quaker oats live: quakers & the resurrection
quakers & the resurrection
I will work on the next two points that QuakerK makes on Quaker Glimmerings, because they go together:
3. Early Quakers didn't stress the physical resurrection. Again they got a lot of flack for this. I've seen this in the Nayler writings that I have read--they stress the idea of "spiritual body."
4. They discounted the overriding importance of Christ's death on the cross: not that it was unimportant, but that by itself it meant nothing, and wasn't effectual without the Inner Light.
I don't pretend to be incredibly knowledgable about early Quaker writings on these topics--maybe that shows that there aren't many! Or maybe I'm just ignorant of them. At any rate, I'll do my best here.
First, I would echo a comment from Wess on QuakerK's post: Friends contemporary with Nayler came to see him as heretical, in that they felt he was going a different way from the goals of the Friends movement. I haven't read much Nayler, so I'm not sure if what QuakerK is referring to is from his earlier or later writings, but either way I'm not sure I would take him as representative of early Friends, although some of his writing is probably still useful and good.
I think in a way it is true that early Friends didn't stress the physical resurrection, but that is at least in part because it wasn't really questioned yet. The Enlightenment was going on at the same time, but I think most people hadn't gotten to the point of truly questioning faith and miracles yet. There wasn't much of a need to "stress" Jesus' physical resurrection because it was assumed that most people would already believe in that. We have to remember that it was a completely different culture and mindframe! Europe was nearly all nominally Christian (with some Jews and Muslims and others thrown in there). Most all regular citizens would belong to some church, probably the state church. Most people weren't converting to Quakerism from atheism, but from other Christian denominations.
Quakers tended to emphasize that followers of Christ will suffer, be persecuted, and possibly die for their beliefs and actions. I think QuakerK is right that early Friends didn't emphasize the crucifixion as an end in itself, but saw it more as an analogy for the lives of the followers of Christ: if people will persecute and kill God, how much more likely is it that we normal people will be persecuted for our beliefs? They focused more on the life of Jesus, following his example and in that way "carrying thier cross."
In the modern era several atonement theories have been put forth to explain the reason Jesus had to die on the cross. The early Friends were working with just one atonement theory, pretty much the only one there was (as far as I know): that of substitutionary atonement, that God had to die as a perfect sacrifice, mimicking the Jewish substitutionary system with the perfect human sacrifice, who alone could cancel out our sins through death. This theory emphasizes the death part of the life-crucifixion-resurrection, and while it has some good parts and some biblical basis, more modern atonement theories come at it from a different direction.
Perhaps the early Friends were unconsciously reacting to this fairly negative way of looking at the life of Jesus, not to mention humanity. As I said in my post yesterday, Quakers tend to be on the whole a more optimistic group in terms of human nature than most other Protestants. Quakers and Anabaptists tended to see the life of Jesus as an example to live (and die) by, and the resurrection as the promise of new and full life in God whether one survives or dies as one follow God's guidance. Although they didn't come up with a new atonement theory I think in many ways they lived it out.
I would also say that perhaps early Friends didn't spend too much time debating the little doctrinal pieces because they felt there were more important things to do--like work against injustice and help others. But I think all these impulses came out of their understanding of the true life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which gave their lives and their actions meaning and hope.
The Resurrection of Jesus - QuakerQuaker
The Resurrection of Jesus
Posted by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 8, 2012 at 3:11pm in Quaker Talk
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What do you really think about the resurrection of Jesus?
Why do you think so?
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Reply by Bill Samuel on 12th mo. 8, 2012 at 5:46pm
I think the resurrection is real. An orthodox Jewish scholar once studied it and concluded that Jesus' followers would have never gotten it together to start a movement if the resurrection wasn't real. I think that is true.
As in the case of most important ideas, there is more than one truth here. Paul notes that we must die to ourselves in order to be born again as a new creation. There is a pattern here.
And of course this follows the natural order, which involves a lot of death and rebirth.
