Modern medicine sometimes heals people by killing them, operating while life is gone, and then bringing life back. Sometimes, of course, the patient is lost. If Jesus knew he would be resurrected, he underwent a painful and unpleasant experIence. If he did not know, he was very surprised. The usual meaning of the crucifiction and resurrection is achieved by having him both know and not know, which seems to be an act of intellectual dishonesty that brings about a heightened emotional state.
5
I'm amazed that many people would find it more acceptable to believe the incorrect, untrue and fabricated when concerning the Christ. There is historical evidence of the Christ biblical and extra-biblical.
I'm amazed that many people would allow what they term as truth to be predicated upon their own limited understanding.
I am not amazed at the truth of the One living God who manifested Himself in the flesh and paid the ultimate price for sin that all men, even those who scoff at the truth of who He is might have life.
And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life and this life is in His son, he who has the son has life and He who does not have the son does not have life.
11
"No one ...had conceived of such a thing as the worship of a crucified man.”
I hate to be churlish at Easter; however, this is the kind of sectarian hype that sells Christianity like donuts. Consult the various ways in which Dionysius/Bacchus dies in myths, and the ways that his death was part of his worship. The points of convergeance w/Christianity are greater than the differences. Also, Jesus was not an 'executed criminal'; he was executed for being 1) a heretic to establishment Judaism; and 2) a self-styled king of Judea in rebellion against Rome. Jesus was executed ALONGSIDE criminals.
52
Important to note that the cross was not a one-piece item.
It was a narrow cross piece and a long post to fix it on. See Roman chronology and journals. So two pieces were transported; all used equipment.
Also, the method of crucifiction was not to nail the hands but to pierce just above the wrists so that the united structure of the wrist would resisit the weight of a hanging body.
The feet were not nailed with legs elongated but pulled up so that the knees were bent. Thus, the victim of this cruelest of deaths was constantly trying to push himself up to breath better and so suffered more. Better visuals as well.
Remember, Jesus died in this fashion because he had a message he knew about for the milleniums to follow. He gave himself up after many succesful escapes and evasions.
Soley because it was a destiny foretold and guided by his father Abba. So to understand correctly Jesus had no doubt.
the correct translation from the Aramaic language spoken by Christ is as follows:
"My God, My God, for this I was kept [this was My destiny-I was born for this]."
So we as well must suffer and understand that guilt and shame are in the devil's campground but our destiny with God is not. Be duly advised.
Watched Gibson's "The Passion" with the kids. We all cried.
Peace be with you.
11
I thought this article was going to be from a Trump supporter about how the "media" is giving him such a hard time.
16
Scape goating, putting your troubles or immoral acts on a condemned animal was not an original idea. Our species used its imagination and attractions to magic long before Christ was promoted to replace goats.
Asking or accepting someone else to be punished for your wrongs is immoral and that "logic" is the foundation of Christianity. Very attractive, very enticing, but immoral.
28
Yes. It's absolutely crazy.
11
Don't some atheists ever tire of making fun of those of us who aren't?
It's about as annoying as being patronized by a fundamentalist Christian.
33
Every Evangelical privileging Trump's cruelty, dishonesty, violence against immigrants and the disenfranchised should read this.
15
Technically, Jesus was a criminal. He allowed people to call him a king and participated in efforts to proclaim him king. To the Romans, always extremely nervous about such things, this was straight up subversion. So, regardless of the sympathy we have for Jesus, he was under Roman law guilty of sedition. You can't really blame the Romans. How the heck were they to know who he was. Palestine was crawling with prophets of all kinds.
11
This theology of the cross which you proclaim is so yesterday. Today, Jesus is the God of triumphalism and dominion. Following Jesus can make you rich. Following Jesus means being able to fly around on private jets and strut on stage with $5,000 shoes. It's all positive thinking these days as the smiling Evangelist from Houston reminds us. Yes, that Jesus of the Cross has been replaced by Armageddon Jesus who is just waiting with sword in hand for Israel to annex the West Bank, tear down the Al Asqa Mosque and rebuild the temple so he can come down in his fiery glory, slaying the infidels and rapture up all those believers. No, the believers of today reject God's love and participation in our suffering. They reject the need to turn inward and repent of their own sins. They're too busy attempting to hold political power so they can force obedience to their Lord's demand that women must give birth to their babies as punishment for their libertine ways. Theology of the Cross be gone! Gideon lives.
56
I'll take my Cernunnos, Taranis, and Toutatis; my Perkunas, Zeus, and Odin; my Athena, always. Be honest, readers: have you spent more of your life energy in service of Aphrodite, or the dull god of Sunday schools that Mr. Wehner claims to prefer?
20
How can someone ostensibly considered “intelligent” believe this garbage and write a column like this? He of course glosses over the unanswerable question of why there is suffering, evil and pain in this world if the world was created by this supposed all powerful benevolent creator. And if that supposed creator is indeed all powerful, why doesn’t he use that power abolish suffering, evil and pain? Perhaps that creator isn’t so powerful or benevolent? What a bunch of hogwash. When will humans wake up to reality? Religion is a form of mythology, pure and simple. And a mythology that is responsible for a great deal of suffering and evil in the world throughout history up to today. Time to grow up humanity. Admit the truth. Stop believing lies. Stop making up stories.
66
I grew away from Christianity and the Catholicism I was raised in. It felt like a natural passage out, and the cross played a significant roll.
The nuns were stern and unkind. The closet with the priest inside was frightening. The church was a scary place, dark and fronted by a huge, bleeding, nearly naked man on a cross. When it became clear that I didn’t have to participate, that my mom wouldn’t pressure me, I fled. After fearing for years that my dad would be tortured by devils in hell for eternity because he didn’t attend church regularly, I finally enjoyed undisturbed sleep.
Adulthood has provided permanent freedom from fear and church oppression, especially of women and children. The cross, however, still chills me. It’s a relic of a more painful time.
47
Public relations - that’s all the crucifixion is, a plot device to get to the real dead heart of Christianity, the resurrection. Utter cynicism: get yours in the kingdom of heaven cos there’s none to be had here.
14
Okay. Jesus is not dead, he is still alive and sitting next to his father, ugh, I mean himself, oh never mind.
His suffering was probably similar to the many other crucifixions that occurred then and there.
If he ever existed he most definitely suffered.
So let it be said that Jesus didn’t die for your sins but he did have a really bad weekend for your sins.
19
I want to think God gave us a brain and a heart and He wants to use them.
But the reality is that some people are born with less empathy.
Some people are born with more greed and a need to be on top.
Some people are born with personality disorder syndrome.
The brains of serial killers are different from others.
God created Hitler and Stalin and all the others.
I saw a video of an inman executing a woman with a shot to the head as she was on her knees on the street in front of others, all men. Her crime was that although she was wearing Muslim clothes covering her body and hair, she didn't cover her face.
I am not smart enough to know what God is thinking.
I accept that and I still believe God wants something good for us.
And if someone proved God doesn't exist, it would not change doing my best to live the life I know is moral.
On the other hand, I don't need people making up fiction for what cannot be answered.
10
A question for the faithful, of which I am not.....is praying and maybe reading the Bible enough? I was raised Catholic and was taught I would burn in hell for all eternity for not attending mass and receiving the sacraments. I will not attend mass or a religious service, so is prayer enough?
4
The Romans were swift and brutal in their punishment. After Spartacus lost his conquest of Rome, 6000 of his captured men were all nailed to the cross just outside Rome. Do you think that there were no innocent men among them? The symbol of the cross is indeed very powerful and Paul, who was looking at ways to propagate Christianity, very smartly choose it as a symbol. He also chose to spread Christianity beyond the Jews to others. Thereby making Jesus a "king" of all people not just the Jews. Circumventing the very essence of the old testament Bible, that Jesus would be the king of the Jews and lead them out of bondage from the Romans. They never gained that "god promised" land back until 1948 and only after modern democracies realized that Jews need to be given a homeland (no king's work in that) after a terrible tragedy, namely the Holocaust.
Symbols can be viewed as good and bad. Needless to say a burning cross has a very bad connotation to it just like the Swastika. The Swastika is used in India as a religious symbol but has a very bad connotation in the rest of the world.
4
The thing about Christianity is, that when you are in it, there is nothing so implausible, so contradictory, so awful, that cannot be explained away. And when you leave it, let it go, you wonder how in the world you could have ever believed things so outrageous to our humanness.
It's obvious that many many people need to cling to such fantasies, however, so fearful are they of life as it actually is. Alan Watts once said that the religions of the book are like going to a restaurant and eating the menu.
25
@Gene
A brilliant reference to the great Alan Watts highlighting religious insanity !
5
“What does the crucifixion “do”? ...but why die this way, at the hands of a violent regime
What was the point?
Asking that particular question merely touches on one part of what the crucifixion is about, but for me this opened a door to see, in a way I hadn’t seen before, the rather bizarre way the Christian faith appeared on the historical scene, namely:
God is in some mysterious sense “with” Jesus not only in his death but in his shame.
Crucifixion was a form of execution perfected by the Romans to humiliate and shame its victims ...
Because God, as Christians confess, is uniquely...identified in Jesus of Nazareth, the crucifixion undermines the divine honor-shame dynamic—not only of Israel’s tradition, but of Greco-Roman religion, and, as far as I can tell, any religion ever.
Think of how often in the Old Testament God is concerned with maintaining his honor and reputation, and how he reacts at being put to shame by Israel’s disobedience....
And yet, Christianity’s opening public move, so to speak, was an act of humiliation, shame, and defeat, unworthy of any of the gods.
This act of shame turns out being “the power of God”—a counterintuitive, bizarre, claim that would hardly make sense to anyone who hadn’t already entered into a new way of knowing God that pushes past conventional thinking, whether Jewish or Gentile.
The crucifixion helps remind me how outside our human frame of reference the gospel is. And for that, my modern left brain is thankful.” -Peter Enns
12
Perhaps one of the best commentaries one could find is a comment from EL Doctorow in his "City Of God" ;
" How, given the mournful history of this nonsense, can we presume to exalt our religious vision over the ordinary pursuits of our rational minds"
12
One must assume that God suffers if one is to believe that we were made in God's image. But, why did God self create as a sufferer and then create us in a sufferer's image?
5
Would that the “Build a wall!” crowd take these words to heart...
4
Sorry to be the one to break the news to you, but the worship of people who experience suffering and persecution does not start with Christianity. Its easy to find examples of this in Hinduism and Buddhism as well.
17
Two corrections to Rev. Scott Dudley. First, Christ did tell us what the meaning of suffering is. First, that "a greater good will come from it" and secondly, that by it, according to St. Paul, "we makeup for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ." From the Catholic tradition we also say that our suffering may be offered to God to accomplish spiritual good. The second optioncorrection is that Christ's suffering redeemed our own suffering here and now so we won't have to wait until his second coming to know why he allows it.
7
Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
11
It's called control by guilt. Amen.
12
So God is "with us in our suffering" and will "make all things new". What a silly game is Creation.
8
I'm just a recovering Catholic agnostic, but I can't see much of the religion I was taught in this piece. The headline is the editor's fault, but it does make it look like this is about today's Party of Trump base. Ok, its about Christianity. Jesus a Criminal?
I can't remember anyone teaching that the judgements against Jesus were honest, honorable or in any way deserved. Jesus, who was without sin, was framed. The Romans have no idea who he is, the Jewish authorities need Judas to identify him. Pilate washes his hands. Priests who don't want competition have Jesus killed for dishonest and craven reasons.
I was taught that Jesus was without sin, but like God, Jesus could be justly angry. Is there some non-Catholic elaboration on this that gives Jesus some anti-hero outlaw street credibility, something to justify "Criminal"?
7
There are exactly zero contemporary accounts that Jesus ever existed.
14
When I was a gullible brainwashed child in the 1950's I had to listen to nuns repeatedly say "Christ died for your sins." These days I realize Christianity is the most ridiculous religion ever invented, especially the magical resurrection of Jesus. The only evidence they claim to have is 500 dead invented witnesses. Dead witnesses, even if they're real, are not evidence for anything. When I explain why a resurrection is impossible the Christians say God can do anything. Zero evidence provided.
I will never be able to understand why there are millions of people who waste their entire lives being completely wrong about everything.
12
This is why William Penn titled his book, "No Cross, No Crown."
These pious conservatives have the most fragile egos and narrow minds. The hubris expressed in this piece is baffling. Something is very, very off in the minds and hearts of the religious right.
16
Where was "god" when the dinosaurs were suffering?
12
Very nice piece of writing.
Maclolm Muggeridge what a great mind - "the heart of reality is a mystery. Seeing through the meaning of phenomenon." Something Jews, Christians and Buddhists should know well.
He underscored for me that the unexamined life is not worth living, and the unexamined faith is not worth having.
11
Speaking as someone who has experienced profound anxiety from the age of four, depression from the age of six and trauma at the age of eleven, the glorification of suffering is obscene. Therapy saved my life. The Catholic church gave me Good Friday every day in its dim churches. Give me sunshine and the outdoors any day. I am so thankful I escaped and resurrected myself to be useful to society, but I'd love to have had 40 years of a healthy outlook on life when I was young to know what the world could have offered me. But dwelling on that would cause suffering.
12
@Kindred Spirit Jesus taught the value of kindness, compassion, and brotherly love. Why some have turned his beautiful teachings into some kind of a veneration of suffering and pain, I cannot really understand.
12
Mr. Wehner, you reminded this atheist that the true beauty of religion lies in the art it inspires. One could argue that enduring the rest is a small price to pay.
5
Once again I cant get past the subtitle.
How can a God suffer? If Jesus was anyway in a god-form while being persecuted - then he didnt feel it as human. Period. He didn't suffer as a human, if he was in even a 10% state of godhood, as his suffering was wholly tempered by that god nature.
No way around that. Its why in the early years of the Xtian communities, all the way to the Nicene Council and beyond, the Jesus Cults were arguing over the exact nature of Jesus. Was he wholly human all the time, until raised and remaining human, but transformed by this God? Or was he half-human, half-god the entire time?
The Homoousios arguments were what created the later schism, then the Proty arguments against the RCC claim that the Eucharist is a transformation into the actual blood and flesh of Jesus, versus a symbolic ritual.
A God like the Judeo-Xtian God is not a suffering God. Is not a god that knows the human experience, in any manner. Period. There is no scriptural argument that this God knows human suffering. And IF a God does suffer, its a god-level suffering, that again, is not human suffering.
So there is no relation, no correlation to be made between a God-man; half-god/half-human being suffering only in part. As the god half - must by its very nature of superiority (in all aspects to humans) always be in a state dominating the human half.
The only way Jesus is relatable, and therefore worthy of some "adoration", is if he was always wholly human. Period.
4
Jesus was born a mamzer. He literally could not have been born to a lower station in life. He was a 1st Century Judean 'untouchable' from a backwater town. So, when he *experienced* the joy of the Lord, he instantly knew that if it could happen to a mamzer like him, anyone could *be found.* He was willing to die to tell this truth to the rest of us - that God's grace was unqualified, that it could come to the lowest of the low, and that the only requirement was to seek it. This is rooftop shouting news.
The theology of the atonement eludes me. But this one fact, doesn't. Except that, when had my own experience the metaphor I used to a trusted friend was, "It was like looking down into myself and finding Grand Central Station inside - it just kept going and going." And I wept, and wept, and wept. But there was no sorrow in my tears, only joy.
Imagine a mamzer from a backwater town like Nazareth walking into Jerusalem with that experience still alight within him. My experience lasted 3 months. I believe Jesus, once he had it, never lost it. He wasn't talking about God, he was experiencing him, and his "Good News" was that if he, a lowborn mamzer could be found, we could too.
8
(If only people spent this much effort understanding science.)
42
Hi T. Stone,
Science is basically "truth," no? Just because some of the folks who came after Jesus got a little distracted by such silly things as evolution, abortion, and homophobia, and other such nonsensical things, none about which Jesus is ever recorded as speaking a single word, doesn't invalidate his teachings on love of thy neighbor and on forgiving one another one iota, does it?
7
science takes study and understanding; religion,takes only faith.
13
Why suffer? Well consider compassion, self-LESS love (sorry), empathy, kindness, and all spiritual fruit.
Compassion is our greatest resource,
but how do we get it? Please explain that to me.
I can’t even begin to imagine how, without suffering, we’d survive.
We’re struggling as is.
I’m asking you —yes you!—how do we develop this precious, but finite resource?
Can you imagine our species without it? I can’t.
I used to row crew at the University of Washington: Stay with me here there’s a point to this!
There’s a point on the water when you’re so fatigued you can’t imagine how to continue even one moment more. But then if you don’t give up, you discover resources you didn’t know existed. Ever.
I think compassion is developed in similar fashion: you gotta suffer to discover deep, vital resources. You could easily live your entire life and not have the first clue about this.
People are inherently lazy and i’m no exception: but moments of intense work, love, and sacrifice helps one realize there is another way to be.
8
Can we give equal time to an eloquent piece about Humpty Dumpty? Gotta lot of books about that, just like the Christianity story.
10
Perhaps I am just too literal but find it difficult that the maker of heaven and earth could suffer as a human, to feel the pain that a human would feel. It's just too hard to get my head around the notion of creating a world that contains evil. I would ask anyone loving person if they were to create a world would it have this much ongoing evil century after century.
6
One of the things it means is that the man whom conservative Christians worship was executed by a state, under false pretenses and undeservedly so.
And yet many of his followers continue to believe in the death penalty. Go figure.
13
“God, Revelation tells us, will make “all things new.”” Promises, promises. All religions are inspired by fear of death and the hope of a transcendent afterlife. Evolution made us optimists. And remarkably imaginative. The human capacity for wishful thinking is almost infinite.
8
A major reason for Jesus life on the Earth was that he was one of us, and capable of suffering.
The atonement, or at-one-ment with us made Jesus human.
The New Testament claims Jesus performed miracles. However, he was not Superman, he was a man.
Some people simply cannot get their minds around that idea.
7
Osiris was worshiped by the ancient Egyptians, and he had been brutally dismembered. The Norse worshipped Balder, who was painfully killed by the evil Loki. Read “The Golden Bough” and you will encounter many slain gods. In fact the entire premise of that remarkable book rests on the pagan fascination with one. Or read “Pagans and Christians,” which very brilliantly offers the hypothesis that Christianity won over Europe by combing such a figure with a hopeful message about universal love and salvation. Oh, and the chief god of the Norse, Odin, gained wisdom but hanging himself from a tree.
9
Saul of Tarsus (otherwise known as Saint Paul) is the true founder of Christianity. It's Saul's interpretation of Jesus' death that Christians accept as gospel.
Knowing the real human Jesus of Nazareth is very difficult. Some even doubt he truly existed. But I think he did, and was perhaps one of the greatest human persons who ever did, if not the greatest.
But, like others, I think it highly likely that he was also schizophrenic. His riding into Jerusalem on a donkey for Passover was a deliberate act to fulfil prophecy. I think he was fully expecting God to send an army of angels to vanquish the Romans when he assembled with his supporters in the Garden of Gethsemane. When that didn't happen, he settled on another course of action, risking "suicide by Romans".
As a Jew, Jesus knew how much calling himself God would offend the Temple authorities. He knew they would want him dead and would likely hand him over to the Romans to oblige them. His saying on the cross "My God, why have you forsaken me" suggests to me that he fully expected to be rescued from that position from on high.
"Imagining Jesus was God is an insult to God - and to Jesus." A real male human person - perhaps a great and perhaps an ill one - was nailed to a cross, not God for whom such would be nothing. And even just imagining the killing of God is something I think Christians should reconsider.
"Faith is unnecessary. If any are 'saved' all are 'saved' and it was decided so at the beginning of time."
3
Scattered among the comments are mischaracterizations of atheists. Woe to any who dare question the tenets of any religion.
Should any good believers or anyone else wanting to get a different perspective, you might try
"Why Are You Atheists So Angry?" by Greta Christina
Despite the title, it does describe much of what atheists are actually on about in a very calm manner.
