Now I’m Outraged!

Just kidding.  But Time‘s blogger Tim McGirk thinks I am, or should be.

Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,”King Kong”, whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain’s Channel 4, Canada’s Vision, and Israel’s Channel 8, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned. 

I’m beginning to think these colossal fights happen only in the airspace of television, radio, and newspapers.  Is anyone out there really mad about this?  It’s all so darn coincidental: hey you guys, it’s the middle of Lent (which the newspeople insist on calling a “holiday”), the DaVinci Code furor is beginning to die down, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have best-sellers, and more whiny atheist screeds are coming down the pipes–what better time could there be for this documentary?  Sorry, it just doesn’t get me that worked up. 

On the other hand–and this I am upset about–some people seem to think Christians shouldn’t be mad because “aren’t all religions just based on faith, anyway?”  We don’t actually believe in stuff that “really happened.”  That’s for the pathetic backwoods fundamentalists!  That’s for some Flannery O’Connor character who thinks it will actually do some good to baptize someone with water.  That’s for those who haven’t yet figured out that it’s the spirit that matters, not the flesh.  I’m a spiritual being having an in-body experience, and all that.

Well, you can have your object-less faith.  You can have your body-less spirits.  You can have your sacrament-less churches.  I want a resurrection of my body.  I want my soul and body reunited, like God intended them.  I want a flesh-and-bone savior who made things out of wood with his hands.  I want a savior who works with pieces of bread and drops of wine; who calls them–get this, you Gnostics–his body and his blood, and means it. 

So it shouldn’t make you angry when claims such as these are advanced–at least with some physical evidence, contra Dan Brown.  But it should make you nervous, and rightfully so.  It should make you reexamine your faith to see if it bleeds real blood.  It should make you reexamine your savior to see if he really has flesh and bones, to see if he really was pierced by nails, to see if he really did rise from the dead with a real body, and one unlike any this earth has ever seen.  It should make you reexamine your hope to see if you have a hope that includes your body rising, to see if it includes a real earth, as well as a real heavens. 

This will turn out to be false, or trumped up, or fabricated–just like the Gospel of Judas and every other straw at which modern rationalism so hopefully grasps–but not because faith sustains us in spite of the evidence.  It will turn out to be false because faith hopes in an objective Man whom we believe has not lied to us, and about whom we believe the testimony of men like Paul, who testified to His multiple appearances and an empty tomb (whether under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or not).  But make no mistake: Christians believe in a God made flesh, not a God made spirit, and the critics are right to suspect that Christianity really does hang on an empty tomb.

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So I’m Dropping Out of the Seminary…

They found Jesus’ bones.  And those of his wife–Mary Magdalene, just like Dan Brown said!  And his son’s. 

Now I can give up all this religious nonsense and get a job where I’ll actually make some money.

Well, not really.  Do you realize that these boxes of bones have been lying in storage for twenty-seven years?  And that no one in that time thought it significant enough to bring to public light?  No one thought to tag James Cameron to direct the documentary before this?  You’re right; I’m a little skeptical at the timing. 

William Dever, an expert on near eastern archaeology and anthropology, who has worked with Israeli archeologists for five decades, said specialists have known about the ossuaries for years.

“The fact that it’s been ignored tells you something,” said Dever, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. “It would be amusing if it didn’t mislead so many people.”

I think I’ll stick with the benighted Saint Paul over the enlightened Saint Filmmaker:

3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. [1 Corinthians 15:3-8, ESV]

The intro to the story has it: “…several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs.”  Well, that’s an interesting way to put it.  But it makes Christians sound like Mormons or neo-Darwinians: “We don’t care what you say!  We believe it anyway!  We can’t hear you!  Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah!”  Me, if it’s all true (I’m wondering how they’re going to prove it’s the Jesus of Christianity.  Where are they going to get God’s DNA?  Or did they find St. Mary, too?), then I really am quitting the seminary.  I don’t want mere comfort.  I don’t want nice platitudes.  I want truth.  If this isn’t it, then I’ll go looking elsewhere.  But that’s just me echoing Paul again.

12Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. [1 Corinthians 15:12-19, ESV]

Paul has no patience for any vague kerygma to quell existential angst.  He’s only concerned with an historical fact that envelopes all of history in its real facticity.  You try preaching a Bultmannian “reality” from the pulpit.  See if you end up with anything but a self-help group or a social services organization.  (I guarantee that AA or the Salvation Army can do it better than you anyway.)  No, I won’t have any mealy-mouthed, liberal cant in my religion.  If it’s not true, I don’t want it.

But I won’t be dropping out of the seminary.  I’ll keep Paul’s words for my own.

20But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death. [1 Corinthians 15:20-26, ESV]

Will waiting until the final enemy is conquered at the resurrection of all the dead satisfy those who pity us poor Christians?  No, but neither did (does) Jesus’ resurrection.  Vindication will come.  Repent and believe the good news.

[For further reading, see Prof. Jeffrey Kloha’s article here.]

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16 Horsepower Lenten Meditation

[I’m going to be gone for a few days, but I thought this song by 16 Horsepower was a fitting meditation for Lent.]

