Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: roderic@vicom.com (Roderic Taylor) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: the Resurrection Message-ID: Date: 19 Mar 90 05:43:56 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 34 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I originally posted the following article in talk.religion.misc. A kind person mentioned that this newsgroup would also be appropriate: Christ's suffering moves me. In a previous article, I wrote about how my father suffered with cancer for a long time, then died; and how this led to the end of my own belief in God. Because Christianity does not downplay suffering, or deny it, or minimize it, because it considers suffering so serious that even God's anointed suffered, I have to take Christianity seriously. Now what does Christ's resurrection mean in this context? It seems to undermine the seriousness of Christ's pain. This is not supposed to be the case; the gospels transmit the seriousness of his suffering, even to the point of recounting his prayers that he might be delivered from it. But it undermines his suffering for me. Human beings suffer and die, and do not then rise again. Yet the resurrection of Christ is central to Christianity. I do not know how to take it; I do not know what it means. Of course some Christians interpret it literally to mean that Christ triumphed over death by being resurrected, and that those who believe in him will triumph similarly; some of these Christians even talk at length what it will be like to live with a perfect resurrected body in a perfect Christ ruled world. But I know there are Christians on this net who do not necesarily believe in an afterlife, and who certainly don't find such a belief central to their faith. To them I would ask, is the resurrection important to you? What is its signficance? What does it mean to you? --Roderic T