3
if you were on line for one of Torquemada's hot lead enemas, you might become testy, too. one of the basicm tenets of religion,,especially Western religion, is that the members of your in group are blessed and good, and everyone else is seriously,defective and requires either conversion to your side or elimimation as infidels. this is called loving thy neighbor as thyself, or else.
9
I wish I was the first person to quote.
" If Jesus had died hanging from the gallows, would the
instrument of his death be the shining symbol of Christianity ? "
" The first religion came to be when the first con man
met the first sucker "
I was brought up in a staunchly catholic family, my mother
wanted her sons to become priests ,I was altar boy at the age of
eight waking up at 05:00 to walk through blizzards to serve
mass.
I managed to shed those idiosyncrasies when I became able to
think for myself.
I asked my family to not take me to church when I die, but to
throw a party .
AMEN !
12
The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved.
Believing in any God is the true definition of faith.
The Bible on the other hand is something else.
I don't need the Bible to tell me thou shalt not steal or thou shalt not kill.
And the Bible has slavery. The Bible has polygamy, for men. And they stone a woman to death for adultery. They never stone a man to death for adultery.
Not only was the Bible written by man, it was written by men.
And if you want see the real miracles of God, study science. Science is the study of the world which, if one believes in God, is the study of the laws of physics and chemistry and biology that God created.
Way more impressive than the bread and fishes story.
8
Actually, there is very strong evidence that The Book of J (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers) was written in part by a woman.
2
For any humans with an education and access to any library to make these assertions today is astonishing. Unless, of course, they are making money from one of these ancient cults. As any grade schooler knows, fiction and fables are neither fact nor biography.
There remains not one shred of evidence that apocalyptic nomad self-defined preacher existed. Nor, of course, are any of the subsequent written "accounts" from decades to hundreds of years later anything but fiction - completely altered numerous time to fit respective agenda driven monarchs and ever more religious hucksters.
166
@Maggie
Not really astonishing. Most people, even those with educations, don’t read and certainly don’t go to the library.
They believe in all this hogwash created to control people. Because they are psychologically abused as children as they are indoctrinated into the cult.
If only this form of child abuse could be removed from our world . . . .
24
@Maggie It is clear that there was a person named Jesus (Joshua, in Hebrew, most likely) who roamed Judaea with a small group of followers, got caught by the Romans (with or without the help of the Temple authorities; the stories have flaws and contradictions) and executed, as so many other Jewish troublemakers were.
If there had never been such a person, it would have been easy for opponents of early Christianity to refute the nascent religion by simply saying so.
There is, however, no evidence that was anything supernatural.
14
@Maggie I think there's rather good evidence, actually. As I understand, there are more ancient copies of the New Testament manuscripts (within, say, 100 years) than of any other ancient book.... far more than exist for Homer, for example. And all with very good agreement with one another, illustrating a direct lineage.
I recommend Lewis' Mere Christianity.... he was a young atheist who studied and appreciated the myths which have been mentioned. His "Surprised by Joy" is the story of how he was persuaded of the truth of Christianity. He describes himself as "the most reluctant convert in England."
15
It doesn't matter to me whether Jesus is a god, son of god, born of Virgin Mary by the intercession of the Holy Spirit, risen from death or sitting at the right hand side of the God, the Almighty. That is not the reason why I am attracted to Jesus. I am attracted to Jesus because he preached certain ideals, the gospel of love and sacrificed his life for that ideals. Even the sufferings on the cross did not scare him to abandon his ideals and beliefs. If he had abandoned the cross, fought back against his detractors, cursed his tormentors, found a way to escape the sufferings or sacrificed his ideals to avoid the sufferings, I would not have been attracted to him. If he was risen from death, it is not because he is God, but because he was able to survive on the cross for his ideals to the last moment without ever wavering. His resurrection was a reward, if it really happened, it would happen automatically to everybody who follows his example. Even if he had risen after abandoning his cross, it would not have attracted me to him.
6
I was certain by 8th grade that the stories I learned about in Sunday School were on about the same footing as Greek mythology. In 9th grade, I came across a book in my small city's public library, "Religions of the World". (or something like that). The insight I drew from that brief summary of religious belief was that the world was populated by numerous societies, each practicing a religion that claimed to possess the one true understanding of life and death, communicated by a god that demanded compliance with his own set of primitive rituals. It seemed clear that none of the gods had ever lived in the modern world and were incapable of providing help with life as I saw it. Atheism was the only reasonable understanding of modern life. I committed myself to living as an atheist in junior high school (middle school to most of you), developing a moral code that was based on the kindness & honesty that came naturally to me. I was outspoken in high school, mocking the childish superstitions of the aggressive Christians that could not bare the presence of a non-believer. And I mocked them for their intolerance and inability to reconcile their religion with all the scientific knowledge dominating mid-twentieth century America. While a year younger than my classmates, I had the rare intellect and rarer athletic ability to defend my arrogance in the classroom with my broad understanding of religion or out in the schoolyard with the strength & speed to humble the religious bullies.
7
We are all driven by fiction - from the innumerable minute narratives behind our daily personal actions to the grand myths without which civilizations can't thrive. The author is convincing as to the power of a belief in a shared suffering between God and us mortals. It is indeed particular to Christianity and beautiful as such. So is the invention by the Jews of a unique and all-encompassing God, who 'speaks' to his people in real time in the course of their history. So is the putting aside of any God-idea by the Buddha, in order to directly acquaint people with their own responsibility and incessantly improve their hearts and minds. So is... etc.
3
Excellent point. All religions create their own mythology which one as a believer chooses to accept or buy into. Isn't that why a religion is referred to as a "faith"?
What I find disconcerting and depressing here in the comments is/are the number of non-Christians stepping in to step on another's beliefs when there is really nothing that holds up their own. Following that line one certainly can question whether God actually spoke to the Hebrew people and assured them of their chosen race status.
4
Christianity is unusual in worshipping a God who willingly suffered a very painful death in atonement for the sins of man. It is not, however, the only religion in which the central figure voluntarily suffered to teach himself and society the value of humility.
Three centuries before Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, Confucius, a very well-educated, giant of a man (6’4”), would sit on the ground by a rural road, fasting and gathering food from passersby. He would engage the strangers in discussions about life and then take the food given to him to the truly poor, infirm and elderly people in the neighborhood.
It is debatable whether or not Confucianism is a religion, since Confucius never claimed to be a god, although he was very knowledgeable about and worshipped the Chinese gods of the past.
It is likely that Confucius envisioned his own future as a philosopher-king of an ethical society, but he never achieved that dream.
Confucius often quoted the Golden Rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Again, this was three centuries before Christianity.
Peter Wehner is right to extol Christianity on Good Friday, but it is useful to remember that what is good about Christianity is also found in other religions and philosophies.
4
All I know is, that there are questions that need to be asked, although no answer is possible. All attempts to find an answer to these questions have invariably been weaponized in the struggle for power. Somehow, I feel this may well be the most tragic aspect of the human condition.
3
Raised as a Christian fundamentalist I left the fold by my mid 20s. The trinity notion is bizarre. The idea that part if God died to make the other two parts happy--doesn't make sense. Human sacrifice is a carry over from primitive societies. In this day in age, immaculate conceptions, virgin births, rising from the dead, heavenly ascensions--they're relics from very long ago. That being said, I do believe JC was a great teacher, a gifted human, but I not some kind of devine being. The Ebionites, an early Christian sect, got around the "divine/human" issue by being "adoptionists," i.e. arguing that obviously Jesus was human, but such a near perfect one that God adopted him.
7
I remember as a child my mother saying on Good Friday, "why do we have to crucify Christ every year? " With the gruesome religious movie's in vogue in the late 50s and early 60s,I couldn't help but agree. Blood always seemed to accompany faith. I eventually became an atheist, but an atheist who was always drawn to the purported "sayings of Jesus" in red in my family Bible. The red text was compassionate and wise, expounding ideas of another kind of life that could be lived. These ideas were revolutionary and that's why he suffered and died. Maybe it had nothing to do with atonement for all humanity and everything to do with one person's courage of their convictions.
8
God's or anyone's suffering is only useful if we take responsibility for it. Otherwise, it's a waste. The goal is to make "all things new again." But only through humans taking responsibility for suffering, can that happen. Lots of people use God as a way to not take responsibility for the suffering they see around them. If a religion opens a door for them to do that, with a clear conscience, then that is why that particular religion will be very popular. Religion is always a way to avoid the true God that is in all of life, all the cosmos and very few churches.
4
Thanks for the NYT’s mercy at this time, to get here I just marked the images of parking meters in a Grid only once. The cross, yes, can be a symbol of the faith. But, symbolism is not the faith. The mystery of Cristian faith, in my humble opinion, is very and very hard to be adopted to everyday life in a modern era. The personal or institutional resolution for it would be self or collective determinations, which can be expediently named “faith”.
1
The reason Jesus suffered and died and brought back to life has nothing to do with original sin, but rather to EMPHASIZE his message of love. It's a simple as that.
5
Jesus didn’t carry both elements of the cross. He only carried the horizontal element. The vertical element was permanently established on the Calvary. The victims were then nailed to the ‘cross’ and then hoisted up the vertical post and I presume their feet nailed to it. Middle age artists depicted Jesus carrying a complete cross. The vertical element would have been at least 15 to 20 feet long according to other depictions of Jesus on the cross.
2
Christian proselytizers like to proclaim the uniqueness of a God who suffers for mankind, but these concepts didn't come out of nowhere in the 1st century. In Classical myth, there's Prometheus who I think even the Church Fathers cited as a Christ prototype. And Plato casts Socrates as a secular martyr for philosophy and recounts his death with as many details as a Passion Play. Other commenters have noted Osiris and similar myths in common currency at that time. In any case, I think the Roman world was fertile ground for cultural upheaval around the time of the Gospels, but it was a convergence of movements, not just one new religion that brought about the Christian era.
13
Yeshua was part of the monotheistic religion he practiced. He does not represent pagan dying gods. He represents the sacrificial lamb at Passover and the substitutionary ram which was sacrificed by Abraham instead of Isaac.
He came to show that Y-h could provide the ultimate sacrifice for the entire universe so that man-made religions that demand institution-serving sacrifices and oppressive holier-than-thou standards would be short-circuited. Then people could recognize that Y-h unconditionally loves all of us and wants us to love Y-h and everyone else the same way.
The myth of the dying/resurrecting god in mythology was just another story in the myriad of religions. Followers of such a religion would make such a connection between Yeshua and, say, Mithras. But Yeshua's followers would have associated him with the Passover lamb. After all, that's what Yeshua was observing at the time he was captured and crucified by the two religious institutions in power in Palestine.
4
More and more scholarship is coming to light supporting the theory that there never was a Jesus. More likely a compilation of various individuals who annoyed the Romans and the Jewish authorities enough to the point of getting themselves executed. While “Christianity” has some worthwhile concepts particularly as a way to treat one another with compassion it might be time for followers to start reevaluating the whole thing. As a former catholic I find this reassessment enlightening.
18
It's actually the reverse. He existed historically. Josephus, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger are sceptical historians that acknowledge him and the movement he started. The details of his life, his teachings, and the miracles ascribed to him are at issue, not his existence.
12
Read Tacitus. He even uses the man’s real name, “Joshua Ben Joseph.”
4
Hmmm...I was under the impression that Islam was "the most popular faith on earth." I believe Islam has more followers than Christianity. Sorry to break the news on Good Friday.
13
@Eli
I caught that, too.
1
Last estimates I saw are 2.4 billion Christians, 1.8 billion Muslims.
1
@Eli Christianity is the most followed with 2.3 billion, Islam 1.8 billion.
1
Thank you for a wonderful reflection for Good Friday. You enriched my observance. Invariably folks will pile on with picayune quibbles to defend themselves against this disturbing moment of divine in breaking. So much more is to be gained by sitting with the crucifixion and learning who God is for us. I am not surprised by resistance. Very few disciples - mostly women - could follow Jesus to the cross at all. We still avoid it because it shows us how we reject God and in rejecting God brutalize humanity.
18
On the rare occasion that the Times publishes a tract friendly to Christianity, those who have a problem with Christianity inevitably come out of the woodwork to disparage and needle. They accomplish nothing. If they think their words convert a believer to disbelief, then they vastly and almost quaintly overestimate their powers. On the other hand, if they were to approach as St. Anselm did, from the starting point of a desire for faith seeking understanding, then they might eventually find themselves incalculably improved — even reborn, as it were, into a life that is peaceful, meaningful, and authentic.
26
thanks. i find it interesting that people who claim to be so kind and tolerant can be so rude and intolerant when it comes to faith and spirituality.
23
@Just sipping my tea
"...find themselves incalculably improved — even reborn, as it were, into a life that is peaceful, meaningful, and authentic."
As a person brought up in the Evangelical faith, leaving it, following my own way with no belief in a deity, I am happier, more peaceful than ever not counting every action that could possibly be sinful. My life has deep meaning as I live by the Golden Rule as closely as possible, and I try to be as authentic in my life as much as possible.
19
The determination to believe without proof is the most inexplicable mystery of Christianity to me.
18
Several years ago, an exchange student from Kazakhstan was living with us over Easter. Nominally Muslim, he was not particularly knowledgable about any religion.
On Maundy Thursday service, I tried to explain the 'Easter story' to him - so familiar to me since childhood, the core of our Christian faith, but when I attempted to tell the story to a non-believer, Palm Sunday to Easter, I stumbled - it is a bizarre account at best, the egregiously gory worship of the torture and murder of an innocent man, betrayal of friends, unfaithful followers, gutless dishonest leaders.
Since then, I have examined my faith closely and have realized this: Jesus never asked us to worship him, never asked us to gaze lovingly at a baby in a manger or a tortured man on a cross, never asked us to create elaborate art depicting his life, never asked us to blindly follow religious leaders.
Jesus asked but one thing - for us to FOLLOW HIM. To follow his unambiguous Instructions :
To feed the hungry, aid the poor, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, protect the vulnerable.
To live with honesty, humility, compassion, love, integrity, unselfishness, peace-making and responsibility.
To treat others as we wish to be treated.
If we are 'believers', then we should try - in all we that do - to follow his Instructions.
Everything else we profess and do in his name is worthless unless we do.
If we believe, we must follow The Instructions.
That alone is what is expected of us as believers.
570
@organic farmer yes. It is also what is expected of any good person.
29
@organic farmer Beautifully put. Thank you.
25
@organic farmer Exactly why I believe in this rather "bizarre account." Thanks.
6
There is no God btw. There is only human beings' inability to grasp the concept that life is random. When you die it's over. Religion is a human myth and has evolved into a for-profit corporation run by men for men. It's sociopathic. It's used in conservative propaganda to justify cruelty and control women and the masses. Sick.
40
Somebody like you, Mr. Wehner, needs to teach self(loudly) proclaimed christians like Mike Pence and Sarah Huckleberry Sanders the difference between worshipping an innocent who was crucified and a guilty grifter getting away with crimes while claiming to be crucified. Right now, they can’t tell the difference.
19
Has anyone considered that the practical reason Jesus surrenders to all this torture, ignominy and death is because he sincerely believed the truth and value of his own ethical teachings? Here is a Teacher who preached :
"do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." (Matthew 5:38-40)
Here is a Teacher who humbled himself to show by example what he meant when he spoke of Love, welcomed the reviled, the marginalized and the vulnerable into this Love, often regardless of social scandal or taboo, and ultimately, invited us all to love by his example:
“Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34, 15:12)
“Greater Love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12)
The inscrutable myth I was taught that the torture, ignominy and death of Jesus signifies the salvation of humanity and reconciliation with God simply failed to acknowledge just how much the Passion is essentially an object lesson for his contemporaries and for posterity.
Jesus was, by all accounts, an intellectually brilliant child (Luke 2:41-52) and man, a loyal and dedicated son and friend, and a profoundly compassionate, empathic, generous and faithful Teacher. He abhorred institutional corruption and abuse, repudiating the principles of retribution and consistently advocating an ethics of grace. His death, therefore, is only death.
5
If you think about anything too long it becomes strange.
3
Suppose, if you can, that Jesus wasn't divine. Suppose he was, as I believe, a mortal man with a brief career in the religion business. Really, you say? The religion business? Duh, say I. He toured, preached, staged miracles and supported an entourage of twelve. Yeah! He was in the religion business.
Back to my point. If he was just a man, but he could look down from the afterlife and see what's been done in his name, he'd actually be insulted by all the words that have been put in his mouth, he'd laugh himself silly at the idea that his mom was a virgin, he'd be deeply disturbed by all the blood that's been shed with his alleged blessing, and he'd be appalled by the fact that the symbol of his life and career was the ugly thing that had been used to kill him.
One more point. Whatever Mel Gibson may think, crucifixion wasn't the worst way to go. Yes, it was nasty and painful, but it wasn't nearly as bad as impaling or drawing and quartering, or even death by waterboarding.
15
The issue is how did Jesus become God. Paul did a great job here in creating a theology. But for the record, in the language of the day, a rough form of Greek, the same word is used for both criminal (robber) as rebel. The Romans killed Jesus because he claimed to be a messiah, a leader of the people, a rebel against Rome. Of course, this was not allowed in the Empire.
2
Christ was one kind of criminal and Trump is another. Republicans seem to worship both.
7
Just occurred to me why so many Trump fans compare him to Jesus: they too worship a criminal. He just has not been crucified yet.
6
Happy Easter everyone! Everyone is entitled to their opinion as everyone is entitled to their faith. I believe in the Risen Christ. Suffering is part of life and Christ proved that anyone taking on the human shape is not immune to it.
Christ was a non violent revolutionary as was Martin Luther King. I honor and hold both sacred. We could all use their humility and grace.
Again, Happy Easter!
8
Ah, the christian right, anathema to all things good and useful for most people. Indeed, the opiate of the 99+ percent. The commenter who stated that the religious should keep their theology to themselves was spot on. Let them be known by their actions. And, as we see, the actions of many do not remind us of expected so-called christian behavior.
5
Happy Easter to All my Christian friends!!!
4
My understanding is that Jesus WAS God. So your premise that a man died on the cross is false. I have always wondered why Christians get all worked up over the relatively (if not totally) insignificant experience of God on the cross. God knows it is an eternal being, and therefore knew that the Crucifixion thing was a temporary experience with no lasting repercussions for itself. The whole sacrifice thing is just pagan sophistry since nothing was sacrificed-God cannot die (so did not)-God knows it cannot die (so at no time was under any threat of losing anything). Nothing was sacrificed.
I always thought the real message was that death, and suffering, are not to be feared. "Look, I did it and I'm fine. Like me, you too are eternal, so be true to yourselves and quit letting fear compromise your soul."
1
“God has entered into our suffering through his own suffering.”
This is the kind of pronouncement that drives me crazy. How can an all-knowing, all-powerful creator feel pain in any manner that would be comprehensible to humans? Shouldn’t that sort of deity be above feeling pain, especially emotional pain?
I suppose it is understandable that humans would inevitably resort to imagining a creator using human terms. After all, it is the only sort of imagining of which we are capable. But to imagine an all powerful deity in those terms reduces the scale of that deity to the human scale. Take the Genesis story of Adam and Eve. The moral of that story is that God punishes them for the sin of disobedience, which punishment will go on forever. Basically, the message is, “I told you not to do it, you did it anyway, so you and your offspring are doomed forever.”
I can’t help but feel that this conception of the creator is petty and disturbingly human in nature. Can’t we at least aspire to worship a deity that is grander in scale, less susceptible to human foibles? On the other hand, I suppose it’s all you can expect from a faith created by people who lived over 2000 years ago.
2
The only comfort I have this Easter/Passover season is the nearly 40% of Millennials who state "no affiliation" on surveys.
19
I believe in God. I’m glad because prayer has helped me through a lot of stuff!