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Permalink Reply by Patricia Dallmann on 12th mo. 9, 2012 at 1:52pm
I think the following passage from Penington shows the seventeenth-century Quaker acceptance of the historic event of the crucifixion and resurrection, while also emphasizing the significance of the inward work of Christ in bringing one into knowledge of and union with him. Penington addresses a Puritan challenger:
That charge of thine on us, that we deny the person of Christ, and make him nothing but a light or notion, a principle in the heart of man, is very unjust and untrue; for we own that appearance of him in his body of flesh, his sufferings and death, and his sitting at the Father's right hand in glory: but then we affirm, that there is no true knowledge of him, or union with him, but in the seed or principle of his life in the heart, and that therein he appears, subdues sin, and reigns over it, in those that understand and submit to the teaching and government of his Spirit (Quaker Spirituality, p. 144).
Fox speaks of Friends as being "witnesses to this Jesus and his resurrection" (Works 5:86-7), thereby emphasizing, as does Penington, the inwardly experienced resurrection, rather than the historic one that occurred 16 centuries before, which would've been impossible for them to have witnessed. So, Quakers didn't deny the outward history, they simply focused on the risen Christ within.
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 9, 2012 at 7:36pm
I'm not sure why I started this discussion... or whether it was entirely "my" idea.
I remember someone at Pendle Hill, around Easter, suddenly being shocked by the realization: "What if he really was raised up from death?"
I (and no doubt many others here) know from (concrete) personal experiences that God can and does do miraculous things. If there can be small miracles there can be larger ones... and yet this whole event (whatever it "looked like") goes radically against the conventional common sense judgement of what is "possible" and what is not.
I agree that the history of Christianity is inexplicable on any other basis -- Certain people were powerfully, convincingly shown that Jesus, after being as thoroughly killed as the authorities could possibly do, was still alive, conscious, participating in the movement he'd started.
And that he also was done with that mission. "Nevertheless it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I did not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you." As I read this, I am certain that there has never been, and can never possibly be, a living person without the Spirit in him -- but what I think this is saying, is that people were almost entirely looking to that Spirit outside themselves. The disciples saw it at work in Jesus; and as long as he remained physically present they kept looking for it outside themselves.
In the 17th Century -- If that's what the Christian scriptures said, that's what people almost uniformly agreed to. For some of us today -- this is still what they believe they must believe, as a matter of conventional common sense. But as I said, it utterly devastates what the larger, public society holds up as conventional common sense. So, I was wondering, which 'common sense' did people here find cogent? -- and how do they feel the tension of this?
In my own case, I found NT Wright (who credits the scriptures more literally than I would) making a pretty plausible historical case -- utterly convincing, at least, on the point that this is what early Christians were sure had actually happened. And that this wasn't some accidental misapprehension on their part, but something bound up in the fulfilment of God's intention for the world.
But I don't think anyone can believe it on the sole basis that early Friends thought so, or that the Christian scriptures say so. There's a bottom line or two here. 1) That this wasn't just some ordinary person whom God decided to bring back to show it could be done -- and then showed only to a few favoured people. Jesus was raised up as vindication, to show that the authoritative religious establishment could and did get God's intentions wrong -- while what Jesus was doing and saying actually did express God's will. 2) We aren't going to get this ( because it is so entirely crosswise to 'common sense') except as Pennington is saying here, by recognizing God's intentions via God's presence at work inside. Without this, we couldn't trust God to be telling us anything true or useful in these somewhat bewildering texts....
What else?
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Permalink Reply by Marianna Boncek on 12th mo. 9, 2012 at 8:25pm
I don't think it matters one way or another really.
Have your read The Life of Pi (or seen the movie).
Pi asks, "Which story do you prefer?"
If you need/want/desire to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and it helps your faith or gives meaning to your life, then great.
If someone chooses to believe in the resurrection symbolically and it helps them live a good life than that is ok, too.
If someone believes it's just a story, then that person can move on to other things that help them live their life to their fullest. Believe.
If it doesn't matter, then I don't think there is any pressure or need to believe.
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 9, 2012 at 8:35pm
Marianna Boncek said:
If someone chooses to believe in the resurrection symbolically and it helps them live a good life than that is ok, too. If someone believes it's just a story, then that person can move on to other things that help them live their life to their fullest.
I want to 'believe in' whatever is actually true.
One element of what is called "faith" is the trust that if you're willing to face whatever does turn out to be the truth -- this will turn out to be something one can live with, and even love. (There is another meaning that goes beyond that, but we'll get into that later, maybe.)
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Permalink Reply by Patricia Dallmann on 12th mo. 10, 2012 at 11:10am
Forrest wrote:
"We aren't going to get this ( because it is so entirely crosswise to 'common sense') except as Pennington is saying here, by recognizing God's intentions via God's presence at work inside."
