Easter Without Jesus
Before I tell you who wrote this wonderful piece of pagan nonsense, you can already guess can’t you? Which leader of an Anglican Province could ever manage to do a whole “Easter Message” without mentioning Jesus once?
One of my favorite Easter hymns is about greenness. “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.â€
It goes on to talk about love coming again. It’s a reminder to me of how centered our Easter images are in the Northern hemisphere. We talk about greenness and new life and life springing forth from the earth when we talk about resurrection.
I often wonder what Easter images come in the Southern hemisphere, and I think that church in the south has something to teach us about that.
I was in Japan a month or so ago, and visiting the area of Japan that was so affected by the tsunami and the aftermath of the earthquake. The earth there is – was at that point – largely colorless, brown, in the middle of winter. No greenness. But at the same time the work of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Japanese church in that part of Japan, has brought a great deal of new life, life abundant for people who have been devastated and displaced, who are still mourning their loss of loved ones, the loss of their homes and employment.
New life comes in many forms, even in seasons that seem fairly wintry.
As we began Lent, I asked you to think about the Millennium Development Goals and our work in Lent as a re-focusing of our lives. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the UN report this last year has shown some significant accomplishment in a couple of those goals, particularly in terms of lowering the rates of the worst poverty, and in achieving better access to drinking water and better access to primary education. We actually might reach those goals by 2015. That leaves a number of other goals as well as what moves beyond the goals to full access for all people to abundant life.
In this Easter season I would encourage you to look at where you are finding new life and resurrection, where life abundant and love incarnate is springing up in your lives and the lives of your communities. There is indeed greenness, whatever the season.
Give thanks for Easter. Give thanks for Resurrection. Give thanks for the presence of God incarnate in our midst.
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church
Of course, you wouldn’t expect anything theological substantial from a woman who doesn’t believe that Christ rose physically from the dead (and if you think she does, I challenge you to give us an unequivocal quote from her that affirms as much – you can’t). The climax of this message is not Christ’s work but man’s work (MDGs etc), and good though that is, it cannot save, despite KJS’s best efforts. This is just another example of how TEC has well and truly apostatised.
This type of bland wallpaper is the logical conclusion of theological liberalism. If there is no such thing as absolute truth or a living, resurrected Christ then, ultimately, truth is what you make it in your context and Christ is only read as a metaphor for good things like ‘love’ with which no-one can disagree but which can also only be defined relative to the culture if they have lost their moorings in Christ.
She can’t even bring herself to say ‘the’ resurrection. I truly despair.Â
Well the fact that she hasn’t mentioned Jesus to be honest isn’t that surprising. It was quite surprising for her to reference Japan as part of the Southern Hemisphere. Has she looked at an atlas?
From the tyranny of the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and all her detestable enormities, good Lord deliver us! (AND she’s managed to ruin one of my favourite hymns for me. Silly me, not realising it was really all about climate change and/or the Millennium Development Goals.)
I don’t claim to know much about Katherine Jefferts’ theology, and I’m not particularly impressed by many of the acts of the American Church, but it seems a little over the top to conclude that someone who presumably recites the creed in public every week does not believe in the resurrection simply because she does not explictly say so elsewhere. A more charitable view, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, could be that she takes it as read. I could be wrong, but I don’t think you can or should conclude that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. And while I personally agree that it would be better to make explicit reference to the risen Christ in an Easter message, I took the climax to be the final sentence, which talks about Easter, resurrection, and God incarnate. Last time I looked none of those appeared in the MDGs!
I present exhibit A -Â
http://anglicanecumenicalsociety.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/what-do-people-mean-when-they-say-that-presiding-bishop-schori-has-denied-the-resurrection-or-the-divinity-of-christ/
I must say that I find this piece rather disingenuous. Just briefly looking at What We Believe on the Episcopal Church’s website sees loads of references to Jesus, and seems pretty orthodox to me. Fine you don’t like her for being a practicing lesbian but criticism at this level seems a bit petty to me!