6
The graffito from Nero's Golden House. Alexamenos worships his god, with a crucified donkey-headed god attests to the potential for ridicule of the cross. In fact, the cross didn't become a popular symbol of Christianity until Constantine banned its actual use. The the myths of other dying and resurrection gods of Graeco-Roman antiquity like Adonis and Osiris were never dwelt on the torture involved in their gods' deaths, but Osiris' wife Isis, like the Virgin Mary, was herself acquainted with grief and shared people's sorrows. Women wept for Adonis every year until his resurrection. Not unique to Christianity, but still a valuable insight that the god who undergoes suffering also understands suffering even if its genesis or purpose is never explained.
4
Why worship a man at all, if you can worship a God, unless, of course, you have been brought up into thinking that particular man also happens to be a God? Jesus was just one of many prophets (like Mohammed, for instance) sent by God to deliver a message but, somehow, people made him into the very God that sent him. I mean no harm but the story makes very little sense. I used to watch Buckley’s Firing Line and saw this particular episode (usually around Christmas time) more times than I recall because he (Buckley) also believed in the story of man becoming God, or God becoming man.
Sorry, believe in religion if you wish, but I just find it irrelevant and unhelpful in explaining the world.
I’m happy for my life to end when it ends and accept that I am not immortal. The Law and personal morality are all we have to control the evil impulses in humanity.
Given the corruption we see in the churches, particularly their protection of the child rapists in their ranks, I just don’t think Church is a good place to go.
9
It is extremely unlikely that Jesus was crucified as a criminal. He would have been crucified as a perceived rebel or political threat to Rome.
3
@allentown the charge was sedition.
Publish an article on religion, especially Christianity, and the atheists roar back. Amusing. I can see both sides, but i guess i drifted toward Christianity after reading the Times and saw how cruel, greedy, and lost, we really are. So, to my mind, Jesus died on the cross because God through evolution, saw humans coming and let it continue on knowing what we really are. Wild animals. God dying on a cross or a tree is taking the blame for what He allowed to happen. It's His fault as much as ours, if not more. He choose to put up with us and here we are. Our attempts at beauty, studying the Universe, our love for each other although still mostly confined to family members, is his belief that slowly we will continue to evolve, to create more beauty, through art, music, science, and who knows, we may reach our potential and astound ourselves and maybe even God.
5
Why do atheists believe they can change anyone's mind by mocking them? Or is it just to feel superior? Regardless, I'm not a Christian but today is Good Friday. Give it a rest. Can't people with different beliefs have a holiday without being criticized?
173
@Benjo
The best way not to have people laugh at your beliefs, whatever they may be, is to keep them to yourself. The moment you display them, everybody has the right to laugh.
72
@Benjo
Atheists are not necessarily non-religious. Buddhism, for example, is a godless (atheist) religion.
You can also be atheist and supersticious: e.g. you may believe in ghosts and, at the same time, not believe in any god.
The correct term for a completely rational individual would be "non-religious", i.e. an individual who is not subject to religion, any religious thinking or superstition.
17
If contemporary Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. would content themselves to exercise their beliefs privately, or limit imposing their superstitions on only other members of their various cults, much human conflict & suffering could be relieved. Sadly, many believers assume it is their obligation to force their ignorance on others. It is beyond bizarre that in this country, forcing others to live according to the superstitions of a small minority, is rationalized as an exercise in "religious freedom". For example, compelling anyone to accept Catholic doctrine when they reject the religion, is simplly authoritarian.
49
I appreciate this fellow wanting -- in a season of renewal -- to talk about the glorious mysteries of incarnation and the insights yielded thereby to us the perplexed.
Still, it behooves us to note that every variety of religion addresses this world with a view to death&birth, suffering&comfort, pain&pleasure, evil&good.
And, too, it is worth saying that all the mystics see Truth and Love as inextricable, which suggests, to me anyway, that no faith practice need label and divide the world into these dichotomies.
Or claim exclusive rights to understanding.
1
What Mr. Wehner seems to miss is that far too many Christians -- especially of the evangelical variety -- are much too caught up in Christian cultural triumphalism, notwithstanding their pious words about suffering and compassion.
5
Let me start with, I believe in God. I don't know why, just do. I do not, however, believe that human kind knows anything about god. It seems pure heresy to me to claim that mankind was created in the image of god. For one thing, that would make god interesting but imperfect. God must be perfect because god is reality. In my view, God is what is. And "what is" can be probed by science to continually improve our understanding, but we will never come close to fully understanding god. Our understanding is limited by our brains: neuron limited hardware. So, while I respect that others tap into God by the symbols of stories, I can't. And, I just don't get how anyone could. I'm not saying I know better than they, I'm saying that none of us can know God. Ever. So stop relying on storytelling. Unless of course the storytelling has value, even if it is fiction. Many argue that it does. Also, and this is going to anger some people, the story of Jesus as god seems particularly foolish to me. IF, and that's a big if, Jesus was god, suffering and dying on the cross for our sins would be a big painful sacrifice but NOT a huge sacrifice. Why? Because he would have known he was going to heaven, that he would have an afterlife, etc. All the things we humans don't know and so fear. When a human willingly suffers and dies for a cause, that is huge. Because we don't know what, if anything, is on the other side. So, Easter is simply symbolic of renewal for me. And that's useful.
1
Mahatma Gandhi once indicated his greatest repect for this Christ who is said to have died on the cross, but not so much for those claiming to be among his followers. That being said as it reflects my own opinion, I say the only Christian who ever lived, is the one who died on the cross.
5
I have never understood how blame for the crucifixion could fall on Jewish people when it was a Roman emperor who condemned him, and Roman soldiers carried out the execution. It isn't as if a census was conducted on the rabble after they had participated in Pilate's poll. Religions of any flavor seem dangerous to me, or at least enabling to dangerous people.
7
Why sympathize with a false Messiah who - according to the story - believed himself to be a god?
.
What about the thousands of brave people who opposed Rome - risking their lives to fight for freedom? A man who claims to be a god and that everyone else's sins are absolved because he suffers - is an egotist.
.
Not someone to be admired.
5
This article and the comments are too complicated. It is when we suffer that we learn about love and humility. And God sacrificed his son to end all sacrifices. God doesn't want sacrifices from us, only good deeds. And love.
3
@ART
Except, there is not God.
1
I agree with the power of the crucifixion and the facility of "shared suffering." But it is not JUST the cross and suffering, it's the resurrection into eternal life, both for Christ and for Humanity. Many Christians emphasize Good Friday over Easter without really knowing it.
Also note that this suffering, death and resurrection is NOT unique to Jesus and Christianity, although it is by far the most famous WESTERN incidence of such. Mithra from the Persian (Zoroastrian) faith also was born around December 25th, suffered and died. The equal-armed cross was also used in that religion, which is still found widely in Catholic and other faiths. In ancient Rome, Christians were often confused with Mithrians, the tales were so similar.
Osiris died and was resurrected by his wife, Isis. Egyptian statues of Isis holding her infant child Horus resembled Mary holding Jesus.
Buddhism also advocates for the spiritual use and need for suffering, essential for spiritual progress--600 years before Christ. "Blessed be the obstacles," they say.
Buddhist monks have done their share of suffering since before Christ and up to today, especially ones in places like Tibet and Vietnam. Renounced anger toward regimes murdering them by the thousands. Some even set themselves aflame to protest the sufferings of war and oppression.
Don't get me wrong. The Christian tale is the most dramatic and well-written--relatively speaking, one of the most recent. I believe it's true, but not the only one.
3
The first depiction of Christ on a cross was in Germany in the tenth century. Prior to that the most common image of Jesus is a that of a shepherd carrying a lamb on his shoulders. If you see the mosaics in Ravenna and Istanbul, you won’t see any images of Jesus on a cross. The crosses that are depicted in these mosaics are ones with lines of equal length, not the crosses of the Roman executions.
6
@Barry Andrews the Alexamenos graffito, probably beginning of third century AD (currently in the Palatine Hill Museum), is thought to be the earliest depiction of the Crucifixion of Jesus.
I based my comments on a well-researched book, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love for This World for Crucifixion and Empire by Rebecca Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock. I have visited some of the oldest Christian churches in Turkey and Italy. The most common symbols of Christ are the fish and the boat. Pictorial representations show Jesus as a shepherd. I don’t claim to be an authority on the subject. I looked at the Roman graffiti and it seems to be mocking Christians, showing Jesus (if that’s who is depicted) with the head of a donkey and the body of a man. I don’t think it reflects Christian symbolism at the time.
2
I have long entertained the suspicion that the famous words, "Why have you forsaken me," spoken from the cross were not Jesus Christ speaking to God, but rather God speaking through Christ to mankind.
That said, I remember an essay by the late Robert Anton Wilson I read perhaps 60 years ago, that was a fictional dialogue between Christ and (of all people) the Marquis de Sade. The final agreement they came to was, "Don't be afraid of the cross; the fear of death is the beginning of slavery."
There have been several god-figures, pre-Christ, who were crucified to atone for the sins of the world. It seems that we need dramatic reminders of the importance of self-sacrifice to attain transcendence.
The mystics tell us that knowledge of self is knowledge of God, and vice versa.
2
A beautiful column. I started life, having no choice in the matter, a Roman Catholic. The Church became my refuge, mostly from my parents. I tried to believe, but lacked what the Church taught was the "gift" of faith. Being precocious, I had also read a fair amount of theology by age 15. Augustine, rather too much of the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, others. That so many presumed to know who or what God was, and argued over what struck me as absurd refinements, was, so to speak, the final nail. I left the church before high school graduation.
Yet I never gave up searching or reading. Courses I took left me totally cold to Protestantism. I studied islam and was repelled by it. I became deeply enamored of Buddhism. I kept a copy of the "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius on my night stand. But at root, I was for fifty years an atheist, with the vague hope I would leave the world if not a bit better, then at least no worse for my having lived.
Last year, I had maybe three "Damascus moments." I had never studied Orthodoxy. My early Roman Catholic schooling had imprinted that it was just an inferior, heretical offshoot. I found otherwise. Faith found me. My prayers became real to me, and I felt God's presence. I came to believe that Christ conquered death through death. That human suffering was from human choice and Satan's influence. So now, in my own endless physical suffering, my days are nonetheless joyous, and I will be celebrating my first true Easter this April 28.
19
That was a beautiful story. Thank you! And Happy Easter.
3
A sad story by any measure. The lengthy search for enlightenment achieved, then lost again to the ignorance & superstitions of the medieval Eastern Mediterranean. A relapse worth mourning. Life can be cruel no doubt, but the cruelty is compounded when anyone is driven to seek comfort in primitive ritual and fantastical belief. The opportunity to escape life's torments can be found in many places that do not require the rejection of modern learning and a life in durable contact with objective reality.
6
With sincere respect for the many humane and caring believers whom I have known and admired over the decades, and with respect for their many efforts on behalf of others and this wonderful Earth, there is a fundamental logical flaw in the author’s heart-warming article and ideal. The logical flaw is to overlook the empirical evidence of the millennia. The employment (and deployment) of an acceptance of suffering as a means of control of women and men and of wealth by those in that smallest percentage of humans who hold and adhere to power over others and over the Earth is that evidence. Acceptance of suffering and obedience have been and continue to be as effective as chains. The alternate interpretation is that in contrast to successfully “marketing” the extreme human suffering of the Cross to create a “franchise”; the teaching was to show how repulsive and unacceptable the evils of unregulated power were and by extension are as we see today.
Remember the actual complete instruction was not simple acceptance of the fact: “the poor you will always have with you”; but rather, as a consequence of this fact, the second part of the instruction was to relieve the poverty.
6
The age of Donald Trump has only reinforced my awareness of the astonishing scope of human credulity -- the fact that people can be convinced to believe absolutely anything. Some vast number of people believed (and some still believe) that Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring out of the non-existent basement of a Washington, D.D. pizza parlor. Vast numbers of people believe that the U.S. government blew up the World Trade Center. Vast numbers of people believe that the Earth is flat and that the moon landing was a hoax. And vast numbers of people throughout history have embraced the religious mythology of the particular culture into which they were born, all of them foolishly believing that they just happened to have the amazing good fortune to be born into the "right" religion.
So which is the right religion? Any truly objective examination of the issue -- divorced from wishful thinking -- inevitably leads to the conclusion: "None of the above."
25
In the letter of James, chapter one, we are told to "consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." So what if we, in this life, have to suffer in order to learn what we need to know to exist in the greater life to come. What are 70 or 80 years compared to eternity? This life is just a training period.
5
@Aaron Adams I always found the concept of eternal life horrifying and the epitome of egoism. I only wish to return to the non existence that I had before birth. Now that is my comfort and live long held belief.
11
Much to take issue with in this essay, not least the idea that worshiping a god that suffers, dies, and is reborn is unique to Christianity. To the list of born again pagan gods mentioned by Charlesbalpha on this blog we must add Osiris, a key Egyptian deity, who suffered, died, and was reborn. This is a very old trope in the history of religion and Christianity borrowed it among other elements from contemporary popular religions. However, the key to understanding the appeal of the Crucifixion is the message preached by Paul to coverts that they must obey the duly constituted authorities and specifically that slaves must obey their masters. Good Christians must reconcile themselves to suffering on this earth, as did Christ, without complaint or resistance. If God himself submitted to injustice and suffering without rebellion so must you. If you willingly submit to oppression and exploitation in this life you will be rewarded in the afterlife and your earthly enemies and tormentors will be punished by eternal torture. Revenge by proxy. This is one of Nietzsche's important psychological insights about the appeal of Christianity - it's the religion of slaves. I can't think of a better ideology to reconcile the lowly to the injustice of their miserable earthly state than the one proffered by Christianity.
17
Not meaning to be callous here,but I prefer the empty cross to the one with the body hanging from it. It reminds me that without the resurrection, Jesus would be just another prophet.
3
To quote Laura Nero, "I was raised on the good book Jesus, 'till I read between the lines"- from her song, "Stoney End".
The real meanings of this story are mostly misunderstood.
Having said this, I suggest that the mean spirited "evangelicals" are, in fact, the real christians.
1
Every individual quoted and cited in this article is male.
Something to think about.
10
Human sacrifice is just not my thing. We all condemn it in all cultures throughout history..... except in Christianity. Baffling.
10
"Worshiping a God of wounds is a little strange..."
Even stranger is the hold of primitive beliefs about the nature of reality on the minds of humans.
8
Reminds me of the choral chant at the end of the depression era play, All Gods Chillin' Got Wings, when the people are trying to understand why their hero and savior, Jesus allows himself to be crucified: "Maybe God's gotta suffer, too. Maybe God's gotta suffer, too . . ."
2
I hope I may be excused for my distrust of all this talk about Christian love and devotion to humanity --ostensibly because God-Christ cares. As a Jewish boy growing up in severely anti-Semitic Boston in the 1930s and 40s, my friends and I learned the importance of staying away from Christians, especially at Easter, since we never knew which gangs among them spent the day looking to beat us up in the street, something at which they often succeeded.
Later, in the 1950s and 60s, my neighborhood struggled to make sense of what we now call the Holocaust. It was unavoidable that we saw Christian Jew-hatred at its core. Vatican II seemed, if anything, a recognition by the Church of the obvious truth that blaming Jews for the death of Jesus had, in fact, been taught by the Church and had contributed mightily to the Holocaust.
In the 1980s, American Lutheranism officially disassociated itself from Luther's severely anti-Jewish teaching and preaching. That is Luther from Germany.
And skipping to the present, I, in my mid 80s, understand that anti-Semitism is finding its way out of the sewer once again, most notably in Europe, the place that was proudly known as Christendom for nearly 2000 years.
What love is it that insists that only Christians can get to heaven, which meant for a time that Christian-German murderers of Jews could one day be with God but their Jewish victims could, by definition, not?
As a deep secularist, I find all this ludicrous. As a historian, frightening.
444
@BF-- Thanks for your astute thoughts and sharing your long-term experience with Christian reality. Christian contradiction seems to be a large part of America's culture now. Even more so with evolving Wealth Theology and America's "Freedom" crusaders now filling key cabinet posts at the top of our Executive Branch. America needs to take a real, difficult, and narrow path to the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth even as he convincingly pitched the bliss of heaven after a brutal death on earth. Secular humanitarianism can also produce that result in education.
31
When I grew up in Brooklyn, the only Christian family on the block, we were totally outnumbered by the Jews. So Christmas and Santa Claus were mocked - I mean how stupid we were to believe in any of this -and physical attacks were common.
The majority rules and when the tables were turned and the majority was in their favor, the Jews didn't show nobility of behavior.
And keep in mind I was a CHILD.
36
@BF
Thank you for these illuminating words.
Having been taken to a small town Baptist church in my childhood, I never understood the cross or most of the holier-than-thou dogma. As an adult, I clearly understand that Jesus was a scapegoat for judgmental, evil men.
How many Christians have scapegoated others, especially the Jews? During this Easter season, I think many need to look deeper into the real lesson of the cross.
39
Jesus grew up poor in an era that was politically oppressive and economically exploitative, as the ruling classes used violence against their own populations to maintain control, and engaged in war to expand their wealth and power. Jesus’ teachings are exceptionally radical, and he was not on earth to start a new religion – his calling was to restore faith, tear down religion and its ceremonies, and to make way for the kingdom of God: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble” (Luke 1:52). Jesus challenged the system to show its true face, and its response was to force a crown of thorns on his head and to hammer nails through his flesh and bones.
The tool the Romans used to kill him and others, probably did not look like the Christian cross. The Christian cross looks more like a pre-Christian sun rod. It could, in other words, be a light symbol.
1
Carl Jung describes this in detail in Answer to Job.
1
In 1957 when I was 7 years old in the 2nd grade, I got out of school about 20 minutes late. It was at P.S. 174 on Dumont Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. It was just before the Passover and Easter. The street was deserted except for us.
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As I was walking down the street in front of the entrance, I saw a young teenager walking toward me. I recognized him as the older brother of a classmate who I had befriended.
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He walked right up to me, and before I could say anything he put is forearms around my neck and squeezed them like a vice. While he was strangling me he said - "You dirty Jew. You killed my god. Stay away from my brother." He walked away. My neck hurt for the next two weeks.
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I could see that he meant everything he said - especially the part about me killing his god.
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He learned his lessons very well from his parents or clergy.
12
As for me, it's Christmas every Day.
I give of myself in trying to be as fair and good as I can be. I try to have understanding for others.
1
Lol. I read the headline and thought this article was going to be about the Right's adulation of Trump.
I think I need to get back to reading less Times and more Bible.
120
@John
I instantly thought the same exact thing: The Right's adulation of Trump, and how the press unfairly crucifies him.
7
@John
You "thought this article was going to be about... Trump". So did I. We were both wrong, but there is still time: sooner or later some Republican will find that Trump is just another Christ, sent by God to save us.
9
@John
Me too. Of course, having grown up unchurched, I didn't even realize it was Good Friday.
2
This is all fine for you, Mr. Weiner, but Jesus is very far from being the only dying and reviving god in human history. They’re kind of all over the place, in fact.
20
Ah, the fictions people live by. Fascinating that an adult can take this nonsense seriously.
21
More Religious mumbo-jumbo to explain what we don’t ever want to admit. We suffer because we are biological machines in a biological layer surrounding a rock! We have a consciousness that has evolved over a very long period of time. This reality is hard to accept, so we manufacture myths to ease the pain of “what is”. The Bible is a useful resource to give us a guide to survival. Proverbs help us behave in a way so that we don’t kill each other. Jesus was a Hellenistic Jew who preached the primary tenet of Judaism- Treat others like you want to be treated. Be charitable in dealing with people who need help.
11
I’m not a big believer....but I will say that The Bible predicted Trump.
Proverbs 19:5
“A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape.”
Proverbs 6:16-19
“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE AMONG THE BELIEVERS?! That people of faith either cannot or refuse to see the pure selfishness and mean-spiritedness that is destroying American Goodness is terrifying and infuriating. Shame on those of you who delight in our president.
8
SOME 700 YEARS BEFORE Jesus died, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah saw it and explained it as magnificently as if he were a New Testament Apostle. From Isaiah 53 (c.722BC)...
"Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
...