I think that this is correct. Before some of these stories and writings make sense, they need to be read from a different perspective. Fox spoke of "opening" the Scriptures, and by that he meant explaining the spiritual meaning so that they made sense to people who hadn't yet made the same inward discovery that he and others in the early movement had. For an example of the futility of trying to make sense of these matters from a common sense perspective, look at the conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.
This is not to say that nothing can be done using our natural faculties to further our way. In your response, Forrest, to the whatever-floats-your-boat comment by another writer, you upheld the importance of struggling to find and then subjecting yourself to the truth, however difficult that proves to be. This devotion to truth is the stuff of which Quakers are made! A parable that teaches the importance of using our human capacities well is the one about the talents in Matthew 25, verses 14 through 30.
Though using our intellect and our integrity to both find and value truth will never gain us an understanding of heavenly things, our discernment is exercised and improved by using these capacities in an honest, diligent way. And we need to improve our discernment if we are ever to follow the inward movement of the Spirit. Using these highest human powers (intellect, integrity) prepares us for receiving the wisdom that comes from above; in traditional language, it prepares the Way of the Lord by making his paths straight. This is the teaching of John the Baptist, who immediately precedes the Christ, both in the Scriptures and also within.
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Permalink Reply by Petros on 12th mo. 10, 2012 at 1:10pm
If Jesus did physically and bodily resurrect, then was His ascension physically and bodily a process of going up into the sky?
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 10, 2012 at 5:42pm
Agnikan Ashwin said:
If Jesus did physically and bodily resurrect, then was His ascension physically and bodily a process of going up into the sky?
This doesn't appear to be a consistent element in the stories. Furthermore, it's hard to say where this "up" would be... In the direction of what? Much like Jesus conceived as physically seen returning in the sky everywhere -- difficult to do on a spherical Earth.
Luke [http://lightthruthepages.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/luke-24/]
"Then he led them as far as Bethany, and blessed them with uplifted hands; and in the act of blessing he departed from them." New English Bible: "Some witnesses add 'and was carried up to Heaven'."
New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1973 (Revised Standard version): "While he blessed them, he departed from them, and was carried up into Heaven." "Other ancient authorities omit 'and was carried up into Heaven'."
"Luke" in Acts ( after spending "forty days" with them): "As they watched, he was lifted up, and a cloud removed them from their sight." [Think also of Daniel, 'One like us sons of Adam' going to the Ancient of Days to be given dominion over the Earth.]
--- ----- -----
The actual resurrection stories seem quite inconsistent, except as ways of conveying the fact that everyone concerned had experienced Jesus as physically present. The body involved seems to be "in this world but not of it", ie Jesus can eat a physical fish, if he wishes, but can also pass through a solid wall simply to demonstrate that he isn't limited by such things.
----- ------ ------
God had to enable Jesus to return to his people, in order to achieve the results we observe -- a rapidly growing movement, supporting the royal claims of a man whom everyone else agreed was dead. The sudden appearance of "death plus resurrection" as an attribute of the Messiah -- based on what? Nothing in "The Scriptures" that anyone else has found before or since. But if your candidate for Messiah comes to a bad end -- and then reappears, alive -- It seems to demonstrate that God isn't going to let a little thing like death stand in the way of 'His' will for us.
Having Jesus physically ascend into the sky, however... Could he? Sure. Did he need to? I don't think so. That's why I'm less inclined to affirm any such thing... or think it matters particularly.
An ambulance worker I knew in the 70's -- had the day off, and had taken LSD. A neighbor of his had taken too many pills, and he found her near death. He said he'd seen her floating up into a dark tunnel of some sort, and floated up after her to bring her back. But while he was doing this, he was physically dialing 911, and doing everything he knew on a physical level to pull her through.
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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 12th mo. 10, 2012 at 6:34pm
I think it happened. Why? Because it makes sense to me from my understanding of the whole bible and the claim/fact that many of the people who we are told were there at the time somehow got a lot of people to believe it and died trying to get even more people to believe it. Why die for something that isn't going to make you rich or powerful? Something has to be happening to transform lives. People can't even stay on diets or stop smoking even though they know they ae ruining their health. Something powerful had to happen to transform His disciples - of course I believe it is still happening and people are still being transformed. I know I have been.
