Lisa Miller on the resurrection of the body

[The Ascension by Brian Jekel - from Pictures of Jesus]

Lisa Miller has done it again...another "controversial" (more or less) article in Newsweek. This time she takes on a question with an eternal significance.

What happens when we die? That's the question. According to Ms. Miller, about 80 percent of Americans think they're going to heaven. (Gonna be crowded!)

But when you ask these believers what form they will take, "the consensus breaks down. According to a 2005 NEWSWEEK poll, only half of Americans think of resurrection as a physical event, a revivification of flesh after death. More than a third think of it as something spiritual, an ascension of the soul that leaves the corpse behind."


That "spiritual" stuff just isn't good enough for the real God-lovers. Miller says that "a small group of orthodox Christian and Jewish scholars are trying to force the issue" by arguing "that from the beginning, Jews and Christians have understood resurrection as a physical transformation -- a literal reversal of death."

And if you're going to call yourself a "true" believer, you must believe in a physical resurrection!

Miller refers to books by an Anglican bishop and an "evangelical" Christian, both of which insist that the notion of a physical resurrection is "central to Christian faith."

Then there's a Jewish scholar from Harvard who "argues that a Jewish belief in the resurrection has its origins in the Torah (a controversial claim in scholarly circles) and a long tradition in rabbinic Judaism."

Well, I wonder what Torah he's been reading. Resurrection of the body in the Torah? I don't think so!

Fundamentalists of any stripe are interesting creatures. They tend to go backward instead of forward, and become increasingly reliant upon ancient tribal customs and beliefs to nourish their need for spirituality.

Ms. Miller also refers to St. Augustine who wrote "of the real, resurrected body. In heaven, he wrote in 'City of God,' you will be your perfect self: unblemished and 30-something. If you were fat in life, you will become pleasingly thinner; if too thin, you will become robust."

Or, as Paula Fredriksen said in her book about Augustine: "Our bodies will be the very same ones we had in life, but buff and beautiful."

Well, Augustine wrote lots of things and much of it is pure nonsense and utterly stupid from a scientific point of view and worthless so far a modern human beings go. And some of it's evil -- especially his diatribes against the Jews. So, why would anyone believe his delusions about heaven and the resurrection of the body.

Furthermore, all of this resurrection of the body theology is predicated on the belief that God can and does do miracles and should have no problem revivifying our physicality, no matter how decomposed or non-existent it might be.

Which leads one to wonder, of course, why, if God is so good at miracles, we need to go through the process of death in the first place, especially if that process includes incredible physical and mental pain and suffering.

We might also wonder, why, if God is so good at miracles, he couldn't have left us clear instructions or an unambiguous "Manual for Heaven" in which all our questions would be answered without the need for scholars and theologians to dissect materials written by ignorant goat herders living three millennia ago.

Which brings up the last point. Nobody knows anything about any of this! What happens after we die will remain a mystery until we die. The scholars don't know. The theologians don't know. The psychics don't know. The Republicans don't know. Nobody knows!

So, you're quite free to believe anything you wish. And don't worry about "orthodox" Christian or Jewish scholars, 'cause they don't know, either, in spite of their pretensions to the contrary. But, if you choose to believe that your physical body is somehow going to be put back together but in a form that would make Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie envious, you're choosing to believe something for which there is not a shred of evidence anywhere!

There is no evidence for any kind of life after death, much less a physical resurrection.

Christianist wingnuts come loose over Newsweek article on gay marriage

It was to be expected, of course. Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham, unworried, said, in so many words, "bring 'em on!"

And they have! Christianist wingnuts everywhere are coming loose over the Newsweek article supporting gay marriage.

Albert Mohler takes Newsweek religion editor, Lisa Miller, to task for her one-sided approach to biblical teachings. Mohler argues, for example, that while "family" in the Old Testament meant something different than we do, at the center of the biblical unit "stands the institution of marriage as the most basic human model of convenantal love and commitment."

Oh, if only it were so. Assuming momentarily that the partriarchal figures were historical, one can only laugh at Mohler's gratituitous comment. Generally, marriage in those tribal units meant an old man grabbed a young girl of his liking and threw her in his tent. Then, he grabbed another young girl; and another. If, down the road he decided he no longer wanted one of his "wives," he threw her out of his tent like an old wine bottle. That's not really a "human model of covenantal love and commitment."