3 He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
"4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
6 All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away;
10 But the Lord was pleased
To crush Him, putting Him to grief;
... the Righteous One,
My Servant, will justify the many,
As He will bear their iniquities.
... He Himself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for the transgressors."
"Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished... He said, “It is finished!”...and bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." Jn 19:26-28
3
@Aturn
It's pretty obvious that Isaiah was talking in the past tense about a person who was being treated unjustly by someone or some persons in power.
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He was not making a prophecy about some future Messiah. The capitalization of R in righteous or S in servant is an editorial decision by the committe that met in the 17th century to write the King James translation of scripture.
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It has nothing to do with the 'New Testement' or a future Messiah.
4
@HH
A final add on to my previous reply - you can see the lack of tense precision (per "rules" of English grammar) if you read v.10 - which - in a superficial English reading - moves..
from past tense: "it was the LORD's will to crush him..."
to present tense : "the LORD makes his life a guilt offering"
to future in v.11: "After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied... the will of the LORD will proposer in his hand..."
And even more compelling data point exists further down in v.11 where the sufferer's work of atoning for sin that has been cast as "past" is now re-cast as future: "my righteous servant will justify the many and he will bear their iniquities". (Note in v.6 this similar phrasing was formerly past : "the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (including the prophet's sin!!))
Quite a difficult situation for a person long gone in the prophet's mind to accomplish.
An even more convincing result will come about if you read the whole book of Isaiah and see how often future prophecies are rendered as complete or present by our English reading.
There can be little doubt it is perfectly reasonable and possibly necessary to believe Isaiah had a future individual in view - whether you believe them to be any person specifically or not.
Best wishes to you.
@HH In OT prophetic literature, it is very often the case that the prophet sees the event as so future he states it as completed. You will find this in many many OT prophecies. (It is universally known by scholars that verb tense is Hebrew and Greek do not carry the same connotations as those in modern English.)
The capitalizations are editorialization - as you state.
However, if you read Isaiah's prophecy carefully - this "person" is quite unique. They are not simply being mistreated as you say. Review the passage and you will see this "lamb" (v.7) has been assigned by "the LORD" with the task of bearing the sins of all the people. The sufferer is suffering under divine appointment (v.10) as a sin-bearer to achieve forgiveness via the cruelty of man. The sufferer is rejected by the prophet's people ("my people to whom the stroke was due" v.8), yet he grew up among them unrecognized as the very "arm of the LORD" (v.1).
After the death of the sufferer, he is brought back to life by the LORD and is alive again - v.10b-12) ("He will see the light of life" and "prolong his days" and "the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand")
Quite a person indeed.
Whether one believes Jesus is the Christ - is one thing, but the idea that this person in Isaiah 53 is just some person... well - that is quite unbelievable to me.
Years of formal Biblical studies - including in original languages - has only deepened my confidence that Isaiah saw Messiah as a true prophet would
When I was a child.....but now that I am a man I put away childish things..........
It is reprehensible of the NY Times, a supposed News Paper, to be printing non-sense like this. The fabrication of christianity, as in having a jesus, are all too well known. What is the point of regurgitating pure fiction. A what kind of god would create a "human son" and then torture him to "forgive Our sins?" Some god! Anyway, there really were crucifixions in ancient Rome...just look at the Spartacus revolt. When the Romans finally caught up with them the crucifixes stretched for miles. That is actual historical fact.
Everything (and I mean everything) about christianity is mythology, borrowed from previous religions, or stolen, or plagarized, embellished, or outright lies...
It doesn't take much for a modern day reader to see that no references are made to "jesus" from actual historians during his supposed lifetime, the so called " apostles" have books created far after, and they all contradict each other, and superstition and lies should not be printed in the NY Times just to be "fair" to the "other side." Get with the program. It is called science, evidence based facts, and not this lying, fraudulent, preposterous business of making money, big money....where anyone who calls himself "reverend" can get away with anything. That includes, child abuse, fleecing the poor, and killing others who don't believe in your witch-craft....
"Why I am NOT a Christian." Betrand Russell...
9
Right on!
2
Like the apostle Thomas, I'm an habitual skeptic. But I'm also a Christian for a very simple reason: I tried it and it works - always, and often to my surprise and amazement.
For me, the crucifixion story became an indelible, scalding indictment of our insane human propensity for injustice. It continues to define the essence of evil and its enticements, ultimately revealed to be powerless in the silence of an empty tomb and the resurrection of truth and goodness that continues to resonate over these many centuries.
I do not argue questions of historical accuracy. They're simply irrelevant to the story's meaning and the clarifying definition it provides for one's understanding of the deeper spiritual experience of Jesus' Touch.
####
A pause for humor:
I once told a Jewish friend that I knew his were the Chosen People because God gave them all those superb rabbis while He only gave us Christians one... but, wow, isn't He a great one!
My friend replied, "You're right - and y'all should pay closer attention."
7
As we now know that Adam and Eve was a myth, there was no original sin, we are not "fallen" and there was no reason for Jesus to die on the cross. Second, Jesus is supposedly an immortal god, he cannot die, so what does it even mean to say God sacrificed him (to himself) to save us? If you think about it, Christianity's core theology is that the supposed creator of the entire Universe and its billions of galaxies impregnated a Jewish virgin with himself to give birth to himself then sacrifice himself to himself to forgive billions of people from an ancient sin by a couple who never even existed.
11
It was a trick,
he was given a drug (“mad honey,” known as deli bal in Turkey,
contains an ingredient from rhododendron nectar called grayanotoxin)
by his supporters by with the help of a Roman Soldier. He was seen walking out of town several days later by credible witnesses with his non lethal wounds. Let's drop the magic stuff and get real . Frederick
3
Even as a child I couldn't understand why an all powerful God would set up a system of salvation that required the death of his only son.
My Minister father, a wonderful man, never succeeded in explaining it to my satisfaction.
Now I understand: Religion is a mythical story humans have made up to provide answers to their questions.
13
It is embarrassing that, in the 21st Century, people still study and debate this mythology as if it were true.
40
Not to rain on anyone's parade, (Easter or otherwise) many ancient religions in the Middle & Near East featured deities who died and rose again. Most aspects of Christianity (including the biggie, monotheism) come from other nearby religions.
21
Pathei mathos, the idea that only through suffering comes wisdom, predates Christ by hundreds of years, finding an earlier expression in Aeschylus' "Agamemnon," (lines 176-178). The idea - as spoken by the Chorus in context of the sufferings of the House of Atreus - would have reminded the Greek viewers that before Zeus all was perfect: there was no suffering nor learning. With knowledge comes a deficit: now know what we do not know, at least we should. To think that either Christianity or Classical Greece invented this idea is presumptuous: it must have been kicking around in our collective consciousness for some time before Aeschylus and the Greeks - where so much of Christian thought comes from - iterated this thought.
6
The Dead Sea Scrolls explain that the Roman centurion who pierced Jesus’s side actually saved his life. Others on the cross died because of the downward pull of gravity. The puncture allowed air to escape and kept Jesus alive, to be treated with medicines later. But the “crown of thorns”, nails, resurrection are all powerful images. Not to be disrespectful but the early marketing of the myth was brilliant - horrifying, moving, miraculous.
7
" to worship a God who suffers and dies — as a condemned criminal, no less — is distinct to Christianity. "
Not really. I had a college course standing ancient religions and the notion of a dying god who was resurrected was common. Dionysus ( according to Edith Hamilton's MYTHOLOGY). Osiris, murdered by his brother and brought back to life by his wife Isis. Tammuz in Babylonian mythology and his counterpart Adonis in Greek mythology. Orpheus, who went down to the underworld and was allowed to come back alive.
The course suggested that Paul was tapping into this religious trope in order to distract from the fact that Jesus was on record as an executed criminal. The difference was that Jesus was not a character in a myth, but a real man whose execution was on public record. It was a difficult argument. CS Lewis shrewdly remarked ( quoted by Lord Clarke in CIVILIZATION) that the crucifixion could not become the center of Christianity until those who had witnessed a real one had all died off.
165
@Charlesbalpha
Indeed. There is little that was 'new' in Christianity. If I recall correctly, even virgin birth was not especially rare in pre-Christian mythologies.
Many of the teachings attributed to Christ are excellent, of course. If humanity could learn to live by them -- whether as individuals we learn them through Jesus or some other source -- our world would doubtless be a better one.
it is a pity that so much of contemporary 'Christianity' is so diametrically opposed to what Jesus (among others) is said to have taught.
55
The problem is, what ARE his teachings. They are different in all four gospels, and even within a certain gospel they can be all over the map.
The Jesus Seminar studied the 4 gospels, plus Thomas, back in the 80's, went through each one verse by verse, and decided only 18% of the sayings attributed to Jesus had a high probability of being historical teachings of his.@Red Lion
20
@Charlesbalpha: CS Lewis might have been shrewd, but he was way off the mark here: plenty of Christians over the years have witnessed tortures as bad as the crucifixion, maybe worse, I don't know -- often in the form of public executions, often carried out by the church, or on behalf of the church.
You are right about the common presence of suffering in religious traditions, either suffering gods, or god-like figures (was Prometheus a god?) or suffered or inflicted for the gods. I don't think it's always central, and maybe it's not even there in some traditions. In the Hebrew Bible, there's plenty of death and destruction and disappointment, but is there any attention to the experience of suffering itself?
9
There is no empirical evidence relating to the existence of god. My religious friends answer this by saying I can't prove there ISN'T a god. I tell them I don't have to prove there isn't a god, but rather the onus is on them to prove there is one. There is no conclusive evidence Jesus Christ ever existed, even as a man, let alone the "son of god." He may have been a composite of a dozen different characters of the time who wandered out into the desert and came back claiming to be born of a virgin mother. Religion is truly the opium of the masses. Some day anthropologists will study religious people in the same way they study primitive tribes and mountain gorillas. As the novelist Tom Robbins wrote, "Faith is believing in something you know isn't true."
10
So much intellectual energy devoted to promoting the idea that a fable is reality.
10
I read in the Old Testament that God created Adam, and thought about creating Eve only when Adam declared he was lonely. Why, then, was Adam created with reproductive organs, if he originally intended to be the only human to walk the Earth? Why did God wait for Adam to declare his loneliness before giving him a companion? All the other earthly creatures had mates, without needing to petition their creator to wake up and provide them with one.
Then, a brief conversation with a snake ensues, and the next thing you know, Adam and Eve have acquired the ability to think for themselves. An enraged God quite understandably banishes them from the Garden of Eden.
There's enough lunacy here to occupy the rational mind for quite some time. But's here's the craziest thought of all:
"Perhaps the aspect of the crucifixion that is easiest to understand is that according to Christian theology, atonement is the means through which human beings — broken, fallen, sinful — are reconciled to God."
"Broken, fallen, sinful." So this is the species which God created? And the ONLY way to "fix" that fundamental flaw was for God to have his own "son" crucified for the benefit of Adam and Eve's descendants?
Happy "Look at the Guy on the Cross Because Dad Put Him There" Day. Easter bunnies and eggs are beginning to look a lot more sensible compared with this.
12
I can't fathom how intelligent people put their faith in an organization that has wreaked so much havoc on humanity over the last twenty-one centuries. A means of controlling the masses, this belief in a certain brand of mythic creature has been and continues to be incredibly divisive. Does a rational person really believe dead people suddenly get undead? This is a storyline from Game of Thrones, not reality.
18
Throughout this entirely vacuous article - substitute the name of Giordano Bruno wherever 'God' or 'Jesus' was said to have suffered. Through 8 years of imprisonment and torture, all done to him in the name of Jesus is God, Bruno never broke. In the end they had to drive nails through his pallet and tongue to prevent him from responding to the taunts from the ignorant masses as he was sent to his pyre and being burned alive. He turned away from the cross they thrust in his face as the flames licked his body. Yet here is Jesus, suffering for less than a day, allegedly son of God and God himself - breaking on the cross and lamenting 'Father - Why hast thou forsaken me". When mortal man shows greater conviction than son of God or God himself - it is time to abandon this mythology of the sacredness of this paltry story.
15
The most distinctly Christian religious characteristic, of the world's major monotheistic religions, is that it's not a monotheistic religion.
One God means one object of worship. Not three.
2
@ubique Is a three-leaf clover one plant or three? Christians do not worship the Father, Son, or Holy Ghost separately as if they were different Gods, they worship the Trinity.
2
Yes, and Joseph Smith's golden plates are a mystery, as are L Ron Hubbard's speculations and all the other and mutually exclusive mysteries of all religions. What is interesting to me is why people need to abandon rationality.
14
"“Why is there suffering?” Jesus never answers that question, and even if we had the theological answer, it would not ease our burdens in any significant way."
It would be edifying to have data to support this, if such data exists. This is the kind of baseless, throwaway statement that resonates and 'convinces' people to religious faith, but is, in fact, a straw man that cannot stand real-world tests.
"... Mr. Yancey argues that a radiating effect of the cross was to undermine abusive power and injustice; that care for the disenfranchised and those living in the shadows of society came about as a direct result of Jesus’ crucifixion."
If this is so, how do you (and these authors) explain a host of laws in the Hebrew Bible, magnified in the Mishna and (pre-Jesus) Talmud, that call for the care of the poor, the sick, and, as we sit on the eve of the Passover holiday, the most repeated commandment in the Torah which requires special care of foreigners so as to never mimic the cruelty the Hebrews experienced under the Egyptians on anyone else?
Echoing a comment made before mine, positing the origin of these noble ideas on the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth dismisses religious and philosophical ideas the world over which pre-date, or evolved independently of contact with, Christianity in any form.
5
@EDF
Jesus was a Jew and a Pharisee who believed in the Law completely. I offer you Matthew 5:17-19, which is definitive on the matter:
17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
As to why Jesus submitted to crucifixion, I would point you to John 12: 32-33:
32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
Jesus has drawn over 2.3 billion living people, and many who have passed, to the very Law that you cite. I see that as an astonishing thing.
That Isa is also a prophet (though not crucified) to 1.8 billion Muslims (second in importance to Mohammed, may peace be upon both of them) is also astonishing to me.
I believe the author, and Mr. Yancey are referring to the remarkable expansion of the depth of the compassion required in the Law to all the People of the Book. Worth celebrating! Alhamdulillah!
I wish you and everyone at your table a blessed Passover.
חג פסח שמח!
As usual, a stunning amount of suspension of disbelief on display regarding the murder of a nice Jewish boy, Jesus Christ.
What the death of Jesus most illustrates for us human animals is our continued paranoid fear, discomfort with, and allergic reaction to the idea of death.
Humans have always been a cruel and sadistic bunch; the murder of Jesus barely ranks in the historical pantheon of human cruelty and slaughter, although clearly Jesus was a terrific guy.
The widespread belief of the far-fetched myth that Jesus died and came back to life two days later simply demonstrates the tragic human weakness of believing the unbelievable while being systematically brainwashed at a tender young age by trusted family, friends and familiar faces all communally participating in a community con job.
While Christians are entitled to celebrate their holidays as they wish, we also should remember that the human species is between two and seven million years old and the planet is 4.6 billion years old.
The idea that Jesus' murder 2000 years ago and Christianity are some keys to civilization, any more than than the Zoroastrianism-type religions that preceded Christianity are,
is simply religious folly.
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
- Christopher Hitchens
Let's all just just use our human minds, hearts and personalities to the full extent of our human abilities, be kind to one another, and embrace death when it knocks at our respective doors.
Drink up !
112
@Socrates Ha, it is funny that you mention Zoroastrianism. Having read the book "Edgar Cayce's the story of Jesus", you would see that Jesus in a previous life was Zoroaster. He was also Adam (should it not be that the first to fall should be the first to return?)
1
@Socrates
in fact, Richard Lewontin was more honest than most atheists when they claim they don't have a specific belief system; they only accept the evidence of science.
Lewontin stated that we must, above all else, cling to materialism (or physicalism or naturalism or positivism or whatever the "ism' de jour is) because the "alternative' is so much worse.
We must cling to materialism no matter how irrational, no matter how utterly without even an infinitesimal bit of evidence there is.
Nobody has ever seen self-existent matter; nobody could ever see it because the idea of a self-existent "thing" utterly disconnected from any awareness is, quite literally, unthinkable and inconceivable.
Objectors to this idea often say, "well, when a train hits you, you'll believe" - astonishingly, unaware they have just proved the absurdity of materialism (using a sense percept to prove perception is not absolute!).
Richard Feynmann admitted we have no idea what energy is; Stephen Hawking admitted we don't know what puts "fire" into our equations.
Now, this is not a defense of religion. Atheism has been perhaps the greatest balm in the face of murderous, superstitious, violent religion for the modern age.
But the age of religions is over, Sri Aurobindo tells us. That means athe'ism' is much as any other 'ism.'
It's time to start a true science and end the religion of scientism, so ably expressed in so many of your comments~!
3
I’m puzzled as to why otherwise rational people still cling to religious mythology and superstition. Religions - all religions- were invented by man to replace little-known scientific understanding and to give clergy power and control over the masses. Believing in an all-powerful, all-knowing god is ridiculous. Abiding by the secular Golden Rule is a much more effective, peaceful way to live.
27
During Roman times people were crucified on a pole because lumber was hard to come by. The Greek word for cross is stauros which means a pole. Their hands and feet were tied to the pole. There were other forms of crucifixion standards used - a small “t” type standard which made it possible to tie each hand individually and “X” type standard which allowed all four limbs to be tied.
There is a little history of a large “T” type standard used called a Tau cross. Tau represents the letter T in Greek.
So to make an assumption that Jesus was crucified on a Tau cross is a stretch. In other parts of the Bible, the word tree is used several times, meaning people were crucified on a live tree.
I remember Muggeridge and Buckley on Firing Line back in the early seventies. I was a born again Christian then. The study of history released me from all that intellectual mish-mash.
Now an old atheist, I study astronomy, history, geology, quantum physics, and many other disciplines and I can see with a clear vision without all the clamor of priests and pastors.
15
There is no God, and Jesus was, most likely, not even a historical figure. The entire myth of any organized religion is a hoax, perpetrated by those who want to profit off the fear and terror of the gullible.
The Greeks had their apologists for their God-myths, as did the Romans. No Zeus, no Gods on Mount Olympus, just charlatans.
I write this, not to convince anyone, but to help those who are trapped in Christian myth by virtue of family pressures.
You can get out of the cult, but considering all the billions being made by pretending God exists, don't expect any leader to support you.
Hugh
13
As a rational person, I'm both amused and aghast that other apparently rational adults take it upon themselves to tell us what God thinks, intends or how God feels about human beings.
7
@Kenneth this was actually the first thing that penetrated the religious armor, when I was studying my religion and the “textbook” said “god wanted...”. First, how did the author know that? What was his source of information? And second, how could an omnipotent, omnipresent deity “want” anything? Shouldn’t it be self-sufficient? That was the beginning of some months of research that led to me becoming an atheist as I realized it was all just a load of myths and wishful thinking.
4
There are not too many reliable historical account of Jesus existed outside of the bible.
3
There is suffering in the world, but I don't understand why it would be glorified or why one would think that an invisible and omniscient God wouldn't be able to understand something that God's own creations had created and experienced.
It remains true that we believe what we were taught to believe as children. One person's religion is another person's belly-laugh, or worse.
I'm running home shortly to prepare to go to Seder tonight, to celebrate my people's transition from great suffering to great joy, with the knowledge that one message of Passover is that the ending of human suffering can be wrought through our individual and collective adherence to the Law of God, as we understand it, particularly as it relates to the care of those less fortunate then we.
No Jesus required for this moral and spiritual journey (and I would like to hear from Christians whether they think Jesus the man would have endorsed and been in thrall to his own suffering they way they do and are).
Happy Passover and Happy Easter, as you choose.
1
"“Why is there suffering?” Jesus never answers that question"...
Oh I think he does, as does Buddha and Krishna.
There seems to be so much missing from the Christian adoration of Jesus and the Cross.
Like the words from the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes.
Like the life he lived up to his death; his compassion; his love for all of creation; his inner strength; and so much more.