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Permalink Reply by David Bundrick on 12th mo. 11, 2012 at 11:32am
I believe that Jesus was a man of human parentage, and that his death was precisely like that of any other man or woman. It is his life that should be of importance to us, not his death. Isn't that more in line with what we are about - how we live our lives and not being too concerned about things we can never know?
Incidentally, if we base our beliefs solely on what our forebears believed, in the early days of Christendom, well over half of Christians did not believe Jesus was divine, and many of those were the "barbarian" Germanic tribes. If Clovis had not opted to convert his Franks to trinitarian Christianity, thus tipping the balance, history could have been quite different.
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 11, 2012 at 2:58pm
There's an assumption implied in your belief that this is a "thing we can never know" -- that God is not real to enable us to find the truth of Jesus' life.
Yes, his life is crucial: Who is this man they say was resurrected? -- and what is the significance of him dying "like any other man or woman," beaten almost to death and then hung on a cross to show what happens to people like that?
It is highly unlikely that our forebears got everything right -- There'd be little need for us if they had, and at least much less we'd need to reconsider.
You can certainly read the Gospel of 'John' as saying, in several places, that we are as divine as Jesus. Any 'God-conscious' Hindu knows this. But the question here is whether Jesus 'natural' death led to a highly atypical return to life, embodied life at least in some sense.
The significance of that is, for one thing, that The Good Guys aren't losing. And that the World is not a swindle, not a hopelessly unjust and tragic misery. They can hang us up to die, but that's a temporary setback; the Fix is in.
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Permalink Reply by David Bundrick on 12th mo. 12, 2012 at 9:12am
Well, I didn't think it a mere implication, but I'll state it affirmatively. We can never be sure of anything we're told to believe without a shred of scientific poof. I would like to believe that Confederate gold is buried in my back yard and am free to do so, but at least that is a belief that can be substantiated or refuted by excavation (so far my wife has resisted). If someone wishes to believe Jesus is a demigod, the product of the mating between a god and a human, and that he literally died and came to life at a time when corpses begin to stink, I have no objection (as long as they let me fantasize about the gold). Personally, I think Jesus was a man, conceived and perished like any man. But religious beliefs can never be substantiated or refuted. We cannot know these things. It's better to see the light in all people and live our lives accordingly.
Forrest Curo said:
There's an assumption implied in your belief that this is a "thing we can never know" -- that God is not real to enable us to find the truth of Jesus' life.
Yes, his life is crucial: Who is this man they say was resurrected? -- and what is the significance of him dying "like any other man or woman," beaten almost to death and then hung on a cross to show what happens to people like that?
It is highly unlikely that our forebears got everything right -- There'd be little need for us if they had, and at least much less we'd need to reconsider.
You can certainly read the Gospel of 'John' as saying, in several places, that we are as divine as Jesus. Any 'God-conscious' Hindu knows this. But the question here is whether Jesus 'natural' death led to a highly atypical return to life, embodied life at least in some sense.
The significance of that is, for one thing, that The Good Guys aren't losing. And that the World is not a swindle, not a hopelessly unjust and tragic misery. They can hang us up to die, but that's a temporary setback; the Fix is in.
---
Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 12, 2012 at 12:47pm
David Bundrick said:
... We can never be sure of anything we're told to believe without a shred of scientific poof...
The essence of science is "Test all things, and believe what checks out."
If you test the proposition: "God can teach and guide me," with your life, it works. You won't need to "believe" anything "we're told to believe", as such. Some of what people tell you will turn out true, not all of it.
Science will help you understand the workings of anything that holds still long enough to be measured, but scientism turns out to be just another one of those things "we're told to believe."
The Bible? What various people thought had happened in the course of a long historical interaction between God and humans, who got some of it right and some of it wrongheaded.
But when you know, from your own life, that God continues to teach and guide you -- then you can't doubt that this is part of a long divine courtship of the whole silly human race, in which that book plays a prominent role. You literally can't imagine that God is not using this flawed book to communicate with humanity in general, and you among them. It doesn't mean that they, or you, have necessarily gotten it right.