Mohler has much more to say and you can read it all here if you're interested. You won't find anything new. It's a rehashing of the same old "biblical" arguments. But it is a good case study on why the answers to this and many other of life's questions are not to be found in that musty collection of ancient scribblings known as the Bible.

Mohler does register a bit of paranoia, however. And, as one might suspect, the media are at the heart of it! Mohler says the reason Newsweek published this article is because:

"The national news media are collectively embarrassed by the passage of Proposition 8 in California. [I wonder if he includes Fox News or the WSJ in his definition of 'national news media?'] Gay rights activists are publicly calling on the mainstream media to offer support for gay marriage, arguing that the media let them down in November. It appears that Newsweek intends to do its part to press for same-sex marriage. Many observers believe that the main obstacle to this agenda is a resolute opposition grounded in Christian conviction. Newsweek clearly intends to reduce that opposition."

Uh, oh! Watch out all you good christianists 'cause the national media's gonna grind you down and help establish gay marriage and that means your traditional marriage is no damn good anymore! It says so in the Bible! Of course, more than half of you get divorced anyway, so it probably doesn't matter much.


The American Family Association calls Miller's article "one of the most biased and distorted pieces concerning homosexual marriage ever published by a major news organization," and calls upon all good christianists to e-mail Newsweek saying that "you are disappointed with its distorted interpretation of scripture."


Jim Brown at onenewsnow.com writes that "Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute, believes there is ample evidence of media bias on the marriage issue, but calls this example one of the worst he has seen. Knight says Newsweek published a 'cartoon' version of Scripture that is a gay activist's dream."

Knight claims that Lisa Miller's trying "to take the Bible and make it say something it flat-out does not say is journalistic malpractice."

Omigod! "Journalistic malpractice!" I wonder if that's against the law? I'll check in Leviticus and get back to you.

Not only so, Mr. Knight also claims that "the article is an attack on the authority of scripture, evangelical Christians, and absolute truth."

I would hope so!


Then we have the Family Research Council, which has also come out of its cave to step into the fray. Tony Perkins goes straight to the Hebrew Bible and straightens Ms. Miller out. It's hard to make sense of what he says, though. For example, in his rebuttal to Miller, notes that many of the Bible's "fathers and heroes were polygamists." Well, says Perkins, that's because "There is a difference between how the Bible defines marriage and how it depicts it in all it's sin-corrupted reality. It is defined in the creation."

You know, when Adam and Eve stood before the serpent in the garden and Eve brushed back her veil and gave Adam his ring and promised to love him only and forever. See Genesis 2. There doesn't seem to be any "traditional" marriage in the Genesis 1 creation story! Damn, this gets confusing!

There's more of Perkins here. Ugh!


Another wingnut, this time a "biblical scholar," Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a fundamentalist school affiliated with the fundamentalist Presbyterian Church, USA.

He disagrees, naturally, with Miller's take on the Bible. "Miller," he says, "restricts her research to biblical scholars supportive of homosexual unions and exaggerates discontinuity between Scripture's marriage values and our own."

Hmmm. Did he just say there is, in fact, "discontinuity between Scripture's marriage values and our own," and Miller's problem is she "exaggerated" that discontinuity.

By god, I think he did!

Gagnon's arguments are another good example as to why referencing the Bible on this or any other "moral" position is a losing proposition. As we steadfastly maintain, "Every evil cause on the fact of the earth is and has been justified on the basis of the Bible."

Gagnon has a rather long article arguing against Miller here.


Richard Land, the self-righteous Southern Baptist poohbah, isn't worried at all about any of this. "If they [Newsweek?] think they're going to cause Evangelical Christians or Bible-believing Christians of different stripes to somehow say, oh, the Bible doesn't matter on marriage, I think they're mistaken. I don't think too many in the Evangelical world are too concerned about what Newsweek has to say."

He's probably right. But that doesn't mean Newsweek is wrong. It means Christians of his kind of stripes drift through life with closed minds. And if these "Christians" try to open the doors and let some fresh air in, Land and his cohorts are there to nail it shut again. That's their job, doing the work of god.