The devil’s brand is on my bones
An from inside the holy ghost groans
Sure as shootin’ the undertaker knows
He lays the headstones in endless rows
Ye one an all we croak like a raven
It’s the dead an the dyin’ we’re cravin’
Ye one an all
Follow the man tall
Hear his voice
An drop to a dead crawl

Hey boy
Look straight at the sun
To the center you make a dead run
You’re gonna halfta cut off both my hands
I got pride as big as Dixie land I wanna sit where the velvet is red yes an
Where can I lay this apple core?
I wanna drink of the blood that was shed girl
I can’t breathe anymore

Ye that’s right she’s waltzin’ out the door
To dandy lions waitin’
Ye that’s right she wants more
She’s my lady in waitin’

[“Dead Run,” Low Estate, lyrics by David Eugene Edwards]

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H+S

There is nothing better than a little Horn+Swoggled to wake ye up in the morning, boy!

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Marked for Burial

I commend to you Pastor Petersen on Ash Wednesday.

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Merck Gives Up Lobbying

Merck has decided to stop lobbying for mandatory administration to little girls of its HPV vaccine.  (My original comment is here.) 

Conservative groups opposed the campaign, saying it would encourage premarital sex, and parents’ rights groups said it interfered with their control over their children.

At the very least, we could talk about conflict of interest.

Timotheos

Why Can’t the Church Evolve Like Everyone Else?

I’ve never read anything by Rob Bell, but I guess he’s popular.  Astrid Storm thinks his new book God Sex [?] is “kind of fun,” but, as hip as Bell is, he just can’t shake free of that ol’ time relijun.  (This review is eerily similar to another one Storm wrote for the same SoMA Review on Lauren Winner–another book I have not read.  I should not prolong this parenthesis any longer, but I can’t help one quote from Storm’s Lauren Winner review: “Short-lived beliefs and lack of credentials can be excused as just part of being young. But that’s why youth calls for some judicious withholding of opinion until one’s views are tested over time.”  How long, you might ask, has Storm been a priest?  10 years?  20 years?  How about 4.  Maybe Storm should have her opinion judiciously withheld.  By the way, anyone else foresee an upcoming review of Dawn Eden‘s The Thrill of the Chaste?)

Storm writes,

Bell makes a further retreat into the puritanical arms of his evangelical forebears with some truly preachy commentary. For instance, there’s his annoying observation about some teenagers he saw groping each other in a London subway. “What if subway girl demanded that before she gave herself to subway boy, he had to prove that he was the kind of man who would lay down his life for her?” Bell stodgily wonders. I mean, lighten up and let the poor girl have some fun! …

Fortunately, some evangelicals—the pro-gays and those who support birth control, especially in developing countries where unprotected sex leads to serious health risks—are making significant strides on these issues and redressing the harm done by generations before them by facing them head-on. And they’re saving lives while they’re at it.

When I picked up “Sex God,” I had hoped Rob Bell might be attempting to do the same. But edit out the glitz, and I’m afraid you get just another rehash of that fusty, old-time religion.

Heeyyy, why can’t the Church just lighten up, man?  Who’s sounding like her (hippie) parents now?  Yeah, that would solve all our problems…

That last line reminds me of a conversation I had with Robert Gagnon about the promo of his book by his publisher that said it had some good stuff to say “but is ultimately conservative.” 

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Sharing Genitalia? That’s fine. Sharing Gum? Eeewww!!!

The Rockville Pregnancy Center in Maryland has been kicked out of Montgomery County schools after a parent complained that the group was using a “gum game” to illustrate its talks on sexually transmitted diseases and abstinence.  While the Washington Post article doesn’t actually say, I believe this game involves passing a piece of gum around to show, in a minor way, what it’s like to pass STDs. 

Maybe the parent should be more concerned about his or her kids sharing their genitals with other kids.  I think the “sticker game” is also good.  That’s where you pass a sticker around and everyone sticks it to his or her shirt until it doesn’t stick anymore.  There are all sorts of useful illustrations in that.

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Happy Darwin Day!…Now Die

David Klinghoffer writes about the “happy” consequences of evolutionary theory.

As of 2007, it is exactly a century since the key turning point in the Darwin-inspired American eugenic movement. In 1907, the state of Indiana achieved the distinction of becoming the world’s first government entity to enforce sterilization of institutionalized “idiots,” “imbeciles,” and other individuals deemed genetically “unfit.” The idea caught on. …

Even for those unwilling to endorse such killing, there is still the alternative of the soft eugenics of reproductive “choice.” Thus last month, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists announced a new policy of encouraging all pregnant women–not only those over 35, as in the past–to be screened for Down syndrome, with a view to killing the unborn child if the chromosomal abnormality is discovered.

While we don’t compel sterilization anymore, we have our own methods of eliminating those we deem unfit for life. 

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Follow the Trail of Death

There was lots of talk in Missouri last year about Constitutional Amendment 2, which amended the state constitution so that embryonic stem cell research could never be outlawed in the state.  (If you remember, it takes a simple majority to amend the constitution, but a 2/3 majority to un-amend it.)  There’s always lots of shrill talk and name-calling over embryonic stem cells even though nothing has come of the research–whereas many treatments have come from adult stem cell research.  (See more here and here.)  Can anyone tell me why the people who are supposedly so concerned about cures never bring up that fact? 

Or why no one is at all excited that stem cells that are virtually the same as embryonic stem cells can be extracted from the placenta or amniotic fluid?  Michael Fumento takes them to task here.  I’m inclined to be cynical about their motives, but Planned ——hood, NARAL, and their unlimited abortion-rights ilk will do that to you. 

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