A significant number of people who had literally known Jesus became convinced, by something, not "that they'd been told to believe" he was alive, or had expected any such thing, but that they'd encountered him restored to life after a very ugly death -- and this made all the difference in their lives & subsequent history. God could have fooled them... but this isn't some pointless detail like the state of Mary's hymen. The whole story says truly mind-blowing things about God's power, the nature of this universe, the way God does and doesn't act through it -- and the meaning of that condition we call "death," along with everything else that happens to human beings in this world.
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Permalink Reply by David Bundrick on 12th mo. 13, 2012 at 8:04am
Alas, I do envy true believers - I really do, because life would be so much easier. Mark Twain defined "faith" as "believing in what you know isn't so". I cannot make myself believe in a super being out there who micromanages this vast universe, even to the point of "communicating" with one species. All I can do is believe that all people are good and deserve respect and kindness, even ones who do apparently very bad things, and live my life accordingly. I'm an old man, and I've tried drinking the kool aid a number of times, but it's never taken hold. The best to you, friend.
Forrest Curo said:
David Bundrick said:
... We can never be sure of anything we're told to believe without a shred of scientific poof...
The essence of science is "Test all things, and believe what checks out."
If you test the proposition: "God can teach and guide me," with your life, it works. You won't need to "believe" anything "we're told to believe", as such. Some of what people tell you will turn out true, not all of it.
Science will help you understand the workings of anything that holds still long enough to be measured, but scientism turns out to be just another one of those things "we're told to believe."
The Bible? What various people thought had happened in the course of a long historical interaction between God and humans, who got some of it right and some of it wrongheaded.
But when you know, from your own life, that God continues to teach and guide you -- then you can't doubt that this is part of a long divine courtship of the whole silly human race, in which that book plays a prominent role. You literally can't imagine that God is not using this flawed book to communicate with humanity in general, and you among them. It doesn't mean that they, or you, have necessarily gotten it right.
A significant number of people who had literally known Jesus became convinced, by something, not "that they'd been told to believe" he was alive, or had expected any such thing, but that they'd encountered him restored to life after a very ugly death -- and this made all the difference in their lives & subsequent history. God could have fooled them... but this isn't some pointless detail like the state of Mary's hymen. The whole story says truly mind-blowing things about God's power, the nature of this universe, the way God does and doesn't act through it -- and the meaning of that condition we call "death," along with everything else that happens to human beings in this world.
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 13, 2012 at 11:42am
David Bundrick said:
Alas, I do envy true believers -
If you want to talk about what I'm not talking about, this puts you in good company -- closer than you know to people who think I should swallow the Bible whole. It's not about "believing in" but about being open.
Observing what it is that observes is one good way in -- but so is questioning your own assumptions.
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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 12th mo. 13, 2012 at 1:46pm
Unfortunately being a true believer isn't that easy. First there's the fact that just because you believe doesn't mean you understand. Second is the fact that just because you know what is the right thing to do doesn't mean you want to do it. Third is the fact that just because you want to do what right doesn't mean everyone else does or that the world will not trample you if you do. I could go on but you get the idea.:) In many ways it's harder than not being a believer. The difference to me is that I'm happier and that's in spite of not understanding everything that happens, well at least some things that happen; still not being able to stop eating too much ice cream; and still going crazy trying to make some money in a profession that rewards those with a lack of integrity.
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Permalink Reply by Betsy Packard on 12th mo. 23, 2012 at 6:49pm
I do believe in a "higher power" as addiction assistance groups refer to a supreme being. I believe the greatest gift we were given as human beings is the gift of free will, which means to me that this supreme being (or is it a collective pantheon as some cultures throughout history and into the prescoincent believe) is not into micro management. The laws of nature were put in motion, if I drop something it falls down as opposed to dropping up as in space. Sometimes there are anomalies to the norms, and often we do not have explanations for those anomalies.
As for Jesus, to me he was an awesome teacher. It was the need to recruit pagans that the myths developed. Look at how many religions throughout history have heroes with virgin births, deaths and resurrections (with resurrections coinciding with the coming of spring). Christianity is a hybrid. The Bible has a lot of good stuff in it, some of the OT is historically correct! The Psalms are poetry, much of which was written by David, including during the time when Saul was pursuing him. But then we get to the New Testament and eventually the Council of Nicea, and human agendas and politics slid in the door.
