Boundary markers?
On Saturday, Homebrewed Christianity will be holding “The Great Debacle”, a discussion between Tony Jones and Pete Rollins centering round the resurrection.
A couple of weeks ago I complained about feeling oppressed – and not least among the reasons was the fact that Tripp Fuller was arguing very strongly in favour of a bodily resurrection. Tony Jones also believes in a bodily resurrection, having blogged several times on the subject; Jason Michaeli is of the same mind, having an e-book “Preaching a better Atonement” which depends heavily on Tony’s blog posts. All of them seem to think that an actual bodily resurrection is vital. The problem is that I can’t quite put my finger one why they think so, on what it actually does for them to believe this.
Cue a blog post from Bo Sanders, Tripp’s right hand man, where (inter alia) he asks “What difference does believing in something like the resurrection impact they way we live?“. Bo, it seems, also believes in a bodily resurrection.
Now, I don’t. Firstly, I am what can be described as “methodologically naturalistic”, meaning that I am always going to look for a naturalistic rather than a supernatural origin for any event, and that I tend to presume such an origin can be found. I say “tend to presume” rather than outright “presume” because I am willing to grant both that scientific rationalism does not (at least as yet) answer every possible question and because I hold out the small, perhaps vanishingly small, possibility that miracles (which by definition are incredibly improbable) may nonetheless sometimes happen – and if they ever did, all scientific and rational means would tell us that they didn’t.
So that preserves me from being a completely obdurate non -believer. It doesn’t, however, put me in the position of someone who would find it easy to arrive at even a 50/49 belief in such an event (1/99 would overstate my estimate of probability by a few orders of magnitude).
However, I also have another reason for considering that the resurrection was not a bodily resurrection, and that is that viewing all of the New Testament reports (including the reference by Paul to Jesus appearing to him last of all in 1 Cor. 15:4-8), treating them all as eyewitness accounts with as much accuracy as I would expect of eyewitnesses, I would come to the conclusion that what they report was not in fact a bodily resurrection, but a series of apparitions and “possession incidents”, at least one of the apparitions being a tangible one. I do this, incidentally, on the basis of having cross-examined a LOT of eyewitnesses over the years. That would not conflict with anything which I have experienced myself, apart from the possession, which I have witnessed a few times. I should stress that this view does not even require me to consider that anyone involved may have exaggerated their account, let alone falsified it; it holds assuming only that all the writers reported what people truthfully believed they had witnessed.
So, I do not consider that the scriptural witness supports a bodily resurrection, and that means that I cannot expect ever to get to the stage of belief in a bodily resurrection.
However, I do believe in a spiritual, or at least quasi-spiritual resurrection, in that I do think that Jesus actually (although not in a human body apart from where this was {potentially} a temporary possession) appeared to various of the disciples and to Paul. I don’t necessarily claim fully to understand the mechanism (though I fancy some of it might have something to do with Douglas Hofstadter’s “Strange Loop” thinking), but I have seen parts of it in actual operation, so I know it can happen. Also, I can see no other reason why the group of followers of Jesus began again to grow following his death – I don’t think that the phenomenon which leads to predictors of a millennium renewing their fervour after a disappointment holds good here, given the multiple previous failed messiahs in Israel.
Now, I can understand that at the time, certainly those of Jewish thinking patterns would not have been likely to consider that a resurrection could be anything other than in a physical body, in distinction from Greek thinking patterns which would allow of a disembodied soul or spirit. That said, I do not myself think that the pattern which is me can exist other than within a physical matrix of some kind (though it need not necessarily be the physical matrix which my consciousness is currently centered in); I do not agree with the body/spirit dualism of the Greeks. (This, incidentally, gives me some real problems when considering standard Trinitarian doctrines…).
The trouble is, in conversation with people of more orthodox viewpoints (and this would seem to include all the individuals named above, all of whom qualify as “progressive” and therefore with whom I would expect to identify reasonably), I find that this is a distinct stumbling block. And I cannot work out exactly why, as it seems to me that my actual belief about the resurrection can found all of the current templates of thought which could make a difference in the here and now.
I rather hope that Saturday’s “debacle” might provide some answers there, as from everything I hear I doubt that Pete Rollins would be able to state belief in a physical resurrection. On the other hand, he is (as I tend to be) far more interested in what the belief actually does within our lives, and so I expect some fancy footwork, so I may be disappointed.
Perhaps it is just that people really really want to maintain an expectation that gross physical miracles (as opposed, for instance, to miracles of healing) will actually happen in their lives? (Note, that is an expectation that they will rather than a small residual hope that they might – I can achieve a small residual hope on a good day myself…).
Then again, my suspicious mind wonders if this is more in the nature of a boundary marker to distinguish people from “those liberals” who “believe in nothing”. If it is, it is going to look to me rather lie those markers for groups which either demand that adherents do something which would transgress the normal standards of society or demand that adherents believe something which society in general would consider wrong or ridiculous. You need to give up something in order to join the group, and as most of Christianity doesn’t consider that giving up all your possessions is still a reasonable thing to ask (as per another recent post), perhaps this is that marker, or a part of it?