To many of us who approach the life of Jesus in a more Universal way; a way of Christ Consciousness; his willingness to sacrifice his life is a signal to us all that we, too, must be willing to sacrifice all that seems important to us in this life so that we may live in true communion with the Divine.
1
Easter derives from ancient myths(truths to believers)created to explain and honor the death and rebirth cycle of ancient gods and goddesses. Winter was death and spring the land's rebirth with new plant and animal life. The miraculous passing of the seasons.
Christianity borrowed from these ancient stories to invent a new story for a new time. Still, it's a story, albeit one with ancient roots. More of a metaphor than a theology, which would require actual deities.
4
Indeed. Sometimes experience trumps knowledge. It's hard for the human spirit to admit, but that reality doesn't diminish its truth. I met God kneeling at a Cross. I have no regrets. None. I only wish that others could make the same journey, and lean into the magnificence of it all.
2
I was raised Mennonite, and I'm no fan of making a virtue of voluntary suffering. Anabaptist theology stresses this so intensely (through radical pacifism, i.e. not just never fighting but never even defending oneself, which is held up as Christlike) that it leads to all kinds of unnecessary, unjust voluntary martyrdom. There's even a thousand-page book called Martyrs Mirror that is nothing but stories of Anabaptist martyrs, which is standard Sunday School fare for Mennonites - no thank you. A god who chooses to suffer with (or "for") me holds no appeal.
3
It is hard for me, and I suspect others, to read anything that
takes the existence of a god, or God, if you will, as premise for thought, even argument. The appeal of Jesus suffering as a political radical in the eyes of the priesthood and bankers, and offhand by the Roman military, is only strong if he is just a man like the rest of us. He was a sort of hippy of his time, strict, with the loony notion that he was a god's son (as I suspect he thought us all to be a god's children) and that the Kingdom of God was really this earthly existence for us to perfect. Probably of ascetic, with Essene background in the Cynic tradition, he had his street corners, followers, and had to die for that, for upsetting the status quo, the Conservatives of his time. Like the kids at Kent State. No need for the magic of a Heavenly Father up there in the clouds, and certainly no need to worry if a god has a conscience. That's on us, alone, vulnerable, human.
3
Tonight Jews recount the exodus from Egypt and Christians celebrate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. We humans distinguish ourselves from all other animals first and foremost as the only creatures capable of and needing to create a narrative, a story to explain what we observe. This is need is expressed in religion, folk tales, mathematical and scientific theory. The conditional nature of scientific belief distinguishes it from religious belief, but they both stem from the fundamental need to tell a story. The exodus and the crucifixion have proven themselves to be powerful stories.
5
I was taught by my Catechism booklet that Jesus was the son of God, a god who sent his son on earth to die for our sins. Jesus is supposed to have asked his Father while on the cross, why he was forsaken. This article has us believing that God was on the cross.
Confusing to say the least.
Sacrificing treasured things was how people worshiped in the old testament. Sacrificing a calf or a son was one way to gain the favor of the Gods. hence we get the story of God's son dying for our sins.
The Christ on a cross is a constant reminder to be ashamed. Ashamed that someone had to die for our sins, someone had to suffer terribly for sinful me. Ashamed that I was born a sinner and nothing would save me except the dying man on the cross.
When I grew up, I stopped being ashamed and reclaimed my life from those who beguiled me with fanciful talk.
7
@Zeke27 the idea that one is born fatally sick and has to be made well again is absolutely troubling.
3
I agree with the message, my problem is the messenger. Among politically progressive Christians there is barely contained rage at the usurpation of Christianity by retrograde political movements. I would hope the NYT would expand the list of opinion writers to include more Christians on the left.
5
The crucifixion also sets up Christianity as a permanently victimized and oppressed society, a permanent victim. Not a healthy perspective if you ask me, and one they can turn to every time someone questions their actions, another sign of extreme arrogance, not humility.
There is no War on Christmas, which is now commercially celebrated for about two months out of every year. The real war is on science, the only system that actually works.
9
Today on Good Friday a dove visited me sitting on the rail of my front porch. The dove stayed for several minutes peering into my full view glass storm door, surprised at his own existence? No doubt a mere coincidence considering the Universe and within, Time and Space. Still, it made me happy such a thing happened as i have never before been visited by a dove.
5
Down through the ages, men and women have died for their faith in Jesus. Some, having been crucified have embraced their cross, kissed it, and declared their love for the One who first died for them.
In 1 Cor. 1:18-27, we read how that the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it's God's Power to those who are being saved.
Later, he says that God's weakness is stronger than man's strength, and God's foolishness is wiser than man's wisdom.
We who hope in Jesus do so, as the author alludes to-- because he experienced our pain, and walks with us, through our pain, sorrows, miseries, and griefs.
He joined us, in weakness, so we may know the fellowship of his sufferings, that we may attain to the power of his resurrection. Phil. 3.
Is it pleasant, experiencing such sorrows? Not even remotely. But the intimacy, the friendship, the connection with Jesus makes it all worth it, as Paul tells us in Romans 8, and 2 Corinthians 4, and 10.
Come, follow Jesus, he'll be with you in life's worst. And upon death, welcome you to his eternal kingdom.
2
It has always seemed strange to me that in the two hundred thousand years of Homo sapiens’ existence since our origins in Africa, God decided to suffer with us, once and for all, two thousand years ago in a perfectly ordinary Judean town. How about the Neanderthals? Who was their God? Did He suffer too? It is true that among all the origin stories, Chritianity has woven a myth unlike any other- God suffering for us and with us. This is, along with ultimate salvation, of course, its inherent appeal. But that does not make it any more valid than the countless other myths that our inventive brains have dreamed up these past two hundred thousand years.
The universe, Mr. Wehner, is a random place, beyond love or hate, compassion or cruelty. We suffer, as all living things do. Eventually, we blink out of existence and our “suffering” ends. We can be happy and caring, live with serenity and purpose without the crutches of a suffering God.
21
@RajeevA, in terms of human existence on earth Christianity is in its infancy, not cut its teeth yet..
1
At the heart of Christianity is the concept of "personal salvation", contingent upon the suffering and death of another. What can be more cruel and selfish?
I would submit that Christianity is the worlds greatest corporate franchise, and the marketing gimmick of "personal salvation" is the precursor to consumerism leading to products like the personal computer, or the personal pizza.
Christianity's central, aberrant doctrine is antithetical to inculcating empathy and acts of kindness.
Anyone for Zoroastrianism?
3
@lf apparently it seems that Vicarious Redemption sells!
That photo this week of the ruins inside Notre Dame cathedral with the cross still standing and glowing amid the ashes, says everything to me. It and Christ cannot be "killed" by man or fire.
One of the things I dislike about much of the Christian Right's "feel-good" theology, is that it forgets about the Cross. Without the Cross there is no Christ with us - with us who are all sinners, each in his own way.
That picture of the enduring cross is a powerful symbol for this Easter season.
6
@India Someone pointed out that the cross survived because wood fire burns at ~600C while gold melts at 1,064C. Science. Just saying.
11
@India there is a scientific reason why the cross remains: the cross in Notre Dame is gold, and gold melts at 1948 deg, 1064 centigrade....the fire apparently did not get that hot where the cross is located, but it was hot enough for wood the catch fire.
8
The problem inherent in Paulism, the faith created in Rome by people who knew no rabbi Yeshua ha-Nazarini is that it has nothing to do with what he preached a century earlier, a variation of Pharetic Judaism ...
... And everything to do with popular Roman “Mystery Cults” of Paulus’s era.
We have contemporaneous accounts of Yeshua’s existence, but none of “Shimon called Petreus” a bilingual pun for Roman Greek “rock”.
There’s no reason to believe Yeshua would know the language used by upper-class Rome - similarly, there are no contemporaneous records for any of the Apostles.
Paulus created, with his “New Testament” an addition to the Septuagint, “The 70 (translators)” miserable translation of the Judaic Holy Scripture (with all the errors one could expect from 70 working ‘together’), four of the many orally transmitted tales of Yeshua, altered to make the Romans, the only specialists in executing rebels by crucifixion,the “good guys” and Yeshua’s fellow Jews, who considered his beliefs Judaic, the “bad”.
The end result follows the assorted fertility cults of the Year God in which a follower reigned as deity for a year, and was then ritually killed.
Why was Paul’s Jesus born in December? What’s roughly 9 months after the ancient celebration of sex,Estrus.
Don’t have space for full data, but this is how Christianity and the notion of a tri-part god where 1 part ‘died for your sins’ was born.
Faith and History are very different things that never mesh in any religion.
6
Please...no god.
7
Although I was raised Presbyterian, when we were first married my wife got me to go to her Catholic church for a Good Friday service. I was surprised at how they portrayed Jesus's suffering in such prolonged, excruciating detail. Then it hit me what this was all about. It was manipulating people on the basis of guilt. No matter how good a life I may have lived, if I was imperfect in any way, including being descended from someone who ate a forbidden apple, I deserved to suffer in hell for eternity. Yet despite the fact that I was a wretched sinner, Jesus, a perfect person, loved me so much that he suffered unspeakable agony to save me (personally!) from this fate. All I had to do was worship Him.
I suspect the success of Christianity is not because it is logical or backed up by evidence, but because it plays the guilt card so effectively.
10
Long before the book of Revelation, Psalm 22 ended with words that at the end, God will make all things new.
It strikes me as somewhat obnoxious that the NYT publishes a substantive article related to Christianity on Good Friday (an important, but lesser holiday), but just hours from the start of Passover, one of the most important Jewish holidays, all the NYT published is a fluff piece about kosher wine
7
@Wondering Jew
There is nothing lesser about Good Friday. The Easter Triduum—Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter—is the core and apex of the Christian calendar because they commemorate the defining events of Christianity. Christmas means little without Good Friday and Easter. As the dominant faith by far in this country, Christianity merits the attention afforded by this essay.
3
When is the op-Ed about Passover coming? And Ramadan? All I’ve ever seen are Xian op-eds. Pretty disappointing, NYT.
7
"Why Jesus on the Cross Is No Mere Symbol
A God who allows suffering is a mystery, but so is a God who suffered."
Well, of course, Jesus on the Cross is a symbol, it's worn by millions after all. The question is what is it a symbol of?
Wehner turns to various recent sources for guidance and never really comes up with an answer. And so if all else fails, looking at primary sources can give some insight, such as Matthew 27:46 where he relates that in the ninth hour of Christ's final agony he cries out,
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
It is the same opening cry that David calls to God in Psalm 22:2, which as a Jew, Christ would have known. Christ would have said,
"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? [You are] far from my salvation [and] from the words of my moaning."
But a little later on, he would have also said (Psalms 22:9),
"One should cast his trust upon the Lord, and He will rescue him; He will save him because He delights in him."
And that is the point. You cannot be spared from suffering, but you can be spared from pointless suffering. For Christians the Cross is the symbol of that promise.
2
A couple of points:
1. Wehner misses the mark in the opening paragraph. Imagining Paul after his conversion. This is exactly right. Imagine. The only account we have of Paul's miraculous conversion is the book of Acts. Acts is not good history. Even within the book itself, it recounts his conversion three different ways. Paul himself, funnily enough, never mentions any of this, and simply states that Christ revealed himself to him.
2. As for the cross, well yes, it was a poor public relations symbol, for at least a certain religious group: Jews. The idea that the Messiah could be publicly executed and humiliated wasn't just incomprehensible, it was blasphemous. It certainly goes a long way to explaining why Jewish-Christianity was such a failure.
3. The real selling point for Paul among the gentiles of the Mediterranean wasn't Jesus' suffering. It was the resurrection. Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians.
4. Side note- I've always found it interesting that the man is called Jesus Christ, a Koine Greek translation of the Aramaic Yeshua Meshiach. This tells us volumes of the history of the early Christianity.
3
The problem is, that those who look to a supposed crucifixtion of a man-god, then use it as a surrogate for their own for their own shortcomingd. They also use it to relieve themselves of the responsibility to fully make amends for their committe wrongs. The guy on the cross bears the consequence of their actions.
.
All they have to do is say "I confess that I have sinned. Father please forgive me."
.
And then they are done.
.
At least in the Jewish and Muslim faiths, the responsiblity and consequence of one's actions are borne by the individual.
4
The truly sad thing is that today's universities are turning out people who are utterly incapable of holding a conversation like this.
8
The Christian religion certainly has the Media in its grasp. To have an article state as a matter of fact that Jesus was God and that Jesus died on the cross only perpetuates a false idea used to forward religious nonsense. Even Jesus' own brother is on record as against using Jesus as a martyr!
8
While Wehner's faith must remain a mystery, there is no doubt that many who share related "faiths" drive our politics. In a country beset by deaths by drugs, guns, suicides, criminals, and cops; a country sagging under public and personal debt that goes hand in hand with great wealth (just check the NYT advertisements this week-end!)... it behooves us to try to understand the ancient mystery of what it is humans seek.
5
An observation: In the hour since I read Mr. Wehner essay, and watched the 1- hr YouTube link of the original interview, 200 additional persons have viewed it. (11,837 as of now) This seems to me a good thing on this Good Friday and I will be reflecting upon both all day.
4
God is a mere creation of men.
God only exists in the imagination of his believers.
Why should they not create a god who suffers?
Being an agnostic, I don't care about it.
6
I find the Christian celebration of human sacrifice to be a weird form of collective insanity, but people are free to follow whatever spiritual path they choose. That is, with 2 important exceptions. (1) you must never indoctrinate children. Faith is an adult decision and terrifying children into following God, aka the men who speak for him, is straight-up child abuse. (2) you must never allow your spirituality to morph into a form of government. For example, like Catholicism, Islam, and Evangelical Christianity. This is a tough one because if you truly and deeply believe in a universal god, what's a state? It's obviously just another entity in his domain. So the whole idea of separating church and state is absurd and laughable. Indeed, if you don't reach this conclusion, your faith is somewhat open to question. So if you let your spirituality expand from the private and personal to the public, universal, and ultimately mandatory, the result can only be tyranny. Given all this, I highly recommend music and poetry. The human mind on religion is far more prone to victimize people than to benefit them.
4
The Abrahamic religions include Judaism, Christianity and Islam so why all the bigotry. Furthermore as humans evolve and realize religions are mythological tales that helped explain the reality of the times it seems wise to now re-educate and update ideas to save the planet. Not good to believe "God" will take care of believers and all the rest of humanity will disappear for not repenting. Just observe the
golden rule and get on trying to save nature and ourselves from politics and patriarchs.
4
Nice article- just one little problem- Jesus was not a “God”.
No doubt he was a good, peaceful man of Jewish middle eastern descent. Dark skinned, dark eyes and hair with a message of love and tolerance.
Also no doubt today Jesus be singled out by people like Trump because of what he looked like and where he came from, as a middle eastern terrorist and automatic threat.
5
"A God who allows suffering is a mystery, but so is a God who suffered." If one chooses to transmute this linear presentation with however many "stops along the way, from:
Allows ___________Suffers
Suffering Himself
to Occur/Exist
to also include:
Allows__________Is___________Suffers
also Accountable for
What are his "creations" to understand?
Called upon to do?
On what day of the Genesis narrative was toxic, enabled, personal unaccountability created?
Made into a norm? Value?
As his suffering is acknowledged in a myriad of ways, and sites of prayer, what induced the Creator to enable his creations, US, to be immune from suffering by created, chosen options, of willful blindness? Wilfull deafness to experienced existential pains-physical, psychological, spiritual, social, economic, and others-of all-to-many. All around US, In an empowered, sustained WE-THEY violating global reality? Wilfull ignorance amidst tsunamis of available and accessible facts of ummenschlichkeit. All around US? "Allows?" and "suffers?" may be a bit too inadequate a question to stimulate the necessary quest for understanding the inherent complexities which you raise. Complicated even more so, that in addition to "known," currently "unknown" because of gaps in information, as well as technologies for "digging deeper,' is the unknowable." As well as everpresent uncertainties. Unpredictabilities.Randomness. Lack of total control. Whose suffering?
1
As the late Christopher Hitchens might have observed, ‘a loving god that permits (& commands the celebration of) suffering is no god at all.’
7
Why do Christians focus on Jesus Christ on the cross and suffering?
Instead of focusing on Jesus Christ and his Disciples along with the Three Mary's three year journey enjoying food, wine, dancing and singing with each other and those who were drawn to Christ message?
Having God become human was meant to feel all of what makes people into people. And thus ignoring any aspect of our common humanity must have some alternative motive. Making folks feel guilty about enjoying life's pleasures is pretty pathetic, cruel ,selfish and inhumane.
I ascribe a malign ulterior motive of wanting to insure that the church and clergy get the first tenth of your gross income as their tithes.
What is typically dismissed from the Christian patriarchal tale is the fact that only the Three Mary's were present at the Calvary Golgotha cross, the Empty Tomb and first saw the resurrected Jesus.
While Jesus feared his death in the Garden at Gethsemane aka "Let this cup pass" before accepting his fate. Finally Jesus wondered why God had forsaken him as he gave up the ghost. While the disciples particularly Peter cowered and hid in fear while denying any connection to Christ.
What happened to the disciples after Jesus death is the focus of the patriarchal Christian hierarchy.
3
No sane person invites suffering but circumstances may force 1 to swallow some.Even those who take their lives they go via instant death.Enduring suffering to save others, though it takes enormous courage and moral as well as physical strength, is justified and the symbolism of Jesus', to bring salvation, at least for his Christian disciples is that.Jesus' suffering becomes of help in very an expected moment.The 70's in this country was probably the most terror filled period in this over 2 Thou yrs nation a cloud of death hanging over by what is called "Red Terror" unleashed by the then Marxis-Leninist-Miltary dictator(He has executed he Nation's top Orhodox Pop,has imprisoned the highest ranking Catholic Priest,and executed the highest ranking Sheik).As one can read in the gripping account of what took place in some of the most notorious torture Chambers(I was in one my self for 63 days) in a book written by a survivor who pretended to be dead and crawled out of a mass grave some priests and irreplaceable intellectuals they were repeating Jesus' Elohe at the height of their pain: they were being hit with sticks and iron bars until their feet got slowly chopped off.Most didn't survive the torture, many endured it long enough to give their at large comrades in the resistance movement enough time to go into hiding , and because of that many r alive today.In the book "That Generation" by K.T.1 reads a "a lead activist Joseph A.endured Jesus'like suffering and died there".TMD.
A very nice piece to read this Good Friday morning.
2
Instead of feeding the poor, we build massive, expensive churches to go into and talk about feeding the poor. Christians aren't Christians because they truly want to help others; they are Christians because they want the promised afterlife. In my work, Revolution of Reason, I put forth some eighty ways used to inflict religion upon people, with the promise of eternal life being only one (it's amazing what the promise of living forever does to a "survival" program).
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” —Alice in Wonderland
5
The cross is a gruesome symbol of a universal religion of conscience that sprang from a tribal religion of fear and laws.
The Old Testament defines the laws, rewards, and punishments that a cruel God of Israel imposed on his chosen people.
The New Testament defines a religion that a kind and fatherly God offered to all people. Unfortunately, that religion of moral conscience has been contaminated over the centuries with preposterous theologies, multiple divinities, gruesome artifacts, pagan rituals, and a pantheon of dead saints.
The religion of conscience needs a better symbol and a new Resurrection from the morass of baseless constructs imposed by arrogant priests. How about a rising sun instead of a cross?
1
Cute story about Paul and thr PR man, but the original symbol Christianity used wasn't the cross; it was the fish ("fish" in Greek is "ichthys", which happens to be an acronym for Jesus Christ Son of God in Greek). The cross didn't become a symbol until later, in the third or fourth century.
And where you see suffering as a symbol of love, those of us on the receiving end of Christian attention - Jews, heretics, Muslims, etc. - see it as a symbol sadism, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust.
And by the way, the Romans crucified tens of thousands of Jews, and Paul was absolutely wrong to say that the Jews rejected him because he too was crucified, or condemned him because of that. The Jews of that time respected all victims of Roman oppression and wept over all of them.