Christianity in its most basic form doesn't believe Jesus was a demi god like Helen or Troy or Hercules. Christian dogma says Jesus was fully human AND FULLY GOD. Then we have the Trinity, which is not once mentioned in the Bible itself. (Then there's the mishrad about the 3 Magi, which the Bible never says how many of these Zoroastrians came from Persia! The 3 gifts are symbolic. It's a story meant to teach certain values, not to teach fact.)
---
To me, Jesus was an awesome teacher who not nearly enough of his supposed followers actually follow! He really boiled things down to the essentials: Love God, Love One Another. What could be easier?
To me, Jesus was a Buddha. There have been multiple Buddhas throughout human history, people who have deeply spiritual lives who try to teach us a better way to live with each other. I do believe that there is that which is of "God" within every person, and I'll even take the step of saying within all sentient beings.
I was raised to believe in the viigin birth and the resurrection 3 days (or so) after horrific execution. Letting that belief go was a conscious decision for me, and in no way does it lessen the importance of Jesus the man for me. In no way does it lessen his teachings.
But I keep in mind that the Bible as we know it is a compilation that was greatly influenced by human agendas and politics, and the similarities Christianity has with other belief systems throughout history tells me it's a hybrid of multiple religions.
And I do not use the word "Christian" to describe myself, for oh so many reasons, including all the horrific actions that have occurred under that label.
----
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 23, 2012 at 10:27pm
Much of that "OT" is not at all historical; and there seems to have been politics involved from as far back as it goes....
But who was it with this "need to recruit pagans"?
'The Church', as just another Jewish sect -- and not at all militant, as these groups went -- ought to have done just fine without a massive missionary effort. Actually the main explanation I know for violent opposition from both the Roman authorities and rival Jewish groups was the fact that Christians were making pagan converts in significant numbers, and not imposing the traditional disciplines on them. Noncompliance with pagan customs was okay with Romans as long as the perpetrators were Jews practicing their inherited traditions -- but that tolerance got brittle if sectarians started corrupting respectable Romans; it got difficult for Jewish congregations to maintain if the authorities were likely to confuse them and their services with some mass-market sect that was recruiting pagans and teaching them to defy Roman customs, while not really teaching them how to be proper Jews.
Now if it was God who'd seen "a need to convert pagans", that puts those "myths" on a different footing.
It doesn't necessarily render them accurate; it does imply something more than human craziness behind them.
I can't see that stories of a virgin birth would have gained Jesus any followers... "You're telling me this guy was born without a father, so I should accept his Torah interpretations and expect the imminent arrival of God's reign? Huh?"
But convincing experience of Jesus' living presence, after he'd been publicly executed & was presumed dead -- That would change matters significantly. "People thought he was a false Messiah, because dead folks don't become King. But he's alive; God raised him up & he'll be back soon with legions of angels; you just wait!"
Many 1st Century Jews were sure that "the Kingdom of God" was going to be reestablished by a massive revolt ala the Maccabees, only for real this time. Certainly these groups weren't expecting crushing military defeat and the destruction of the Temple -- but they proved to be gravely mistaken about God's intentions & how these would be realized.
It doesn't look like contemporary Christians had a much better track record, in terms of predicting the immediate future -- except that they weren't expecting a Kingdom based on military might, and don't seem to have bought into those disasterous revolts.
As for God's long term intentions -- what that Kingdom ought to look like when it arrives -- That seems to have been the burden of Jesus' message; and nice ethical precepts seem to be only part of it.
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Permalink Reply by David Bundrick on 12th mo. 25, 2012 at 8:37am
If you have not already, pick up a copy of the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson, a Deist but not a Christian cut and pasted the gospels, deleting such nonsense as the virgin birth and the "miracles" and leaving the important parts. Makes for good reading.
Betsy Packard said:
I do believe in a "higher power" as addiction assistance groups refer to a supreme being. I believe the greatest gift we were given as human beings is the gift of free will, which means to me that this supreme being (or is it a collective pantheon as some cultures throughout history and into the prescoincent believe) is not into micro management. The laws of nature were put in motion, if I drop something it falls down as opposed to dropping up as in space. Sometimes there are anomalies to the norms, and often we do not have explanations for those anomalies.
