A Sound of Sheer Silence

Having affirmed Nicholas Kristof that there is value in the teachings of Jesus  even in the face of skepticism about the physical resurrection in Part 1, I would like to address Rev. Jones's position on the resurrection.   I should note that Rev. Jones reported yesterday  that she has been subject to online harassment as a result of her interview, which is (unfortunately) unsurprising, surely true, and totally unacceptable. I hope, and don't believe that I am, adding to this harassment with this post, but only to express why I think her answer doesn't really hang together or get to the heart of what is at stake with Christianity.  And, in particular, I don't think it can really answer the most powerful and sophisticated critiques of Christianity. But, first, let's start with what Rev. Jones said: KRISTOF Happy Easter, Reverend Jones! To start, do you think of Easter as a literal flesh-and-blood resurrection? I have problems with that. JONES When you look in the

On Sunday, Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times , continued a series of interviews he has done from time to time with Christian religious leaders and thinkers.  This time, his conversation partner was Serene Jones , the President of Union Theological Seminary in New York City.  She said a number of things in this interview, some of which I agree with and many of which I do not, but the one that got the attention was her somewhat dismissive handling of the idea of Jesus's physical resurrection on Eastern Sunday (or, more accurately, Holy Saturday evening).  When I first saw the criticism of Rev. Jones circulating on Twitter, I made the cardinal sin of online takes and fired off some Tweets without reading the article when I got home from Easter Vigil early Sunday morning.  Rev. Jones and Union have said some, in my view, kinda dumb stuff in the past that I have dragged in this space , and I assumed this was more of the same. Having now read the interview, I still s

This question has been asked of me, and I think it is a fair one--why would anyone celebrate or remember the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth?  In my experience, when that question is asked, it is not being asked from the place of "why would anyone care about what happens to this person anyway?," as part of a broader project of skepticism about religious things generally or Christian things specifically.  Yes, sure, some people will do that in a trolling kind of way, but you can usually spot those people straight off, and those folks can thus be easily ignored.  Don't feed the trolls. But, in my experience, this question generally comes from a more sympathetic place.  Why do we come to church on a Friday year after year, and hear again and again this long, brutal account of a man being tortured and killed?  Particularly as, we believe, the story ultimately has a happy ending two days later.  Why dwell on the horror?  Good Friday services are, in my experience, emotional

I mean if Buttigieg thinks evangelicals should be supporting him instead of Trump, he fundamentally does not understand the roots of Christianity. But then he is an Episcopalian, so he might not actually understand Christianity more than superficially. — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 7, 2019 Episcopalianism is to Christianity what Rice Krispies are to rice. It may have once been the later, but now it's just a hollowed out puff prone to snapping, crackling, and popping. — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 8, 2019 Right-wing political commentator and self-professed evangelical Christian Erick Erickson decided to talk shit about my faith and my religious tradition over the last few days, and as such I feel entitled to respond. One can approach this response from a number of directions.  One obvious direction, and one that I saw commonly in the Twitter response to Erickson, is to interrogate this notion of "the roots of Christianity," which the Episcop