3
Enough of this nonsense. Honor the First Amendment by keeping religion out of government. Tax payers should not support a religious symbol of any faith. Move the cross to private land.
5
What the men who knew Jesus before and after the cross have taught me is that it was not because Jesus the man suffered per se that led Christians to make Jesus into a god, but rather because He convinced them that He is God (our Creator, a.k.a. the “Son of God” who incarnated into our world as the human “Son of Man”) who came to save us by making a PERFECT atoning sacrifice in our place. Only God can do that. Amazingly, out of perfect love and yet perfect justice, God in Christ’s crucifixion found a way to save unholy sinners from the punishment we all deserve, namely for ignoring Him (rejecting His words, believing in false ideologies, hatred, just to start). Though we deserve the death penalty for rebelling against the only true God, Jesus the God-Man lovingly died in our place (an atoning self-sacrifice to satisfy God’s justice). Though He was Himself sinless, He paid our penalty as a gift, and only God Himself could do that for every human. His atonement was unlimited in scope — no discrimination — so any who accept His offer of salvation through Jesus the Messiah can like Him be resurrected to enjoy everlasting life with God. Humans caused Jesus to suffer on that cross we made, but I thank Jesus for the profoundly Good News that man can be set free by His grace... IF we just believe in Him as Savior God.
1
I get so tired of this sort of mindless hogwash.
As my father used to say, “Don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up.”
This article seems to be saying, among other things, that there is only one true faith. Why is Jesus any more real than the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Blessed be his/her name)? Because you have faith? What about the faith of all the Pastafarians? Don’t they count?
But there is no true faith. There is just what is, and faith without facts is self delusion.
But that works well for the Masters and is what they want.
Sheep, get in line. Go drink some blood and eat the body of a man-god if that’s your thing. But please get out of my government and my life. Know your place and keep your arrogant beliefs to yourselves please, and leave the rest of us alone.
If only you’d stop imposing your insanity on the rest of us, the world would be a much better place.
9
All of my postings of late are not getting posted. My stuff is either too inflammatory or too truthful for the NYT. But I will try again.
“AS JESUS of Nazareth entered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and continued to live, a normal and average human life on earth. Jesus came into this world just as other children come; he had nothing to do with selecting his parents. He did choose this particular world as the planet whereon to carry out his seventh and final bestowal, his incarnation in the likeness of mortal flesh, but otherwise he entered the world in a natural manner, growing up as a child of the realm and wrestling with the vicissitudes of his environment just as do other mortals on this and on similar worlds.
Always be mindful of the twofold purpose of Michael’s bestowal on Urantia:
1. The mastering of the experience of living the full life of a human creature in mortal flesh, the completion of his sovereignty in Nebadon.
2. The revelation of the Universal Father to the mortal dwellers on the worlds of time and space and the more effective leading of these same mortals to a better understanding of the Universal Father.
All other creature benefits and universe advantages were incidental and secondary to these major purposes of the mortal bestowal.” - The Urantia Book
1
Thanks to NYT and Mr. Wehner for giving us a larger spiritual context for the day. The US has caused so much pain and suffering lately- torturing prisoners in Iraq that have no relationship to Al Queda or international terrorism, separating families- legal assylum seekers- at the border and even torturing and orphaning children, supporting wars of attrition against civilians in Yemen and Venezuela. Torture in our prisons, the largest in the world. And we must rely on the deep state- the instruments of this suffering- for justice.
And we are suffering now, as a divided People, with the release of the Mueller Report and it's damning criticism of the President and his enablers. Our politics are corrupt; Trump is a symptom, a symbol.
Yet our suffering has meaning, and God shares it with us, and there is Hope of redemptive suffering ahead in Easter, a vision of the meaning into which God wants our suffering to transform.
1
If there is any humility anywhere, there must be perfect humility somewhere. No greater humility can exist than the humility of the Creator of the universe who went to cross for you and me. He who had everything, gave up everything: his clothing, his money, his possessions, his relationships and his right to be right, innocently dying for the guilty.
He was broken for us so that we who are broken and divided could be made whole.
We would do well to consider his sacrifice during these contentious times.
George Herbert. THE SACRIFICE (1633)
51. O all ye who passe by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree;
The tree of life to all, but onely me:
Was ever grief like mine?
52. Lo, here I hang, charg’d with a world of sinne,
The greater world o’ th’ two; for that came in
By words, but this by sorrow I must win:
Was ever grief like mine?
54. But, O my God, my God! why leav’st thou me,
The sonne, in whom thou dost delight to be?
My God, my God ------
Never was grief like mine.
59. Betwixt two theeves I spend my utmost breath,
As he that for some robberie suffereth.
Alas! what have I stollen from you? Death.
Was ever grief like mine?
63. But now I die; now all is finished.
My wo, mans weal: and now I bow my head.
Onely let others say, when I am dead,
Never was grief like mine.
2
Over 300 years ago:
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
11
Peter,
I am a moderate Democrat and a Jew who does not practice and here is why.
My father was a WWII vet and was a practicing conservative Jew when he left for the war. He won the Bronze Star in fighting for Patton's 3rd army in southern Germany.
He and his unit liberated Motthausen concentration camp, after this experience which he shared with his family. He never practiced again.
Until the end of his life he constantly asked the question: Why did God let the Holocaust happen?
While we do not worship Christ why would any religion let this happen? Why slavery? Why lynchings? Why wars fought in the name of God?
303
@Mgk: There's no answer unless there is a kind of worship that includes horror of the terrible aspects as well as happiness with the good aspects. I don't know what the original phrase is that they translate into English as "fear of God", but it has always seemed like it would be the valid way to enter into religion. If someone wanted to enter into religion. I haven't, myself.
6
There are tons of writings on this topic, but a good place to start might be Harold Kushner's "When bad things happen to good people."
10
@Mgk
Because of human nature.
5
"The cross is not only God’s way of saying we are not alone in our suffering, but also that God has entered into our suffering through his own suffering."
Well said, Pete!
As for why there is suffering in this life, it is my belief that suffering exists because of original sin. In this earthly life, we can never rid ourselves of our sins -- no matter how hard we try to do so. That said, I still have a hard time reconciling my faith in our Lord and Savior with why I have to suffer so much pain, the result of the 2005 car accident and the 2016 complications of kidney-disease treatment.
A blessed Holy Season to you and your family, Pete.
1
Death by torture is not unique to Jesus. Alas, it is a common lot for millions if not billions of people around the world whether in retaliation for religious, political beliefs or identity, nationality, sub-group in a nation, sexual and gender identity, and skin color. If suffering is universal, torture and murder of innocent accounts for a good portion of it. People's inhumanity to people. I've heard it argued that crucifiction is the most painful torture, but haven't seen the evidence. It may also have been particularly difficult indignity to visit on on Jesus since he was God and perfect, but then again he would presumably have extra strength to endure. Some question the moral sufficiency of one innocent person being executed to atone for the guilt of the rest. After all who would consider a penal system to be morally superior if it punished the innocent rather than the guilty?
"Take his cup from me," Jesus pleads. "Lord why have you abandoned me?" Many tortured people must feel deserted and alone and ask themselves whether their suffering was worth it. Jesus is not unique in that regard.
Buddhism is another religion in which consideration of universal suffering and its alleviation play a major part, but which does not feature a deity or vicarious atonement. So too, Stoicism is a secular approach to enduring injustice and suffering without the consolation of a Deity.
2
Sympathy means to suffer together. Jesus on the cross elevates sympathy to the level of holiness and focuses our hearts on God's sympathy for us and our sympathy for one another. It makes sense in that for society to heal and grow, we must suffer together and thus we must have sympathy for one another. As the core of religion, it is perfect. As for our current times, it is sorely lacking.
4
Perhaps to you it’s a metaphor of revelations but to many the christian cross is a symbol of a particular type of excruciating torture and death. The cross is also a symbol of the sword - a weapon of fear, domination, anger and war. I don’t particularly hate it but I dislike the way it tries to represent western culture and it’s long history of repression and guilt.
4
So far as we can tell an innocent, inspirational man suffered a gruesome but, common at the time, form of capital punishment. Period. Why anyone believes any specific creation/religious story as fact baffles me. Evidence rather than speculation or fantasy are at the heart of civil society. Believing that any religious books contain facts rather than versions of philosophy, given what we know today is mass delusion. Jesus on the cross seems both a fact but also mundane. Reading anything special into the tragedy is delusional fiction.
3
“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross,” John Stott, one of the most important Christian evangelists of the last century, wrote in “The Cross of Christ.” “The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’”
The skeptical question this invites is whether Stott (or Wehner) is impelled to believe in God because he thinks it's true, or because he thinks it's a good story.
It sure *sounds* like the latter. It may be that a system of belief predicated around a suffering God is a more coherent one than other religious beliefs. Still, one wonders whether this is enough to explain why anybody should think that the account is true.
3
When one pretends to know something they actually don't know, then all things imaginary are possible.
History records that if Jesus was an actual person and was crucified it was done on a single vertical stake - there was not an actual cross, as we know it, at that time. The feature of the cross was invented several hundred years after the "incident" occurred.
1
I have never understood why people choose to see Jesus as dead on the cross -
None of us wear pins and necklaces of our loved ones in a coffin --
Prefer to lovingly remember those who have died - as who they were Alive - What lessons these people taught me - same goes for Jesus - prefer to remember his Life - His Living Person - His Life Lessons to us all.
It is easy to wear and revere a cross - it is so much more challenging to live the example of Love - Jesus taught - know matter who you are - what faith you follow -
Ask someone who believes in the cross if they would sit at the same table with a person who doesn't look or believe - as they look like or believe - most of these people who say - No - their faith is the One true Faith -
No One Owns God - No one Owns Jesus -- but - many people fervently believe - they own God and Jesus - by wearing a cross.
Take the cross away - and - live as He taught all of Us.
7
Some time back, Mr. Wehner wrote that Christianity is the only religion that talks about Divine Grace.
Starting with the Katha Upanishad, circa 800 BC, "Kripa" (along with other Sanskrit terms for Divine Grace) has been central to Indian devotional religion.
As far as worshiping a religious founder who died on the cross, there are, according to various scholars of the ancient Middle East, at least one dozen who were
a) born on december 25th (or the winter solstice)
b) were killed either by crucification or something similar and
c) were alleged to have been resurrected
(a few were also reputed to be born of a virgin mother, and were declared "Sons of God."
I've always found it fascinating to look through the writings of interfaith scholars. With the exception of the Christians, the Jews, Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists, Muslims, etc are all quite comfortable in noting commonalities.
The Christians, on the other hand, become almost apoplectic when it is suggested that some of what they consider unique (Grace, death and resurrection) are not at all that unique.
Perhaps the Zen master understood more than even he realized when he told the Christian priest who came to him to study, "Show me your resurrection"
(ok NY Times secularists, whatever you read into that, comes from your own mind!)
8
I saw that interview with Muggeridge back in 1980.
As there is no 'there' there when it comes to religious belief, all conversation has to occur in the context of metaphors, parables, narratives, etc. There is absolutely nothing to grab onto but wishful thinking, platitudes, etc.
All the way from the Original Sin to the human sacrifice (Crucifixion) required for salvation, the narrative simply does not work literally or as metaphor.
Sam Harris says it far better than I will ever be able to:
“It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.”
― Sam Harris
“I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.”
― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
“If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”
― Sam Harris
7
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Christ, on the cross, as quoted in Luke.
And we still don't know what we do. The best, purest, most selfless among us - murdered down through the ages. And sinners, all of us, yet know not what we do. God is pure grace, personified in Jesus Christ and others. The way to peace and abiding love is through trying to follow their example. In fact, that is the only way.
131
OR did he say "My god my god, why have you forsaken me?!" OR did he say "It is finished." OR did he say all three? I guess it depends on which gospel you read. @Michael
17
@Michael
How can you commit a sin if you don't know what you do? A mortal sin removes you from the grace of god, but, you have to have knowledge and intent to commit a mortal sin.
Ignorance of god and his wishes does not make one a sinner.
Peace and abiding love are central to our happiness and I seek it everywhere. The christian peace and love comes with a mandatory sin and shame package that I choose not to buy.
13
The cross can’t be explained, but it can be known!
46
@Sister Meg Funk. But the cross can be explained! That is the beauty of it... "God so loved the world that he gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life..."
This is the meaning of the Cross.
As Isaiah says 700 years before Calvary...
"But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds, we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."
Forgiveness and reconciliation to all who will believe!
The Cross is to be explained so that it can be experienced!
Bless you Sister Meg.
2
@Aturn Isaiah was referring to Israel and was written during the Babylonian exile. There is nothing in Second Isaiah that indicates the author is referring to a Messiah. In fact, he states three different times, it is the nation of Israel.
Christians need to stop using that phrase to fit Jesus into. It is an incorrect anachronism.
11
@Sister Meg Funk
a warm and kindly response.
Peter Wehner asks,“'Why is there suffering?' Jesus never answers that question, and even if we had the theological answer, it would not ease our burdens in any significant way. "
Actually we have both. Luther's "Theology of the Cross" makes clear that the Christian God of the cross is both a "hidden God" and a "God of opposites." The path of the Christian is one of suffering, Jesus directing his followers to "Take up your cross and follow me." The world gazes upon the spectacle of the cross in horror and sees a defeated man, whereas the believer sees the opposite, the power and the victory of a hidden God revealed by faith alone. God is revealed and known through suffering. If we wish to know where God is found, Luther said, he is in both the one suffering and the care giver. By means of suffering he draws us to him. He breaks us down (we who think we are something) in order to raise us up, (we who are in fact nothing), or to paraphrase Luther, "The God who created everything out of nothing, cannot create something out of us until we become nothing." Suffering shows us our need for God. In crying out to him in our desperation we are made whole. "The acceptable sacrifice to God is a contrite and broken heart" (Psalm 51:17). The Law sends us fleeing in terror from an angry God to the crucified God, where the hidden mystery of the love of God on the cross is revealed. Thus Luther could say, "The cross is the safest of all things. Blessed is the one who understands this."
50
@Rev. Kris Baudler
Thanks for the explanation of the christian faith. I admire your faith.
Buddhists would have us believe that we are the source of our pain and suffering through the imposition of the ego on all our thoughts. They also believe that we need to become nothing in order to live in harmony with the world. So instead of suffering mightily and becoming nothing through subservience to Christ on the Cross, we can achieve salvation through our own efforts to become One with the world. No need to be contrite or brokenhearted, no need to climb the stairs on your knees to show your devotion.
5
@Zeke27
The ultimate ego trip is to believe that one can subjugate the ego. Salvation cannot come from within, but only from without, for as things are, we all must die.
5
To everyone on this Thread...
Jesus was a real person. His struggle far exceeded anything any of us has had to deal with. His mission was twofold, one, to reveal God (the Universal Father), to all, and two, to assume full control over his Creation, the local universe of Nebadon by incarnating as a mortal man.
Jesus, (Michael of Nebadon) is our God. While a Prophet, he is so much more. Jesus brought Lazarus up from the dead. He alone transformed death into life. No other person can say that.
And to all who doubt, forget not that this fledgling religion...Christianity...survived, while the might and power of Rome has disappeared.
I encourage all of you to read The Urantia Book: online or in the library. You may find the magnificent story of Jesus, the Son of Man, in part IV.
All praise be to God and his marvelous Son.
3
To me, the cross represents the meeting place - the crossing - of man and God.
47
@Big Daddy, this is an excellent interpretation. I have a slightly different take on the symbology. The vertical represents the transcendent dimension of God, and the horizontal the temporal dimension. The meeting point could be called the eternal now, where at any moment the two are connected. This could also be called the mystical heart.
5
@Big Daddy
"... To me, the cross represents the meeting place - the crossing - of man and God. …"
A deepity is a proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed. It has (at least) two readings and balances precariously between them. On one reading it is true but trivial. And on another reading it is false, but would be earth-shattering if true.
1
Two thousand years ago the Cross had NO symbolic religious meaning and was not a piece of jewelry. When Jesus said: "Pick up your cross and follow me," everyone back then understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads in Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces.
In the latter days of Nero's reign [54-68 A.S.] through the domination of Domitian [ 81-96] Christians were persecuted for following the nonviolent, loving and forgiving Jesus. That Jesus was first left behind when Augustine penned the Just War Theory.
Augustine was the first Church Father to consider the concept of a "Just War" and within 100 years after Constantine, the Empire required all soldiers be baptized Christians and thus, the decline of Christianity began.
When Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity those who had been considered rebels and outlaws began to enjoy political power and prestige. The justification of warfare and the use of state sponsored violence corrupted what Jesus modeled and taught. Jesus was about WAKE UP: The Divine indwells you and all others.
Jesus taught that to follow him requires that one MUST love and forgive one's enemies and NOT judge, demonize or kill the other; just as Jesus did even while nailed to a cross.
7
@Eileen Fleming
Except that Jesus was a Torah observant Jew & believed only in Mosaic law. He was unfriendly to Gentiles as taught by the Torah. Eg.
1/ “You shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them & their gods. They shall not live in your land. (Exodus 23:31-33).
2/ Jesus insisted that his mission was “solely for the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15-4. )
3/ Jesus commanded his disciples to share the good news with none but their fellow Jews: “Go nowhere near the Gentiles & do not enter the city of the Samaritans” (Matthew 10:5-6)
It was Saul who invented the foundations of Christianity & the later gospel writers expanded on it. It is weird to realize that Jesus would reject the Gentiles of today who have adopted the tenets of ancient Judaism which borrowed them from even older religions ,eg turn the other cheek.
The problem with Christianity: Instead of seeing in every suffering man a suffering god, it sees in suffering god a suffering man, that is false compassion is substituted for real one. This in part explains moral foundations (not to mention scientific and philosophical ones) for atheism.
2
There is suffering because that is the way of life and the natural world... of which humans are a part. I am very grateful that we have no fear of being eaten alive by a large predator, as so many other beings are.
1
@Vicki
However, It appears that current man does fear to be eaten, by others of our own kind......
1
I imagine the thousands, if not millions, of men in the last 2000+ years who made a good living by writing about the death of a vagabond philosopher. Declaring him a son of god was truly a stroke of marketing genius.
I will celebrate this Good Friday by re-reading the Jershalaim chapters of my beloved "The Master and Margarita". They tell the story of Jesus in far more profound way than Bible ever could, for they tell it as a story of men.
“Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
2
Much of humanity lives in a God-plagued world where too many are ready to kill for and to die in His name. In churches, mosques and temples in many countries recitations of His words and those of His prophets are quoted endlessly to indoctrinate young children and the already indoctrinated, now adults, to believe in Him. It is the promise of so called everlasting life after death that is so appealing and so hard to relinquish. The challenge for humanity is to once and for all free itself from this dependence on a world of subservience to a mythical God while still leading lives of decency, humanity and compassion. In so doing, we will free our minds from these ancient religious shackles and ensure the victory of the human mind and spirit over superstition, arrogance and ignorance.
3
“That God has entered into our suffering through his own suffering.” The suggestion that one man’s suffering can make an iota of difference to the billions of people who have suffered throughout history is beyond bizarre. It is a frail and feckless justification for a god who “showed his enduring love for people in every circumstance and in every season of life” by allowing them to suffer. If that’s “sublime love,” who needs enemies?
A religion that worships death, torture and suffering seems like a Black Art to me.
The first noble Truth of Buddhism is: “Suffering, pain, and misery exist in life.” It then offers some practical steps for dealing with that reality. No supreme being involved; we are responsible for our lives. How refreshing and positive that simplicity is in comparison to Christianity’s elaborate circus of smoke and mirrors – and worship of death.
6
This Easter, I plan to speak on "Why Jesus Came." The scriptures give us several specific reasons: to destroy the works of the devil, to save sinners, to give us abundant life, etc. But as I meditated on these things, I realized that it all boiled down to a few key things:
We needed saving.
We could not save ourselves (else we would have).
No one else could save us--be they humans or angels.
