The New Testament did not give us the Resurrection; the Resurrection gave us the New Testament. Some Christians strangely think this is controversial. But this is spot on. Thanks, Frank Turek. It all comes down to the Risen Jesus.
Praise the Lord! HE IS RISEN INDEED!!
Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley manages to stir up controversy every now and then, most recently with a sermon given earlier in 2018, about “unhitching” our faith from the Old Testament. Pastor Stanley was interviewed by apologist Dr. Michael Brown, on the Line of Fire radio program, where he was given the opportunity to respond to critics.
I may not totally jive with every statement Andy Stanley makes in his preaching, but I am totally on-board with his apologetics strategy. In sum, the message of the Christian faith, is driven first and foremost by an event, and not a text. We begin not with a perfect Bible, but rather, with the evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus. Some of the friends in my church call this the “Easter Effect,” whereby almost the entire Roman Empire, in the first centuries of the church, was converted to Christianity on the basis of the claim of the Risen Jesus. We get our understanding of the Bible’s authority from the Risen Jesus, and not vice-versa.
For if Jesus never rose from the dead, our confidence in the Bible means absolutely nothing. But because Jesus did rise from the dead, the Bible comes to us as God’s Word, and means everything to the follower of Jesus.
In other words, it is not enough to say, “the Bible says it, I believe, and that settles it.” Rather, “I believe the Bible, because it is true.” There is a big difference.
Give it a listen, and let me know what you think. Do you think I am wrong about this? Is Andy Stanley on target, or is he veering off the mark? Veracity has covered Andy Stanley before on several occasions (#1, #2, #3). The audio starts about 20 seconds in.
Pakistani Christian worshipers during an Easter Mass in Lahore, 2015. PHOTO: LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGES (as in the Wall Street Journal article)
Several Veracity readers came to me on Easter Sunday and asked me about a recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Easter Effect and How it Changed the World” (behind a paywall), by a Catholic intellectual, George Weigel. Weigel’s argument is that the event of Christ’s resurrection, so inspired, so disturbed, and so invigorated the world of the Roman empire, that it eventually led to Christianity’s effectively taking over the Mediterranean basin within just a few centuries. Weigel published a briefer essay along the same lines in the journal First Things in 2016 (no paywall).
In the First Things essay, I disagree with Weigel’s judgment that the popularity of the New Atheism of the likes of Richard Dawkins has “just about expired.” I only see the trend continuing to erode the cultural landscape, though in a more subdued manner, until the church recaptures the imagination of the “Easter effect.” This caveat aside, I recommend Weigel’s thoughts to you.
If you are interested in this theme, of how the “Easter Effect” radically changed the world, even to the present day, you can explore this idea in a couple of books that treat this topic in-depth. Weigel was partly inspired by the work of Baylor University sociologist, Rodney Stark, in his 2012 The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion. You can read a review of the book by Scott Wenig, of Denver Seminary.
In a similar vein, the infamously skeptical, UNC Chapel Hill scholar Bart Ehrman recently released The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World. What is remarkable about Ehrman’s book is that even though he is decidedly an agnostic, he nevertheless finds the impact of the claims to Christ’s Resurrection to be of tremendous historical significance. So, even though Ehrman does not believe the Resurrection to be true, he admits that something indeed happened, following Jesus’ death, that led to the radical transformation of the Roman empire. Charlotte’s Reformed Theological Seminary president, Michael Kruger, reviews Ehrman’s book.
HT: Paulette Parker
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