Finally, some of these wingnuts make us wonder what they hell they want. Politico.com writes about how they go through all this biblical justification to oppose gay marriage, and then turn around and say, as did Ralph Reed, [the ethically-challenged former director of the Christian Coalition and close pal of convicted felon, Jack Abramoff],

"There's more of a practical, sociological foundation for why we seek to affirm marriage as an institution than I think is generally understood by those who want to legalize same-sex marriage."

Huh? "A "practical, sociological foundation"? What does that mean? Is Reed saying what the Bible says isn't all that important because his case against gay marriage is based on "a practical, sociological foundation"? And if so, what would that be?

Land concludes by saying something of the same thing. The arguments used around the country in the "anti-same-sex marriage referenda" did not mainly involve "biblical instructions," but "secular arguments, arguing about marriage being a civic and a social institution, and that societies have a right to define marriage. Broadening the definition of marriage could 'shatter' the social role married couples have traditionally played.


So what is it? Are the wingnuts opposed to gay marriage because the Bible says it's a bad thing and god's gonna get you, or are they opposed to gay marriage because it's bad for society and will mess up traditional marriages (as if they're not messed up enough anyway!)?

It's really hard to play god, isn't it? It's really hard to preach "absolute truth" based on the bible when no one has a frigging clue what that is! And then you end up being a sociologist. Or maybe a sociopath?

Don't you feel sorry for the wingnuts?

On gay marriage and the Bible

Sometimes I don't agree with Newsweek editor, Jon Meacham, at all.

But he's right on in his editorial in this weeks issue.

Meacham describes the schism in the Episcopal Church noting that it roots in the "conservative forces of reaction to the ecclesiastical and cultural acceptance of homosexuality" who claim "their opposition to the ordination and the marriage of gays ...[is] irrevocably rooted in the Bible--which they regard as the 'final authority and unchangeable standard for Christian faith and life.'"

Aha! Meacham will have none of that! Whatever one's position on gay rights, he says, "this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism."

"Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt--it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition."


I've argued time and again that fundamentalists who want to pretend that the Bible is literally true and inerrant, fail to take that collection of material seriously, but rather use it as a magical talisman to justify whatever it is they want to hate at the moment.

Bishop Krister Stendahl, of Sweden, once said that the Bible is a very dangerous book, especially in the hands of the ignorant, for every evil cause on the face of the earth has been and is defended on the basis of the Bible.


Meacham notes first of all that sexual orientation is not something one chooses, "but is as intrinsic to a person's makeup as skin color."

Then, even more to the point: "The analogy with race is apt, for Christians in particular long cited scriptural authority to justify and perpetuate slavery with the same certitude that some now use to point to certain passages in the Bible to condemn homosexuality and to deny the sacrament of marriage to homosexuals."

Leaving the word, "sacrament," out of the argument, for that is a specifically religious term which many would not understand, Meacham is again right on when he says "This argument from Scripture is difficult to take seriously ... since the passages in question are part and parcel of texts that, with equal ferocity, forbid particular haircuts."

Agreeing with Dr. Stendahl, Meacham points out that biblical texts "have been ready sources for those seeking to promote anti-Semitism and limit the human rights of women ... "

And all sorts of other evils...


But it is hard to see the light when you're bound between the covers of ancient darkness.

Newsweek and the Antichrist cretins

An article in the latest Newsweek asks the question, "Is Obama the Antichrist?"

Why such an article would appear in Newsweek is another question. What's the point in giving the Antichrist cretins any more publicity?

Lisa Miller, author of this nonsense, reminds us of an anonymous e-mail " that was circulated among conservative Christians in October implying that he [Obama] was the Antichrist."

Millions of Christianists believe we're living in the end-times, the last days. According to Miller, they "believe a great battle is imminent. After years of tribulation--natural disasters, other cataclysms (such as the collapse of financial markets)--God's armies will vanquish armies led by the Antichrist himself."

And who is this Antichrist? "He will be a sweet-talking world leader who gathers governments and economies under his command to further his own evil agenda. In this world view, 'the spread of secular progressive ideas is a prelude to the enslavement of mankind,'" according to Richard Landes, "former director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University."

Then you have "Former 'Saturday Night Live' ingenue Victoria Jackson ... who wrote on her Web site that Obama 'bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ.'"