Only Jesus could save us.
There is a reason we call Him Savior: Because we needed to be saved.
I used to try to be somewhat politically correct, acting as if my way, your way, their way were all ways to God. I was wrong. Why? Because of the simple fact that Jesus prayed, "Father, IF IT BE POSSIBLE, let this cup pass...nevertheless, not My will, but Thine be done."
Jesus didn't HAVE to die, so this whole "if it be possible" clearly isn't referring to that. No, the point was IF THERE IS ANY OTHER WAY, then let this cup pass.
But there was no other way. And to say otherwise is a tragedy. It means that God gave His Own Son (Who also gave Himself for us) to be mocked, tortured, and crucified...when there was some other way to God.
If the world would be destroyed tomorrow if I didn't give my son to die, I would simply say, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."
But God is far better than that. He didn't have to save us, but He did. And if there had been another way, there would be no cross...and no Easter.
He suffered to understand the suffering of others...yet today’s Evangelicals and Catholics are silent when it comes to children being put in cages, abused emotionally and physically.
Jesus would be horrified. Now we have Conservative Catholics going after the only Pope who lives the life of Jesus. Who cries out against injustices, including abusive priests, and is thwarted from within the walls of the Vatican.
There is no way Jesus would support anyone like Trump, even over the abortion issue. Trump uses it as a political playing card, not because of any deep religious belief. Trump has one God, himself.
Love for Jesus doesn’t have to be from an organized religion. When I see churches getting involved with state issues, it doesn’t calm me, it frightens me.
11
There is suffering because that is the way of life and the natural world... of which humans are a part. I am very grateful that we have no fear of being eaten alive by a large predator, as so many other beings are.
Suffering is the void-abhorrent nature driven between creatures' temporal need of God and God's atemporal love conceived in creation. Confluent when free will's graciously best put to menial test. Hence omniscient in the spontaneity of fleeting moments but lost immediately in cognizant sequences till timelessly one with light. In short, suffering is creation's taxing discontinuity for the pending continuity of higher returns.
It is so clear that Jesus Christ is the most misunderstood individual who suffered the worst possible pain at the hands of his fellow human beings, most misunderstood by those who claim to be Christians.
If true Christians understood what it means to inflict pain on others, one look at the symbol of the cross, and they would not inflict pain on fellow human beings.
Yet history is wrought with examples from early times onwards, of Christians becoming the persecutors of most violence and tragedy on the planet. To this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence
"Beginning at least with Constantine's conversion, the followers of the Crucified have perpetrated gruesome acts of violence under the sign of the cross. Over the centuries, the seasons of Lent and Holy Week were, for the Jews, times of fear and trepidation; Christians have perpetrated some of the worst pogroms as they remembered the crucifixion of Christ, for which they blamed the Jews. Muslims also associate the cross with violence; crusaders' rampages were undertaken under the sign of the cross."
""despite its central tenets of love and peace, Christianity—like most traditions—has always had a violent side. The bloody history of the tradition has provided disturbing images and violent conflict is vividly portrayed in the Bible. This history and these biblical images have provided the raw material for theologically justifying the violence of contemporary Christian groups."
1
Jesus was a human being who was persecuted because he claimed to be something more and presented a challenge to the established order. Period. End of story.
2
I find the romantic idea of Jesus to be very attractive. The idea of sacrifice for the betterment of mankind to be beautiful. Where the story of Jesus falls apart for me is in his very divinity. If he is a God, then his sacrifice is just symbolic. He doesn't die on the cross, he just transforms from human back to God. What is suffering to a deity that know with certainty that he is returning to his natural form? His time on earth would be a blink of an eye. He risked nothing, his suffering, while I am sure painful, was not the suffering of a true man/woman that doesn't know if there is an award for his suffering waiting for her/him. He is like a king that puts on peasant clothes for a day and then thinks understands what poverty is. For the story of Jesus to touch me, then Jesus must not be divine. Then his blood is redemptive.
1
I'm always puzzled how Republicans, alleged professed Christians like Mr. Wehner, so moved by the meaning of "the cross" as a symbol of suffering, abuse, cruelty, insensitivity could promulgate policies that are sometimes so ruthless toward the weak, the poor, the suffering (especially in healthcare issues, or even education, and welfare). That is a greater mystery and contradiction to me than the symbol of the cross.
6
I was a bit down one day and talking with my close friend, my godfather, Pavel. He said that when he is out of sorts, he looks at an icon of Christ, a window to the world beyond, reaching for that world, while feeling His agony and then His glow of resurrection.
What struck me most was Pavel's saying:
"Look at our Russian crucifix. Christ is not a victim. He triumphs. He doesn't hang from the Cross. He supports it, holds it up.
And with that, He holds up all of Creation."
Actually, I doubt there is anything specifically Russian to this insight.
Love to all of you,
XPICTOC BOCKPECE
Khristos Voskrese
CHRIST IS RISEN
97
I feel no sympathy for Wehner's confession of faith here. A kind of sentiment which is alien to my inmost sense of life.
"... argues that a radiating effect of the cross was to undermine abusive power and injustice; that care for the disenfranchised and those living in the shadows of society came about as a direct result of Jesus’ crucifixion."
Looking at today's right wing "christians" it's apparent that even the radiating cross has a half life.
3
Another time for reflection, Good Friday, or as Sweden used to call it, Long Friday. Long because of the interminable "devotions" inflicted on people forced by law and social pressure to endure them. But the cross is not the heart of Christianity: that heart is the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning--" if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." said Paul. Just as Christmas is not the most "holy" day in Christianity (as opposed to a long season of consumerist piety), so Good Friday is not the most "holy" day in the Christian calendar. But Good Friday attracts the Jansenist wing of Catholicism, the wing that wallows in suffering and "this valley of tears." The message of Christianity is joy, not suffering.
3
If god’s incarnation as Jesus didn’t exist, we would have invented him.... Perhaps we have.
I enjoyed this piece, but was disturbed by the authors weak criticism of the Bible, trying to leave room for its inerrancy:
“There are parts of the Bible I still find puzzling, difficult and troubling.” Were we discussing Das Kapital, I’m sure his language would be very different.
In the end, just another “thumper.”
4
If there is evidence for one god, there is evidence for thousands. No evidence has been verified for even one. Would a god grant favor to just that portion of humanity who performs the correct rituals and proclaims the correct prayers? Humans are creatures of this earth, evolved like all other creatures. Our minds, still a mystery, are capable of self-awareness. Also, of writing a load of pious nonsense using faith as a validation of truth. That doesn't seem rational to me. We are alone with our thoughts in this universe, we should put our mind-power to use in helping each other and rejecting supernatural nonsense.
6
I have gone far from a creationist fundamentalist upbringing more than half a century ago to a worldview of an expanding universe born in the Big Bang with billions upon billions upon billions of worlds, with the laws of thermodynamics commending an eventual extinction of all life.
But I have never lost my sense the of Presence of the living Christ. Jesus shows me that however implausible that the Creative Force of such a vast universe would care about the pinprick called human, it does. That is all I need. The meaning of it all is not my problem to solve, but only to live in awareness of my brief experience of consciousness knowing that it matters to all the universe, and to respect other sentient manifestations accordingly.
This is my Easter.
181
@KBronson YOu have the best Easter ,ever. Thank you for writing your comment.
4
@KBronson
And a good Easter to you. Namaste great soul.
5
Religion is too dangerous for society to take seriously, to embrace and make it an important ingredient in life. Look at the mess it makes, has made, especially since Moses left Egypt and Paul began wandering.
Religion belongs in our hearts not our mouths or books. If you must indulge, keep it quiet, personal and private.
Imagine a world without religion and all the tragic cruelty comes with it. Someone could write a song about that.
5
Directing a ministry primarily focused on girls who have been victims of sexual crimes, I live in a world that forces the hardest questions. Without the cross I would have no answer for a girl sold by her mother to be raped, a ten-year who gives birth and then loses that baby, a child kidnapped for child pornography and then is forced to watch her family be slaughtered for escaping. Swim in that and you will have doubts. But those doubts have always led me back to the Cross and a God who says, “I know.”
In a media world of tweets and shallow posturing, it is refreshing to see the video of two mean struggling with reason, faith and the hard reality of life. “Christianism” is shallow and posturing. Following the One who would go to the poor, marginalized, diseased and wounded, and eventually the cross leads to doubt and then deeper faith.
Without the cross and the resurrection what do you tell a ten year old at the funeral of her daughter? If I could not tell her she will see her child again at the renewal of all things then there would be no hope. And we must have hope.
114
@Corbey may you celebrate a blessed Easter. Thank you for your work and your witness.
10
“No mere symbol,” Mr. Wehner? Well, the Cross should represent a lot more than the American evangelical movement makes it out to be: white; Republican; exclusionary; grasping, greedy and acquisitive; unloving veering off into naked hatred; in short, currently political.
Too many “evangelicals,” Mr. Wehner, believe that Christ’s saving work on the Cross was meant for them alone—no one else. As largely and very widely (and with great fanfare and loud, braying trumpets) practiced in America today, Christianity is a symbol all right—for political and governmental oppression and the un-Christly marginalization of “others” who do not look like they do or “worship” as they do. Their strict lines of social and financial stratification do not cohere with any—any—of Jesus’s teachings. And you, as a card-carrying, right-wing Republican, know it.
How did Manifest Destiny—as settlers stole land from its original owners; how did the Southern planter aristocracy; how did The Founders before either—arrange itself to coincide with Christ’s great sacrifice as government and commerce and industry and the law fought with all their might to become the evil opposites of “the symbol of the Cross,” a mindset that is so much of America’s present as they were of its past?
I’m a Christian, Mr. Wehner, and flawed and sinful as I am, I will humbly—and fearfully—allow myself these two small saving graces: I do not hate and I do not deny because I do not consider myself greater or better than another.
4
Whatever helps. And I mean it respectfully.
3
I have absolutely no problem with people who want to have faith, until they ply there faith into my life. Why do we need laws to try and have the non faithful believe? When I see the faithful bend the so called word of god to there own means turns me off. Lets take the bible for what it is since there is more than one of them, its a nice piece of fiction. I used to have people from Connecticut come to my door to give me a bible. I asked which bible did she want to give me ,she was puzzled. I asked who created the creator, she said that the dust came together with other debris to create god. So ,I said you mean he evolved. After that I have not had a visitor since. If you want to have faith that's fine. But please do not infect me with Fire and Brimstone because to me that is not how I treat my fellow humans. I do not threaten them I do not test them I treat them with respect, respect is not in the bible, that i learned from my parents. Jesus Christ is not god at least that was what I learned at St. Lucys 45 years ago but know everyone seems to refer to him as one. It makes no sense to me to have a bible to follow and still have about 15 different denominations tacking opposing views as to its meaning never mind all the wars and killings.
By your words Jesus was a god and if so he did not suffer on the cross.He obviously was not moved enough by others suffering to end it. The bible is just words that have never been put to practice.
To those who believe have a good Friday!
1
Easter and the state sanctioned torture, and murder of Jesus reminds me of the state sanctioned torture, and murder we allow Today in our criminal in-justice system. I think of all those who have spent years being tortured on death row only to be exonerated by groups of believers like the Innocence Project. I also think of those who should face crimes, but have the financial or political means to get a slap on the wrist for their "affluenza". I wonder about why there was a church on every plantation in the south, and has the purpose changed when there are plenty of churches in our ghettos, but not much else. I wish more French billionaires would step up to live the words of Jesus Christ to help the French poor, instead of raising a billion dollars for a vanity project, to rebuild a historic church that the Vatican or French Government could easily rebuild themselves.
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Ghandi
7
Jesus lived for decades. His ministry lasted for years. Unfortunately, Christianity has chosen to be obsessed with the day that he died.
There is nothing intrinsically holy about the cross. Crucifixion merely happened to be a gruesome Roman method of public execution. It could just as easily have been death by beheading or stoning. In which case people would be walking around today wearing amulets of the Holy Stone or the Holy Executioner's Axe.
3
It is too bad that Justice Antonin Scalia died before he could have read your piece. Justice Scalia said that the cross is not a Christian symbol during an argument about allowing a cross on public land. Perhaps you could have persuaded him otherwise.
Well, please pass your article along to the other members of the Supreme Court who seem to see some secular universality to this potent symbol of Christianity.
It might save the rest of us some headaches.
1
As an alternative interpretation, you could say that the worship of a crucified man is worship of suffering for the sake of glorifying suffering. I can't help but think of the almost 800 children buried in a mass grave at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Ireland. The glorification of violence and cruelty and inhumanity seems to me part and parcel of most organized religions, not because any "God" orders it, but because human beings in spite of existing for perhaps 300,000 years have not yet become civilized enough to grasp the idea of where their best hope lies. In his Gospel, Thomas quotes Jesus saying: "If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you".
2
@Jen, perhaps Christians have misunderstood Christ teachings by glorifying suffering to the point they have repeatedly inflicted large scale suffering on masses by violent inquisition conversion wars and until recent times, genocides and ethnic cleansings. There is a serious dissonance between those who practice Christianity yet inflict suffering on others. It is as though staring at the cross they are numb to the pain of others. True Christians would never indulge in violence either in words or deeds.
3
You say, "From the perspective of Christianity, one can question why God allows suffering." Really? Why does God allow suffering when he could prevent it? Theologians have wrestled (unsuccessfully) with this question for centuries. The problem is usually stated, If God is omniscient and omnipotent, it is logically impossible that he be benevolent.
But there were other gods who suffered, died and were resurrected, the story of Jesus is not unique. The emphasis on love and compassion in Christianity is all for the good if it actually makes a real difference in the world. I have to admit that when I compare the two-thirds of humanity that rejects Christianity with the third that embraces it I find very little difference.
6
I think the power of the cross is that it speaks of the only true powers in life: love and courage. That a humble man of no earthly power would love humanity so much and have the courage to preach of that love until his death by powers of another kind speaks to millions of what God, humanity and love really is and is about. I see the same love and courage in many of today's activists and journalists, often facing suffering and death to make this world a world of God, of good, not a world ruled by the power of hate, sin and ignorance. The power of Jesus' sacrifice lives on and as it does, so he is forever God, forever risen.
4
Regardless of the historical or supernatural accuracy of the events or the imagery, or whether another, less pictorial sentence would have changed Western history, the part that interests me is that from the graphic simplicity of a body on a cross springs the departure of this religion from the dominant mid-Eastern principle of excluding images from faith. Opened the door for what would, and probably should, be considered idolatry. The baroque incrustations of Christian, and especially Catholic decoration and art, once utilitarian in an largely illiterate society, are what, I tend to believe, turns contemporary folk away from a faith that might be more believable if simpler and abstract, instead of complex, and over-stuffed. A matter of taste.
5
The most astounding thing for me is that there is no convincing evidence that a Jesus existed. Yet the history of western civilization in large part is influenced by the untenable belief that there was a Jesus!
28
@Bill Sr We have four Gospels and raft of letters and multiple non-canonical texts that tell a mostly consistent consistent story about Jesus. By what standard is this not historical evidence that he existed? It is hard to think of any poor, rural teacher who has this much testament to his life in the ancient world? This notion of "no proof" strains the notion of knowledge by putting it under extreme standards.
2
@Walter … you do realize that these Gospels have contradiction within them and they were written many many years after Jesus became absent.
13
I would say that there is quite convincing evidence that Jesus existed. Not a divine, suffering servant of God, that is myth and legend.
But rather, an itinerant Jewish preacher from 1st Galilee in Roman Palestine, who was a follower of John the Baptist and was executed by Roman authorities in Jerusalem during Passover for sedition.
For quickly, his followers soon after his death began to believe that he had come back to life and ascended to heaven. @Bill Sr
2
"There are parts of the Bible I still find puzzling, difficult and troubling." Like the part where a supposedly dead human comes back to life. And is not a zombie...
7
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Dreams. Someone once told me, my dear departed father actually, that no one wants to hear about dreams (exceptions may be psychology grad students). No one cares. Its a dream.
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus i think legions of catholics would be surprised to hear that jesus resurrection was an allegory
@Stomach acid
It's an allegory, not to be taken literally. After my father died I frequently had dreams, a recurring theme, that he had come back to stay with us and participate in family life as if he never left (died). It's one of these tricks of the mind that often shows itself when a person who has been part of your life is suddenly gone, dead.
2
The endless discussion and rationalization of the story at the heart of Christianity is fascinating. Yet the story is an unprovable myth. The belief in a god or gods, which goes back far before Christianity, is a means by which one group of people - almost always men with property and positions to defend - seeks to control a larger group of people who could threaten their wealth and positions. The beauty of all religious systems is they have successfully deluded even themselves into believing they are the protectors of the all, even as they remain the repressors.
69
First let me declare that I am not a religious person. That said, I believe that the powerful people at the time conspired to silence an outspoken popular philosopher, a person that dared to speak in truths and a person who stood up for justice and human rights.
Sadly today nothing has changed. The powerful elite collude to suppress the truth and "crucify" those that dare expose the truth or dare to stand up for human rights. It is doubly sad to see at least two of the world's organized religious groups being front and centre in that powerful elite.
22
Jesus arrived in Jerusalem during Passover and began preaching the COMING Kingdom of God. In Jerusalem, during Passover, under Roman subjugation. A little akin to yelling "Fire!" in crowded theatre.
Powerful people may have been responsible, but, they were being responsible.
@Greg
Which two so you have in mind?
@Greg
"... powerful people at the time conspired to silence an outspoken popular philosopher, …"
Messiah types have always been a dime a dozen, existing through all history, places and times.
Romans executed thousands of what they saw as troublemakers, 'TV' personality types who managed to attract enough gullible followers to become a threat law and order (not unlike the gullible evangelical supporters of our current troublemaking assertive idiot trump, the one who got away).
3
God as mother illuminates for me the awesome, insane love of creating a person who will, you know ahead of time, break your heart because they will both sin and suffer. There is no way not to be wounded by what wounds those you love. The cross simply makes concrete that fate of woundedness - but without the women at the foot of that cross, our sharing divine suffering for those we love would not also be concrete.
6
I was raised and educated Roman Catholic and later, briefly, joined a fundamentalist church where the notion of Jesus standing in as the perfect sacrifice to atone for "our" sins was more of a focus than in the RCC where congregants were and still are judged and asked to confess sins venial and otherwise (non-existent in some cases) to keep in good standing with the church and therefore with God. My reading of the passion of Christ has given me a simple way in which I can understand why Jesus of Nazareth deserves my respect and attention. If what I read is true, Jesus and his ragtag band of followers protested abuses and hypocrisy perpetrated on the common folk by the Roman Empire and its subject/puppet local Jewish leaders, people who, much like everyone at some point, knew on which side their bread was buttered. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus may have allowed himself to be taken by the Romans without much of a fight; he likely knew his time was up. Revolutionaries are not always popular with those they seek to free. In this way, Jesus "paid" for the actions of his confederates and those who would have benefited from his success. Why would an all-powerful deity send a perfect being to suffer bloodily and die rather than to be an example and live? As for this essay: where is the female perspective? It is out of women's bodies and blood, and with natural inherent suffering, that the next generation is created.
10
Such influences to the the trajectories of our lives, 'quite by accident,' are so sublime as to lead to wonderment around the nature of 'accidents.' Firing Line and Buckley -- fabulous!
1
I appreciate the perspective- the nailed god, the god who suffered.
And yet we'll all head for the mall today- or wherever. Raised Catholic, a believer, but not practicing any religion now. I always liked the Catholic emphasis on the suffering and the holy week services and austerity- fasting, no meat, on Good Friday. I still take off from 12-3 when I can, and can do so today.
The emphasis is always on the resurrection and Easter day. We skip straight to the joy and skip the suffering, or acknowledge it with a nod.
8
I thank you for sharing the interview on Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. and Malcolm Muggeridge. It was an insightful, civil and honest conversation. Neither gentleman attempted to evangelize the thoughts and opinions they shared.
This symbol of the cross is the symbol of a man named Jesus of Nazareth who was and is a truth teller. His home was living among a diverse population of people.
