Globe and Mail – March 22, 2008:
That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto’s West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country.
But at West Hill on the faith’s holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.”
Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it’s toast.
She says there’s been virtually a consensus among scholars for the past 30 years that the Bible is not some divine emanation – or in Ms. Vosper acronym, TAWOGFAT, The Authoritative Word of God For All Time – but a human project filled with contradictions and the conflicting worldviews and political perspectives of its authors.
well Jesus was and never been a god. He’s just a messenger to mankind as many other messengers which came before. All messengers message was clear. Worship God only. But alas people started worshipping the messengers only.
Why do I doubt the part about this being the virtual consensus amongst biblical scholars for the past 30 years?
RBG
By “people” do you mean christians?
I’m still curious as to this trinity split. If the three are the same, why can’t you worship one of them or indeed if you say I don’t recognize Jesus but I do worship God, God/jesus/ghost/trinity couldn’t be that petty about how he carves up issues of faith?===could he/she/it/them?
Oh someone just needs to beat up on the Canadians again, because they have a better health care system than us, and lower priced drugs. So let’s dump on them for not being nearly as righteous as we assume we are. BTW, didn’t all this removing God from things start in the US? Thanks to some prominent atheists who raised a stink about it.
humans can never be god. Just as Jesus is a human being like you and me, he cannot be called a god. God is far superior than humans. He is one of us in each and every cells in our body. He created the universe and beyond. Now tell me if a mortal like humans can do that.
#5 – He created the universe and beyond.
I highly doubt that…
Quit stating your zealous beliefs as if they were fact.
You got that right, RGB.
About the only thing biblical scholars can agree on is that 99% of the other biblical scholars are doomed to eternal damnation.
And them’s the tolerant ones.
I believe that Jesus was a very wise person whose words were changed to create a basis for the establishment of a religion. The money’s in the theology…
Though she might not know it, Ms Vosper is really a Unitarian. I can understand that point of view, having known a few Unitarians over the years.
Damn, those Canadians are a smart bunch… and good looking too!
The United Church in general is doomed. It turns out if you remove Jesus from church.. the church ceases to exist within a generation.
Go figure.
I believe that Jesus Christ (“The Annointed One” in Greek) was a mythical figure invented by Hellenized Jews in the first century BC as a way to adopt the Greek mystery cults of Dionysis and Sophia to jewish culture by combining Sun god worship with the Messiah myth.
The life of Jesus, written by “Mark” around 70 A.D. is well documented to be a synthesis of Jewish and Pagan myths that existed much earlier than the time Jesus supposedly lived. Dozens of other authors wrote their own life of Jesus stories, only four of which made it into the Bible.
The Gnostic Christians believe that “Jesus” is symbolic of all humans, the death on the cross is an ancient pagan symbolic death representing the end of bodily weakness, and the ressurection the awakening of the spirit. The Epistles of Paul (not including the Pastorals, which were not written by Paul) never mention any events of Christ’s life, since they weren’t invented yet, except the death and ressurection.
The above, by the way, are some of the consensus scholarly views of the past 30 years mentioned in the article.
I think the real issue here is that many americans are ignorant to the fact that stability in a society is based on having common values. Common values are best maintained through traditions. If you constantly attack and reduce these traditions you attack the fiber of our culture and society. America has always been a melting pot society. A nation of immigrants. The difference between now and say, the 50’s, is America no longer requires cultural integration. All to the contrary, immigrants are encouraged to maintain their foreign languages and traditions. Add to that the liberal agenda of removing all references of religion from government in the sacred name of separation of church and state and what you got is no cultural identity and one of the largest prison populations per capita in the world. Plenty of people are actively tearing down the American culture and nobody seems to want to defend it.
I have to chuckle when people say that Jesus ‘was a messenger’ or that he ‘was a prophet’ or a ‘good man’.
Jesus claimed to be God. Was He a lying? Was He crazy?
Or was He in fact what He claimed to be?
Jesus was like a crazy uncle to me.
No human can claim to be a god. If he does that then either he’s a liar as all humans do sometime or you you’re the one who is attributing god like abilities to him.
As for atheists, I can’t do anything about them. They’re already too locked up. 😉
Suppose you could fly through the air on a horse and leap up into heaven – are you a God?
RBG
RGB, I tried that once. Do you have to stay up in heaven?
#5, zorker,
It is in all of us. Just use your i m a g i n a t i o n.
I’m here to tell you people that there is a god. It is within each and everyone of us.
Not always, but usually some of Mother Nature’s herbs or mushrooms* will help you find god. Most of the time though all it takes is just knowing that:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of death,
I shall fear no evil,
I shall fear no hidden danger,
I shall fear no Jehovah Witness,
I shall fear no bill collector,
I shall fear no TSA Boarding Inspector
or FBI Agent without a warrant,
for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley”
*= man made chemicals are not recommended.
if you take ” Jesus Christ” out, you are denying the full exppression of who God is,
it takes a spiritual understanding to truly have an encounter with Christ.
Jesu is God manifested in the flesh (deity)
Jesus has two natures Divinity and Humanity i ONE.