Practicing lesbian? Now THAT would be a story.
See the link I gave in reply to “Wondering Soul”. It matters diddly squat what the official website says. It’s what KJS herself actually teaches (or fails to teach) that is at issue.
By the way James, I think you should reflect on the reasons why you choose *that* as a user pic…
I chose *that* pic because it made me laugh, and has made my friends laugh too :) I had to sign in on Facebook to post on here and it got pulled in from there. Didn’t realise I could change it here – if you look at it on Facebook you will see it better!
No I’ve seen it. The fact that you choose to lampoon those who choose a religious life is, as I said, telling.
It was a fancy-dress night rather than lampooning. I suggest you excercise less judgementalism!
You’re the one who chose it as your Facebook user pic, not me.
But enough of this. We’re all waiting for you to tell me the exact thing that I wrote about KJS that was fallacious. That’s what you accused me of and that’s what you’re going to have to evidence. Until you do so, or retract the allegation and apologise, we’ll just be concentrating on those two outcomes.
I suppose my overall point was that whilst you may mention Jesus in your Easter message, your vilification of one of God’s children doesn’t speak of Jesus to me.
Then you should have no point in showing us the exact words I use that vilify KJS. What do I say that is untrue?
Its all the words that you use and your whole attitude towards her! I think its only the pharisees of this age that have all the correct doctrine but miss the point entirely. Its what you do that counts rather than what you believe. My predecessor would say that even the demons believe and they shudder. Someone else said that we will be known by our fruit…
“It’s the attitude”.
That is SUCH a cop-out James. That just sounds to me like “I can’t actually demonstrate that anything you said about KJS is incorrect, so instead I will engage in the basest of ad hominem and attack your motives”. Speak of “by their fruit”.
All that we see James is that you have no substance to your complaint. Let’s try it one more time. What did I write about KJS that is fallacious?
James’ first attempt to respond was just a sentence of ad hominem and then a non-engagement with the issue.
Let’s see if he can actually be man enough to either show where I lied (go and look up “vilify” in the dictionary) or apologise.
Ad hominem count so far this thread from James – 3
Why did you delete my post? Here it is again:
Your whole attitude and approach is “incorrect” Peter. I suggest you take stock and think about it.
It really doesn’t matter to me whether someone believes in a literal resurrection or not. What interests me and, I suggest God too, is how they treat others. Are they going to be the good samaritan who takes part in the local soup run, or visits someone in hospital, or cares for widows and orphans? This is the basis for a Godly life not whether we have dotted all the i’s, tithed all our spices, and kept all the reformed theology!
Because earlier on in this thread you accused me of lying (go and look up “vilify”) without saying what the falsehood was. I don’t like people accusing me of lying, so your next step is to either tell us all the exact phrase I used that was a lie OR to apologise.
Why on earth can’t you just leave my post as it is and reply to it?!
Here it is again:
Your whole attitude and approach is “incorrect” Peter. I suggest you take stock and think about it.
It really doesn’t matter to me whether someone believes in a literal resurrection or not. What interests me and, I suggest God too, is how they treat others. Are they going to be the good samaritan who takes part in the local soup run, or visits someone in hospital, or cares for widows and orphans? This is the basis for a Godly life not whether we have dotted all the i’s, tithed all our spices, and kept all the reformed theology!
Because earlier on in this thread you accused me of lying (go and look up “vilify”) without saying what the falsehood was. I don’t like people accusing me of lying, so your next step is to either tell us all the exact phrase I used that was a lie OR to apologise.
We can do this all day James until you finally provide some evidence for your claim. Is it your habit to go around accusing people of lying and then when challenged to state what the falsehood was, obfuscate?
Deleting people’s posts is hardly the way to conduct a discussion – I find it quite bizarre.
As I said before, you did vilify her by writing this very piece. You don’t know every aspect of her life and the way she represents Jesus to people, all you do is pick on the fact that she didn’t mention Jesus in her Easter message and I think that’s rather pathetic of you!
