I cannot stop making observations that may be controversial to some people. I have to write about things that matter, and cannot be silent for fear of offence "

and thus The Daily Gazelle was born... (though actually it's forty years old this week)

Go and pay a visit and be the first to leave a comment, in fact I insist that you do. Here is the RSS Feed for subscription.

 (If you're wondering why I'm going to such lengths to promote the site, it's partly because I set it up but mainly because Dwight is one of my Biblical Studies lecturers and also one of my Pastors )