Here’s some short videos by Mike Licona on the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, each dealing with a different common objection:
These are good brief overviews of an historical approach that’s seen a lot of attention recently – N.T. Wright, Greg Boyd and Mike Licona are just a few of the bigger names doing quality historical research on the Resurrection. Here’s a few good books dealing with the same topic:
‘The fatal mistake of the Church was trying to ‘prove to a world come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of “God” ‘ . The inability to maintain this in the face of the world’s autonomy leads to the ‘ultimate questions’, where God now takes refuge. Here at least he is needed.
At this comes Bonoheffers most quoted question, a rhetorical one: ‘But what if one day they [i.e. these ultimate questions] no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered without “God”? (‘Christ the Center’, p. 12-13)
Where does this leave Christianity? The more I think about it, the less I can avoid the thought that this is the cold, hard truth – that the ‘ultimate questions’ are the last bastion that God has in the world.
This thought prompts this question: if this is in fact the case, what is Christianity supposed to be? Another question: how did Christianity arrive at the state it did?
Briefly, a glance at the New Testament seems to show that the very early church wasn’t terribly interested in providing the answers to ultimate questions – it proclaims a very simple, but very powerful idea: that Jesus Christ is the son of God, the Messiah as foretold by the Prophets, who was crucified, buried and resurrected, and in doing so broke the powers of sin and death over creation and opened up the divine nature for us to partake of.
In a nutshell, that’s about it. There certainly are questions that are answered – but so far as I can tell the early church did not see it’s message as an answer to ultimate questions that the natural world was incapable of answering.
Where does this leave us, and me? I don’t know. I think, however, that Christianity as a whole needs to be re-thought if its going to survive in this world come of age.
For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given. Chains shall He break, and in His name all oppression shall cease. And He will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, prince of peace, and His kingdom will have no end.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Christopher Hitchens, the well-known journalist and contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine, was one of the notorious ‘four horsemen,’ of the new-atheist movement – a particularly aggressive movement that made no bones about it’s disdain for religion and religious belief. Hitchens was one of its prime spokesman, authoring the polemical book ‘God is Not Great,’ and participating in what became a very well-known debate on the existence of God with philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig. He hatred of religion was absolutely unabashed – but this didn’t diminish his literary, rhetorical or cognitive faculties one iota. His social/political viewpoints and criticisms, whether you agreed or not, were sharp and intelligent and his writing was brilliant. He will be missed as someone who genuinely cared for people – not as a mere ideal or crutch for his own political viewpoints but because he really did care for actual people. He will be missed as a fiery and imaginative critic of religion – something that is very much needed in society. Christopher Hitchens will be missed, and my prayers are with his family during this trying time. Below is a magnificent memorial piece for the Daily Mail written by Peter Hitchens, Christopher’s brother.
An interesting take on one of the great thinkers of our time.
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=20-02-028-f
‘The third part of the book, titled “Christian Behaviour,” is the most professional, and there is a reason for that. As well as teaching English literature, Lewis had at one stage taught philosophy. He knew his way round the classic discussions of the virtues and vices and how they operate. He also submitted himself to regular, serious spiritual direction, and as well as knowing the intellectual framework of behavior, both classical and Christian, he was deeply alert to the nuances of motivation and action, able to articulate moods and behavior patterns that for most people, in his day and ours, remain a mystery.
I suspect that one of the great appeals of his book, then and now, is that it gives one a grammar of everyday morality, enabling one to understand and speak a highly useful and indeed mellifluous language most of us didn’t know existed. Some of his moral discussions are small classics.
He is superb on generosity. He sticks a small but sharp pin into the system of usury on which the entire modern world is based. He is fascinating and fresh on sex (though of course even more deeply unfashionable today than then); and his reflections on marriage, despite his bachelor disclaimers, are worth pondering deeply (especially his final comments about it being important for the man to be in charge of what he calls the couple’s “foreign policy”).
He is clear and challenging on forgiveness, spot on in his analysis of pride and its centrality, and shrewd and helpful on the fact that charity is not an emotion but a determination to act in a particular way, and that to our surprise we find that when, without anyfeelingof love towards someone, we actas ifwe loved them, we discover that the feelings bubble up unbidden, so that we end by feeling in reality what before we had merely determined to do.
At this point, of course, we come up against Lewis’s implied soteriology, and I suspect that others have challenged him on this point. Several times he insists, effectively, on the priority of grace: We can’t save ourselves, but God does it, takes the initiative, rescues those who couldn’t rescue themselves. But equally often he speaks as though it’s really a matter, as with Aristotle, of our becoming good by gradually learning to do good things, and with Jesus coming alongside, and indeedinside, to help us as we do so. Salvation, and behavior, are caught by infection, by our being in Christ and his being in us.
I suspect that Lewis never really worked all this out; and I suspect, too, that the outsider looking in doesn’t need to, either. I know that’s heresy in some circles, but I think it’s important that we are justified by faith: not by believing in justification by faith, but by believing in Jesus Christ. Obviously a clear understanding of justification would help a great deal, but I don’t myself regard that as the first thing to explain to a potential convert. Sufficient to draw them to Jesus.’