As for Jesus, to me he was an awesome teacher. It was the need to recruit pagans that the myths developed. Look at how many religions throughout history have heroes with virgin births, deaths and resurrections (with resurrections coinciding with the coming of spring). Christianity is a hybrid. The Bible has a lot of good stuff in it, some of the OT is historically correct! The Psalms are poetry, much of which was written by David, including during the time when Saul was pursuing him. But then we get to the New Testament and eventually the Council of Nicea, and human agendas and politics slid in the door.
Christianity in its most basic form doesn't believe Jesus was a demi god like Helen or Troy or Hercules. Christian dogma says Jesus was fully human AND FULLY GOD. Then we have the Trinity, which is not once mentioned in the Bible itself. (Then there's the mishrad about the 3 Magi, which the Bible never says how many of these Zoroastrians came from Persia! The 3 gifts are symbolic. It's a story meant to teach certain values, not to teach fact.)
To me, Jesus was an awesome teacher who not nearly enough of his supposed followers actually follow! He really boiled things down to the essentials: Love God, Love One Another. What could be easier?
To me, Jesus was a Buddha. There have been multiple Buddhas throughout human history, people who have deeply spiritual lives who try to teach us a better way to live with each other. I do believe that there is that which is of "God" within every person, and I'll even take the step of saying within all sentient beings.
I was raised to believe in the viigin birth and the resurrection 3 days (or so) after horrific execution. Letting that belief go was a conscious decision for me, and in no way does it lessen the importance of Jesus the man for me. In no way does it lessen his teachings.
But I keep in mind that the Bible as we know it is a compilation that was greatly influenced by human agendas and politics, and the similarities Christianity has with other belief systems throughout history tells me it's a hybrid of multiple religions.
And I do not use the word "Christian" to describe myself, for oh so many reasons, including all the horrific actions that have occurred under that label.
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Permalink Reply by Betsy Packard on 12th mo. 25, 2012 at 11:20pm
Yes, David. Jefferson was a product of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason. I've long been familiar with Jefferson's version of the Gospels, and interestingly enough, he felt that he followed the teachings of Jesus, and that this entitled him to refer to himself as a Christian. (I take issue with just how closely he followed Jesus' teachings, but then I remember to "judge not." <G>)
Unfortunately, some folks these days take Jefferson's reference to himself as a "Christian" to mean that he was a Christian in THEIR sense of the word. They take it completely out of context, and then use this as "evidence" that the "founding fathers" were "Christians." <sigh> Ah, the pitfalls of generalizations.
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Permalink Reply by David Nelson Seaman on 2nd mo. 11, 2013 at 11:37am
I would like to thank David for bringing up the Jefferson "Bible" and Betsy's repsonse. Its' essence, consisting of New Testament passages attributed directly to the sayings made only by Jesus, was a refreshing reprieve from the New Testament for me when I first encountered it . Jefferson certainly beleived in God, as did all of the Founding Fathers, and the Age of Enlightenment did seem to provide wise counsel in avoiding any declaration of a specific faith statement in the Consititution of the United States, the thought being that religious tests should not be instituted, or required, by government. We owe Jefferson a great deal of thanks for this.
Early Friends may have had a far differnet view, however. In a query made by Jonathan Evans on the teachings of Elias Hicks at the Pine Street Meeting in 1826, it was said by the elder Evans, that " the Society of Friends beleived in the atonement, mediation and intercession of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ". "We believe him', said he, " to be the King of Kings and Lord of lords, before whose judgement seat every soul shall be arrainged and judged by him. We do not concieve him to be a mere man, and we therefore desire that people may not suppose that we hold any such doctirnes (the teaching of Elias Hicks ), or that we have any unity with them". Willian Penn wrote, on this point, the following: "the Coming of Jesus Christ in that blessed manifestation ( in the flesh ) was to the Jews only, and quotes Mathew xv, "He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel", and again in John 1, " He came into his own, and his own received him not".
The issue of Jesus becomes more pronouned in the theological life of America when in 1828, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his famous " Harvard Divinity School Address". He said that while Jesus was a great man, he was not God. This enraged the Protestant community, who termed him an atheist and corrupter of young minds. He was not asked back to Harvard for 30 years. However, by the late 19th century, the doctrine that Jesus was not God was routintly accepted by Unitarians ( and some Quakers, I believe ), through the rejection of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, although he was recognized as an extrodinary human being. Which goes full circle back to Jefferson.
When asked to believe if Jesus is God, one must seem to hold the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in order to justify that particular belief. Any thoughts on this ?