The cross is a reminder of his many teachings. I hear a truth that The essence of who we are lives in the actions, deeds, and words we speak. The cross is a reminder to “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.
The cross is a reminder that the possessions we hold and our position in society do not define who we are because neither hold inherent value.
The cross is a symbol of faith; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1. My favorite definition of faith this cross symbolizes;
"To one who has faith no explanation is needed. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."
7
If JC ever came back I’m sure the last thing he would want to see is a cross.
The title of this piece is "Why Jesus on the Cross Is No Mere Symbol", but the essay itself falls rather short, in that it utterly fails to persuade why Jesus on the cross is any more than a symbol, whose significance is assigned by the perceiver.
Interpreting a scenario as invested with life-affirming significance (for ourselves) hardly entails that the scenario is not, at least in the eyes of others, purely symbolic. (What it means for you is, of course, your own personal matter, with which I may choose to disagree.)
It's only true believers who seem to think that by moving beyond mere symbolism, some sort of "symbolic truth" will be established.
Symbols, depending on how they are read, may sometimes give life, motivate work towards specific goals, etc., but this attests to nothing more than the perceived inspirational value of such symbols.
It's not clear to me how the notion of 'symbol', which for me subsumes Jesus' crucifixion, can be converted into anything resembling truth. Symbol and truth are two different epistemological levels; bridging them requires a great deal more than bald assertion: "Jesus on the cross is no mere symbol".
Prove it, please.
25
@an American in Sydney....proof, beleaguers the point of faith. There does come a point, where the heart and the mind must be desirable of faith, willing if you will...to seek for the sake of personal truth. Not mine, not hers, yours. This journey while shared amongst many, is deeply personal...submitting yourself to that, is part of the task. When Christ offers himself on the the cross, it is the culmination of his journey, in a selfless way the we usually do not grasp fully, and when we do have an insight, it is deeply individual. Put aside your preconceptions, open your heart and you may find your path. Or not. Either way, good luck and peace to you and all whom you love.
8
@An American in Sydney. The word "merely", frequently an assumed though silent adjective to the word "symbolic", dismisses the symbol's value. Maybe Wehner is arguing that Jesus' crucifixion is powerfully symbolic, merely symbolic.
There is no mystery. We live in a completely random, completely uncounscious multiuniverse that always was and will always be.
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@Noodles How do you know that?
5
@Lee
He knows it just the commenter who said we know jesus lived because it's in the Urantia book, like Peter Wehner knows that Christianity is the only religion to talk about Divine Grace, even though a 1 second Google search provides copious counter-examples.
I always smile when atheists say "Atheism is not a belief IN something."
Try asking an atheist what he thinks of the idea of living in a completely orderly, conscious multi-universe, and stand out of the way as he spits venom.
Then ask him again, "What exactly did you mean when you said you had no beliefs?"
At least the atheist biologist Richard Lewontin was honest in his religious faith. No matter how irrational materialism is, he said, no matter how utterly lacking in even a smidgeon of evidence, we must hold to it for dear life because the alternative is so much worse.
Note that he never spelled out the alternative - he simply expected his readers to understand that virtually any form of religion was the death knell for science, therefore it must be resisted whether or not it's "true."
Come to think of it, Noodles comes to his belief the same way Trump supporters come to their view that the current good economic news (what little there is of it!) is the result of the tax cut, deregulation and the simple Presence of Trump.
Sermon over.
2
@don salmon
You have completely mischaracterized most atheists, perhaps out of a lack of knowledge. It is, perhaps, comforting for you to believe Christians are hated. Sadly, most atheists could care less, until you wish to make your religious views the law of the land.
remember - you have beliefs when you cannot find observable reality to back up your claim. You can have whatever beliefs bring you comfort. You cannot, however, have your own reality.
6
I remember a Catechism class where I was severely reprimanded by a nun for my profound and disturbing lack of faith.
At that time I was simply fascinated by questions of the vast, incomprehensible ideas of time and space. I wondered if to an eternal being, living forever and ever, the pain of torture and death might seem pretty slight— a slight pinch in the arm—over the endless millennia of the deity’s existence.
Plus, the son made it back home after only a short time away from home, making my 11-year-old self ask where the sacrifice really was—again just a millisecond in the grand scheme.
Sister Denise had no answers for me—and I always wondered if her anger with me was masking hidden questions of her own.
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@scott wilson
I had the same nun. But her name was Sister Patrick.
4
@scott wilson
Yes, this notion of sacrifice has long seemed odd to me.
If Jesus was a god and immortal, then what exactly is the sacrifice? He himself knew he would return to immortality.
I have personally known humans, who were not immortal, suffer for far longer than three days. And they of course did not know where they would end up. A better, more real "sacrifice" would have been for Jesus to voluntarily give up his immortality and instead go suffer in hell forever on our behalf. If the lake of fire is where we sinners are bound if we are not believers, then that would be the appropriate exchange, Jesus burning in hell forever on our behalf. That of course would conflict with the "victory over death" narrative. Goodness, make me immortal and I'll "die" on your behalf very other month.
10
@scott wilson
I told my second grade nun of a dream I had had where I was Jesus.
I fully expected to get whacked across the back of the head for heresy.
Instead she said "How sweet".
That helped me become the yogi I am today.
5
My! This represents a break from the eternal soliloquy in politics. In my view, a God that entered our suffering through his own suffering is worth consideration.
40
Isn’t this just another instance of the “dying god” theme that we find in many religions?
@Alex: "...a God that entered our suffering..." According to whom? Circular arguments are the foundation of "religious logic."
1
The word/concept of "God" is an emergent phenomenon of consciousness, which seeks to find meaning in every event. The desire to find a cause for every effect is baked into the linguistic machinery of the brain. It's all about reducing cognitive dissonance.
The tragedy of faith is that not every event has meaning because we live in a universe infused with randomness at all levels.
Furthermore, if there were no random coincidences, then that would be proof a god. But humans invariably impart random coincidences with meaning (just read any newspaper story quoting a lottery winner).
The vast majority of sentences humans utter with the word "God" as a subject make exactly the same amount of sense when you substitute "the Random Universe" for "God".
15
Exactly. Human beings are total suckers for a “story.” By attributing an explanation to every random noise in the bushes our ancient ancestors were able to raise their awareness and anxiety to potential animal attacks, live longer and further procreate. So there is a natural selection for seeking and seeing patterns and explanations. It is hard to recognize and admit that the real Gods are coincidence and infinity. Thus Mr. Wehner’s article is just gibberish.
@Doug McKenna
“The Random Universe so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son” (John 3:16).
“The Random Universe is love” (1 John 4:16).
I don’t think so, Doug.
@Rich
Like I said, the sentences make exactly the same amount of sense upon performing the substitution.
1
To me, a Christian seminary trained individual, the message of the Cross points to the mystery of life, the many paradoxes of faith, and the important message that all of us, believers or nonbelievers, are fully human when we accept an existential humility in all matters. Whether a believer, agnostic, atheist, or seeker, holding firmly to what we know at the same time with what we do not know permits us to coexist without building dogmatic walls of exclusion. It seems to me there is nothing unbecoming in holding firmly to ones truth, whether in the realm of science, faith or ideas in general, as long as we each recognize that our position is subject to our human limitations. It is when we weld our ideas to unfettered power over others that knowledge can become the subject not of human growth but just the opposite, human subjugation.
30
The way you describe those among us wielding unfettered power aptly describes teachers, especially those of us who’ve survived force feedings of religious and political dogma.
5
@Michael Kandel And thank God, by your response, you have overcome these teachers.
The certainty of faith is paradoxical or it is not faith. Kierkegaard wrote once: "If the believer answer the question he is eo ipso not a believer." The Christian faith is paradoxical or it is not a faith.
By the way, the cross depicted in the Tiepolo painting is totally unhistorical, though it is a common depiction. Jesus did NOT carry such a cross simply because nobody carried such a cross, because such crosses did not exist. The vertical post was already in place, and only the horizontal wood was carried. There were several types of vertical posts, so the cross could end up as "commissa" or "inmissa." And no Gospel has a depiction of the cross, not even the apocryphal "Gospel of Peter."
For me, THE symbol of Christianity is Jesus walking around the Galilee "doing good," as the Scriptures say (Acts 10:38).
13
Attributing all that good in humanity to a specific faith is troubling.
183
. . . and even more so if it's more or less right . . .
1
@Ken PidcockI Yes it is. I now think of the responsibilities of living as moral and ethical - no faith or religion. The "words and actions of Jesus" throughout the New Testatment are basically one concept - help those who need help; be kind; love one another. There are warnings - " it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven." Whether Jesus existed as one man, or is a composite of the stories and writings of those who wrote down the words that became the New Testament - that then were recopied by hand for centuries... edited, added to, subtracted from, changed to match new translations of the mostly lost languages of the original texts... The personal decision to live a moral, ethical life through caring for those in need, choosing to give freely of time, goods, or money - accepting people of other colors, other cultures- accepting and celebrating the differences as well as similarities of our neighbors on this planet. Accepting that life exists on Planet Earth and that is all we know. Live well with family and friends and make a difference where you can.
9
@Ken Pidcock
Christianity does not say that all the good in humanity is attributed to itself. All that good is attributed to God in that “God is love, and he/she who abides in love, abides in God.”
Christianity points us to that love and that God. But then, as the contemporary theologian Richard Rohr says, “What is true, is true everywhere.” So Judaism and Islam and Hinduism also point is to that truth, whether we call God by the name of YHWH or Allah or Vishnu.
9
I had not known about Muggeridge--"ever charming"--until this article, and it's interesting that Mr. Wehner would raise him in this day and age. I am of mixed minds about the #MeToo movement: on the one hand, I am thrilled that women are tired of having to know karate to ride in cabs with some men and that perhaps men of the younger generation will learn to keep their hands to themselves. On the other, the microaggressions one might be capable of are truly frightening.
I am willing to understand that Muggeridge lived in a different time, but he, like too many, loses my respect when his reformation becomes a platform to judge others. This is especially grating concerning his views on birth control. It begins to feel as though just as his friends had used his apparent alcoholism in his earlier years to excuse his behavior, he himself in becoming so obsessed with the sexual behavior of others seems to imply that first drink made him do it and then the culture did.
And of course, the cross was worn on the tunics of Crusaders, who killed in the name of God. Jesus was not the cross: he was his teachings.
14
My sympathies to any who can only believe in the God which Nietzsche ridiculed so thoroughly.
We suffer so that we may experience bliss. Without the negative, there can be no positive.
18
@ubique … not so … if is the religious who have taught that we are to suffer … and most of their dogma insures that many will … both mentally and spiritually!
2
Most telling about this article is not that Christians see God in a particular human expression but rather it is the repeated story of "faith". Every human religions shares the same foundation, the incredible, a series of stories of wonderment and explanation for the human condition and for our origin story and the world around us. Invariably, the passage time eats away the root of that religion as human discovery conflicts with the origin story and believers have to choose from the menu rather than eat the full meal. From Norse Gods to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, each group scoffs at the other because "we" are the more enlightened. Yet, throughout the entire of human history from pre-human cave drawings (I admit to believing in evolution) to our current form, we are able to always find a place for "faith", the victory of belief over facts.
22
Yes, without Good Friday, Easter Sunday is reduced to a mere celebration of the return of Spring. Living in New England, this is no small thing. But, it misses the larger point - that grace is as available to us through the worst of what life brings our way as it is in the good, true, and beautiful. Knowing that God meets us in our pain is a message of hope that can sustain us when we need it the most. This is why I can not understand why any Christian church would not hold services on Good Friday, but jump from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, as many do. It is only through Good Friday that we can understand the deeper meaning of Easter Sunday.
56
@Sue
When I was a child, everything stopped, banking, retail sales, offices, etc. from 12-3 on Good Friday. Churches, especially Catholic Churches were open for quiet prayer. I do not know when this changed, probably somewhere between being a mother and being a student in my busy life. I still feel the need to pray on Good Friday between 12-3PM even though I know in my mind that my TIME is not shared with the world.
3
“What I mean by this is that I was and remain a person with a skeptical mind and countless questions. There are parts of the Bible I still find puzzling, difficult and troubling. (That is true of many more Christians than you might imagine, and of many more Christians than are willing to admit.)”
In our all-or-nothing, sound-bite, reductive age, thank you for saying this out loud. The more I study the Bible, the further away I get from “comprehending” it - because one layer of meaning opens up the view to so many more - but the direction it points overall is a direction I want to go. For me the interpretive prism is love in action. Love. And taking that into action, every day.
66
Humans make judgments all the time without complete information, from "who is this person im about to marry/vote for/hire" to "is this transportation/shelter/sustenance really safe". Trust is the lubricant that makes society flourish and love is its source. Faith helps us through the limits of reason. Dont discount faith as merely superstition, as it is a valuable part of any working civilization.
3
@jerry brown
Good point. But true trust and faith are based on perceived experiences. Christian faith is based on events yet to happen (everlasting life) that have never been perceived by anyone. religious faith is a different thing than the trust that binds communities together and it may be as strong.
2
@Pat maybe comprehending the Bible is not going to happen because it is contradictory. Maybe it leads you in the direction you want to go because there is a general message of: do unto others...
Knowledge and progress crumble the foundational basis of religion. And that will continue as humanity refines our knowledge of our place in the universe. This article tries to explain the logic of the crucifixion as part of the appeal of Christianity. It does not address the fact that faith and reason are opposed. And will become further opposed as reason replaces belief or superstition.
18
The Christian story of the Christ that dies and was resurrected does not "introduce a new plot to history". The dying and rising god or goddess is found in many mythologies predating Christianity, which is only 2,000 years.
Gods like Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis and Attis, and Dionysus are among the better known. Persephone who goes to the underworld (death) for six months every year and then comes back to the human world bringing life and new growth is also popularly familiar.
It is a shock to some Christians to realize that these mythologies are also "dying and resurrecting" deities. It's just harder to recognize them as such when Christianity teaches that the resurrection is unique to Christianity. This does not take anything away from the Christian teachings but it can provide a broader perspective.
270
@MJM Thank you. I hoped someone would point this out. I am more aligned in my thinking with James Carroll that the message Mr. Weiner finds in the action of Jesus's crucifixion--life is suffering, and God suffers, too--has too often turned the cross into a sword. I find even more compelling than the cross Jesus's teaching about love and compassion and believe one of the most beautiful passages in the Gospel is the two-word sentence "Jesus wept." Having seen a sister who lost a son to war bombarded with platitudes, knowing that Jesus's first response to the death of his friend Lazarus was grief certainly allows us to give weight to our own.
41
@MJM I think there is a subtle yet significant difference between the narratives here. Osiris was murdered by his brother, Seth, and became the first mummy as an explanation for the Egyptians' burial rites. Persephone was kidnapped and made to live in the underworld against her will for a portion of each year, which served as an illustration of the seasons for Greek society.
However, the story of Christ's death is not a narrative choice made to provide rationale for cultural or natural oddities. Christ chose a path of suffering and death out of pure love for humanity. Through this willing sacrifice, Christ assumed responsibility for mankind's sin although he is a perfect being, therefore providing an avenue to salvation for an inherently flawed people. I'm not an expert on world religions and mythology, but this choice seems radically at odds with the gods/goddesses of other mythologies who were often as flawed and self-interested as humans.
That being said, I think you are right that a comparative analysis would enrich Christians' understanding of their own religion. I do believe Christians tend to be dismissive (or even fearful?) of other world views, religious or otherwise. This is a shame, especially when we're discussing topics that have fascinated all humans for ages, including death and rebirth.
31
@MJM
I think the difference is that Jesus was a willing victim who chose to lay down his life out of love for humanity and all of creation whereas Osiris was surprised by his brother’s jealousy and hatred; Persephone and Adonis did not die but spent part of the year in the underworld; Dionysus was torn apart unsuspectingly by evil Titans. In these mythologies, the gods themselves have anthropomorphic evil intentions; the intentions of Jesus are love and solidarity.
125
Jesus on the Cross is more then a symbol. It is a reminder -a message if you will - that their is a right way to conduct ourselves and how we treat one another.
Jesus was determined to not only preach this message, but to stand-up for it. That proved to be painful beyond comprehension.
For me that is the message.
Unfortunately that message has gone missing for the leaders of organized religion.
10
Great story. In the past I too found it somewhat strange we have a symbol of pain and suffering to represent Christianity. I would have thought a rising image of light representing Jesus rising from the dead, and essentially eternal life, would have been more uplifting and positive.
6
@JHB
But suffering and sacrifice is the whole point of this canned philosophy. Without it, the whole story crumbles. When you are ruling a nation through the absolute power of the church and the monarchy, what better way to keep the people down and orderly than to preach to them that their suffering, their starvation, their wretchedly short and miserable lives are all a part of God's plan, and look! He killed his own son -- for you! So suffer away, people, the more the better. Heaven loves the meek and the poor and the sacrificial.
2
@JHB … it is the pain and suffering that shackle people emotionally to religion … a rising image would symbolize a rising consciousness which would defy religious dogma.
1
My continued Gratitude, Mr. Wehner, for your continued verbal
Expression of Faith. At 82, and a long-retired Lutheran pastor and chaplain, I could minister, over years, to others. However,
the loss of our beautiful daughter, who, at 50, was diagnosed
with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s....and died last Fall at 55...led me to a quiet search for comfort and yearning for validity in the verity
of the Faith and a promise of an actual life Resurrection....
a Remeeting with Jeanne in the Shadow of such societal Cynicsm. I have found some quiet, personal Peace, but Bereft of
verbal communication, now living a few minutes from her home-site, a few minutes from the little town where we moved 6 years ago to be close and useful to Heanne and her Husband. Thank you for your lucid words on the Reality and lasting Presence of
the Suffering and Abiding Christ.
28
@ Richard DeForest"8
My condolences for your loss. Peace be with you and yours on this Easter holy day. My Prayers will include you and your daughter.
3
Thank you for the wonderful interview with the humble and charming with Malcolm Muggeridge. And how very engaging his engagement with mystery. It reminds me of Albert Einstein's thought: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science....To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend in their most primitive forms -- this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
11
@Ambroisine An amazing quote! I've never seen it. Thank you for posting it.
2
@Ambroisine
"humble and charming with Malcolm Muggeridge"
Yes, I quite agree, in the sense that he worked very hard at presenting precisely that face, image, to the world. As an adolescent, I read and felt valuable many of his literary pronouncements.
But here we face up to the problem of self-representation.
To what degree do our public faces -- literary, philosophical, or otherwise -- actually match the people we really are?
If we can't match literary palaver with conduct of life, are we justified in accepting the former as testimony for the latter?
@Ambroisine It is easy to believe in a god who takes your sins on his shoulders, it is more difficult to carry them on your own shoulders and seek forgiveness from your victims by way of word and deed.
"In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?"
A valid question.
But while you correctly say that crucifixion is among the cruelest forms of execution, it is not *because* he suffered a cruel death that Christians recognize Jesus as Lord. After all, there are tortures more cruel, and some have suffered more than Jesus did.
But only Jesus volunteered for the Cross in obedience to the salvific plan of the Father. That is the essence of it.
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@Just sipping my tea Keeping in mind, of course, that Jesus IS his father." And that he died (or pretended to) in order allow himself to forgive people for having freewill, a feature of human life that he supposedly created. Oh, yeah; Lots of skepticism here.
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@Just sipping my tea Many, many others have sacrificed themselves for others. Jesus is not the exception here.
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@Just sipping my tea
The "essence of" Jesus may be that he was somewhat "mother Mary", a closeted masochist, or perhaps, more innocently, someone proud to take on the sins of the world, die for them/us, though no one at the time saw him in this self-defined role. (That all came later.)
When will people wake up to the fact that they tend to believe what they want to believe, irrespective of facts, or lack of same.
We have no idea why Jesus was crucified, except as it is "explained" in ancient texts composed by true believers decades after his death.
To put our faith in such poverty of verifiable data is a denial of what it is to be born a rational human being.
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