I didn’t just pick up on the fact she didn’t mention Jesus. I linked that to the fact that she will not affirm the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Your response was to accuse me of lying (Go and look up “vilify”). So, which bit of that was a lie?
Don’t think this is about me not liking your perspective. Loads of people who are liberal comment here, and they carry on quite happily because they don’t accuse me of lying without even pointing to what the alleged dissemblance was!
 “Let’s see if he can actually be man enough to either show where I lied”
…which we can only assume means that if James were Jane, then she could be content to withdraw delicately with her feminine frailty and confused weakness intact ;)
No, but then if James were Jane I wouldn’t have written “man enough”.
Out of interest, and just to make sure that I am not misunderstanding you, what would you write as an equivalent phrase for “Jane”?
I must confess the use of language is a one of my geeky fascinations in life. And to declare an interest, it probably comes from working within the wicked world of the media :)
I don’t know. Why don’t you get someone called Jane to come onto my website and act as stupidly as James and then I’ll see what my response is.
I’m accusing you of vilifying KJS by writing this whole piece, its not the specific words you use its your whole attitude. I don’t know how I can make this clearer! I think that you loose the argument by deleting my posts rather than leaving them up and defending your position.
So again:
Your whole attitude and approach is “incorrect” Peter. I suggest you take stock and think about it.
It really doesn’t matter to me whether someone believes in a literal resurrection or not. What interests me and, I suggest God too, is how they treat others. Are they going to be the good samaritan who takes part in the local soup run, or visits someone in hospital, or cares for widows and orphans? This is the basis for a Godly life not whether we have dotted all the i’s, tithed all our spices, and kept all the reformed theology!
Please just reply to it rather than using the delete button as your defence. I have to go now but will try and catch you later :)
James – one last go. All you’re doing is engaging in ad hominem. “It’s your whole attitude”. “It’s not the specific words”. You can’t actually provide us with one single sentence I’ve written that is incorrect can you?
As I said James, one last go. Either write something that deals with the substance of what I wrote rather than just impugning my motives, or this is over.
It no more ad hominem than your original article. If you haven’t the decency to keep my post up so people can judge it on its own merits then that is up to you.
Here it is again:
Your whole attitude and approach is “incorrect” Peter. I suggest you take stock and think about it.
It really doesn’t matter to me whether someone believes in a literal resurrection or not. What interests me and, I suggest God too, is how they treat others. Are they going to be the good samaritan who takes part in the local soup run, or visits someone in hospital, or cares for widows and orphans? This is the basis for a Godly life not whether we have dotted all the i’s, tithed all our spices, and kept all the reformed theology!
Bye bye James. We gave you numerous opportunities after you’d accused me of lying to point out just one actual thing I’d written about KJS that was fallacious and you couldn’t manage it. Not the way I want to debate around here.
Hello Peter, i do agree that one of the clearest (though hardly surprising) aspects of liberal Christianity is that what it offers is so often disappointing.. KJS’s piece here is typical of that. Apart from the rather bizarre assumption that southern hemisphere countries are all arid and brown, and even more bizarre that Japan is in the southern hemisphere, her easter message is about as uplifting and inspirational as a management email. But when you’ve ruled out so much of what is really special and inspirational about Easter, and are left with the ‘mustn’t offend anyone’ lowest common denominator kindof message, KJS’s message is exactly what you’re left with. I’m very pleased that more and more people are getting clean water, and that some people in Japan are finding God’s strength and hope amidst terrible circumstances, but without the cross and the resurrection we are a hopeless race doomed to eternal destruction!! Easter is about helping poeple and new hope etc, ONLY BECAUSE Jesus died and rose again, and because of that it is about so much more too. KJS, you should’t be surprised therefore that hrdly anyone wants to come to your churches!
Oh What Vitreal in the name of Christianity….It’s all too laughable for inteligent comment!