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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 2nd mo. 12, 2013 at 12:01am
Jesus was clearly a 'unitarian' -- that is, Jewish rather than a conventional 'Christian'.
But trying to decide which quotes were 'really him' and which were the excesses of later followers is not necessarily as easy as Jefferson thought. One can easily distinguish which passages resonate as true from those that seem spurious or exaggerated -- but then one has to leave open the possibility that one simply hasn't found the meaning, given that Jesus was almost certainly speaking Aramaic & needing to rely on metaphor, sometimes very exhuberatedly so.
Quotes that suggest 'The Trinity' may simply be misinterpretations of 1) Jesus speaking prophetically 'for' God and 2) a mystical sense that he, and the rest of us, are incarnations of God's Spirit -- something that Genesis definitely hints at, not to mention later Jewish mystics.
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Permalink Reply by David Nelson Seaman on 2nd mo. 12, 2013 at 5:01pm
Thank you for your insights, Forrest. Much of what was attributed as being said by Jesus seems like a retelling of pre-extant wisdom literature that permeated the cultures and faith tradtions in the area of Canaan. I seemed to have dodged the ressurection question, but there is a litany of savior gods before the Old Testament, such as Baal, Tammuz, Mithras, Horus, Adonis etc., which have similities to the ressurection story of Jesus- and in which the population was versed. I lean towards thinking Tammuz as being the model, although the influence of Horus encompased a larger geographical area due to vast influence of Egypt and its scholars. Don't we all wish the great library at Alexandria had not been burned down by a Christian mob ?
While many of todays Christians would like to identify the United States as a Christian nation, one following the teachings of Jesus, there is a historical document in our archives penned by Washington in 1796 and signed by Adams 1797, that avoided making that claim. The peace treaty with Tripoli stated it clearly:
" As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmonies between the two countries."
I think that by not imposing and adopting Jesus as a national icon we have perhaps honored him in ways more befitting to him than any nation, collectively, has the capacity to fullfill. The worship and place of Jesus in individual religous faith is well assigned and relagated, I think, to preserve this divinity. I am not sure Washington and Jefferson were being short sighted on this matter.
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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 1st mo. 31, 2014 at 11:41am
I don't know why I stumbled upon this and I don't want to take part in the general topic but I thought it would be interesting to point out that people who have after life experiences speak of floating upwards (with one person I met telling me she was floating downward, fearfully, before she came back).
Agnikan Ashwin said:
If Jesus did physically and bodily resurrect, then was His ascension physically and bodily a process of going up into the sky?
I will work on the next two points that QuakerK makes on Quaker Glimmerings, because they go together:
3 comments:
I'm also not sure if it would be accurate to say that the resurrection hadn't been doubted. As I've noted elsewhere, reading Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down has been eye-opening for me. He makes it clear that religious skepticism was more wide-spread in England than I would have thought. I wouldn't say it was mainstream, but it was well-known--including scepticism about the resurrection, which by certain radical religious groups was seen as an allegory, rather than a historical fact. Accurately or not, the Quakers were seen by their critics as a continuation of that stream of thought.
Overall, though, I think you're right about the Quakers having a different implicit theory of atonement. I once heard a Quaker say that the early Friends stressed that the point of the atonment wasn't to atone for sins, it was to stop sinning--thus the Quakers attacks on preachers who "plead for sin."
David
I agree also about people doubting the resurrection to some degree--it was the beginning of the Enlightenment, after all. But I think as a whole cultural phenomenon it probably wasn't doubted that much. The Enlightenment in England was mainly a movement of the educated elite for a long time. But I'm sure it was part of what got Fox questioning in the first place: he was in the midst of a culture that was starting to question. I'll have to read more early Friends stuff and see what more people say about the idea of the resurrection. I haven't read Friends writings with that question in mind before.
I also agree about the idea to stop sinning. They were majorly influenced by the influx of Anabaptists who were thrown out of their countries in mainland Europe about 25-50 years prior, and that was something the Anabaptists also stressed. They and Quakers had in common the belief that the stuff Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount and other radical discipleship texts were meant to be lived out in this lifetime and that through God we can create the Kingdom of God in our communities. Anabaptists chose to create their own communities as examples of what the Kingdom of God looks like, and Quakers chose what is probably the harder route, to live out the Kingdom of God in a world that wants no part in it.