It gets even crazier. We've written previously about the idiotic Web site, RaptureReady.com, run by one Todd Strandberg. He's a believer in the reality of the Rapture, defined as "a huge, upward whoosh" which will carry the "saved" up into heaven when the end comes.

A key index as to when the end-time will arrive is the presence of the Antichrist. Strandberg doesn't really believe that Obama is that person, but "he's watching the president-elect carefully. On his Web site, he has something called the Rapture Index, a calculation based on signs and prophecy of the proximity of the end. According to Strandberg, any number over 160 means 'fasten your seat belts.' Obama's win pushed the index to 161."


Now be advised that, even if you consider the Bible or the New Testament to be the word of God, this end-times scenario is bullshit, the fruit of diseased minds who treat the Bible as a magic charm, a kind of amulet.

Admittedly, there are passages in the Gospels which indicate that Jesus expected the Kingdom of God to come in the future. In other passages, though, he told his followers that the Kingdom of God had already arrived and was an internal phenomenon -- inside them. Was he talking about the end times?

Early Christians, including Paul, were convinced that the end would come and Christ would return in their lifetime. Paul, knowing nothing of Jesus or the Gospels, was disappointed, and he and other early Christians had to adjust their theology to fit the new reality.

In the same way, probably in the early 2nd century, the Gospels were revised to have Jesus counsel his followers that NO ONE, except the Father, knows when the end will come!

That did not stop the kooks, however. Throughout the history of Christianity, various persons and groups have predicted the end times. As the year 1,000 approached, for example, some Christians became almost hysterical with fear as priests and prophets warned that signified the end. In the past 150 years, many religious movements have predicted over and over again the end of the world, often giving specific dates. Incredibly, while those false predictions led to some dissension, the "prophets" continued their predictions and the people kept believing them!


Today, we have conservative Christianist fruitcakes who take passages from the New Testament -- the Revelation of John, mostly -- and interpret those passages as having something to do with modern times or the future. Sorry, Charlie. The Revelation of John was written for people living in the 2nd century who were being pressured by Rome. It was written in a code that only they would understand. It is apocalyptic literature that is open to interpretation, but only for that period of time. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with us today.

In fact, the Revelation of John was such a controversial book, it was left out of many, if not most, early manuscripts of the New Testament. The bishops who, after much bitter fighting, decided -- more or less - what should consist of what we call the New Testament (in 381 CE) thought at first to toss the Revelation of John as being unworthy of inclusion in the sacred material. In the end, however, they stuffed it in to bring up the rear.

What a mistake that was! It has caused nothing but trouble ever since by the fearful, the deranged, those who love conspiracies, and those who love to put their own spin on things. It remains an enigma. The only people who use it are the end-time theorists and conservative Christianists who like to write novels and books about how everyone except born-againers are going to get cooked - and it will serve them right! - when their loving savior comes back. And only they, of course, know when that will be!


Mathew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's monument to biblical ignorance, doesn't think that Obama is the Antichrist. (Isn't that nice of him?) But he understands why other ultra-conservative Christianists might. Obama's "liberal" positions on abortion and gay marriage "threaten their freedom." So, according to Staver, those who think Obama is the Antichrist "are perhaps jumping to conclusions, but they're not nuts."

The hell they're not. How else would you define people who believe crap like the "Rapture" and the "Antichrist" which derive from the manic writings of a second century wingnut who put down his ravings in apocalyptic form? In fact, no one knows who wrote the Revelation of John or when it was written or where it was written. Most "normal" Christians try to pretend it doesn't exist as it is an embarrassment to the Christian faith and to common sense.

All of this garbage about the end-times, Armageddon, the Rapture and the Antichrist is pure fantasy and has no relationship to anything real. It is irrational and insane to believe any of it. Therefore, those that do, no matter how well-intentioned they might seem to be, are clearly "nuts"!


So we're back to the question as to why Newsweek would print such an article. I can't think of one good reason. Maybe the editors simply needed to fill space. But, if that were the case, they could write about how other nutcases believe Santa Claus is real or that Belgium doesn't exist, or that the Holocaust didn't happen, or that Hitler was really a nice guy, or that FOX is a real news station, or that George W. Bush was a great president.

Those fantasies have as much validity as Christianist belief in an Antichrist or the Rapture!