Out of the Tomb

The New Testament scholar (and ex-bishop) Tom Wright, who was interviewed on 30 March at the Christian.co.uk website, said:

"Anyone who is in any sense a Christian cannot with any consistency believe that Jesus stayed dead. I have friends and colleagues who I know to be praying Christians who worship regularly and lead lives of practical Christian love and service but who really struggle with the bodily resurrection. I would say that looks like a muddled Christian who needs to be put straight. Of course some of them would say exactly that about me!"

"But if you say Jesus died and nothing happened but the disciples had some interesting ideas, then you have cut off the branch on which all classic Christianity is sitting. This generation needs to wake up, smell the coffee and realise serious Christianity begins when Jesus comes out of the tomb on Easter morning. This is not a nice optional extra for those who like believing in funny things."

Skeptics and atheists deny the bodily resurrection of Christ yet a fair number of them insist that such a resurrection is crucial to the viability of Christianity. So Christopher Hitchens: "I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, that he rose again from the dead, and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian".

It is the ever-so-trendy clergymen who often believe that spiritualising or denying Christ's resurrection does not affect their Christianity in any significant way...