Posted on 07/28/2019 6:02:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
In an imaginary “ranking” of Christian topics that elicit the most fervent discussions, Jesus Christ is No. 1. But near the top is the Shroud of Turin — believed by millions of Christians to be the authentic burial cloth of Jesus. This “ranking” was inspired by you — Townhall readers who wrote over 500 impassioned comments in response to my July 21 piece, “Shroud of Turin: New Test Concludes 1988 ‘Medieval Hoax’ Dating Was a Fraud.”
I purposely read all your comments to gain insight into my role as an adviser and fundraiser for a groundbreaking exhibition about the Shroud of Turin at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. This spectacular museum, among the largest and highest rated in the city, is located only three blocks from the Capitol. And just prior to the January 20, 2021, presidential inauguration is when this high-tech Shroud exhibit is scheduled to open.
Threaded throughout hundreds of your responses about all aspects of the Shroud was one overarching theme summarized by these three comments:
“Anyone who requires physical evidence to underpin their faith doesn’t understand the concept of faith.”
“JESUS CHRIST died for all. HE is what is important. Making such a fuss about this piece of cloth is a distraction from HIS work of SALVATION.”
“I respectfully submit that the only ‘relic’ which really matters is the one which was left us on that first Easter morning: The tomb is empty! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!”
Of course, “He is Risen” is also the foundation of my Christian faith, (made slightly more complicated by having been born Jewish). But I feel compelled to discuss and explore the comment that reads in part, “…such a fuss about this piece of cloth...”
And my response is simple: The Shroud of Turin exists because HE exists. An answer that echoes what God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14).
Thus, the existence of the Shroud of Turin raises two questions that I will attempt to address: First, what exactly is the Shroud? And second, a deeper dive into “Why does the cloth exist?”
The Shroud of Turin is a 14.5-by-3.5-foot linen cloth with a linear front to back mirror image of a crucified man. The Shroud has the distinction of being the most studied artifact in the world, yet the cloth’s numerous mysteries remained unexplained by modern science.
At this moment the Shroud lies in a fireproof box in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, as it has continuously since 1578. (But secretly relocated between 1939 and 1946 when Italian authorities feared Hitler was seeking possession.)
Dating the Shroud has been controversial and the subject of my July 21 piece.
Among Shroud historians, there is no dispute that in 1352, over 200 years before the Shroud was housed in Turin, Geoffrey DeCharney displayed the cloth in Lirey, France marking the beginning of the Shroud’s documented "modern" dating.
There is also much circumstantial Shroud evidence through art, artifacts, and coins that pre-dates 1352. Moreover, scientifically verified botanical evidence found on the cloth in the form of pollen, dust, flowers, and even the weave and type of linen traces the Shroud back to first-century Jerusalem.
The cloth with its mysterious properties has survived wars, invasions and the ravages of time including numerous fires — most recently in 1997 at its home cathedral in Turin.
Most harrowing was the 1532 fire in Chambéry, France. Miraculously the entire cloth was not destroyed but left those distinctive linear markings along both sides of the Shroud that we see today. Hard to imagine, but the linen cloth was stored in a silver box, folded in 48 layers, when drops of molten silver burned through the cloth’s outer folded edges.
The point is, against all the odds, the Shroud exists. And, as stated earlier, because He exists. There is also a significant Bible-based reason found in the Gospel of John known as “Doubting Thomas” (John 20:24-31).
But first, a “guest” who will explain this passage needs a proper introduction:
It turns out that the many Townhall readers who commented about not needing the Shroud’s “physical evidence to underpin their faith,” represent a large swath of Christian believers. I learned this when asking Russ Breault— my fellow Shroud exhibit team colleague, and a world-renowned Shroud expert and speaker — if he had experienced similar attitudes after over 30 years of hosting his popular “Shroud Encounters” to sell-out crowds.
Breault replied:
“I get that statement all the time! When someone says, ‘I don't need the Shroud for my faith,’ I usually say, ‘That is fantastic! But that doesn't mean the Shroud was not meant for someone else.’ ”
Breault continued: “In the Doubting Thomas story, Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who ‘believe yet have not seen,’ but Jesus did not condemn Thomas for his unbelief. In fact, a week after the Resurrection, Jesus appeared a second time, and the first person he spoke to was Thomas, who was not there to witness Jesus’ first appearance. Jesus then quotes Thomas' words back to him, ‘Thomas, thrust your hand into my side and place your fingers into my nail wounds and be not faithless but believe.’
At this point, Thomas — forever known as "Doubting Thomas" — makes the strongest profession of faith in the New Testament saying, "My Lord and my God." Then Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who can believe without seeing. So we are blessed if we can believe without seeing, but we are not cursed if we can't get there without some additional evidence.
Therefore, perhaps the Shroud is a silent witness to the world offering all of humanity the same opportunity Jesus gave to Thomas. In some proverbial sense by looking at the Shroud, we too can thrust our hand into His side and place our fingers into His nail wound and find our faith in the process.”
Thank you, Russ! And now my final thoughts for Townhall commenters.
If blessed with great faith, you are free to ignore or downplay the image on the Shroud showing Christ’s great suffering and victory over death. Yet, take comfort in knowing that the Shroud is there to supplement or reinforce the faith of others while potentially witnessing to the ever-increasing number of Doubting Thomases found throughout the world.
In the end, I believe that the Shroud exists as proof of God’s greatest gift to mankind —the Lord Jesus Christ — who lives and reigns forever and ever. Alleluia!
(Now, let the comments begin!)
That's easy; so some folks can try to pull my chain by making snide, off hand remarks about someone's sexuality that is a male, going by a female name.
But how do mere pew warmers get the powers that be, to ELECT a proper and legitimate ecclesial authority?
I’m Sue. How do you do?
More Catholic 'unity' out the window!
Psst…
Ask him(?) why he(?) uses a name that alludes to a thousand year old Mongolian conqueror?
This thread contains an abundance of vivid reminders...
Perhaps you should make a list of them; since none of us have a CLUE as to what triggers you so.
My wife assigned this moniker, given my manners and methods.
“source, please.”
Prove it wrong...
LBQTWZVY all over the place!
Now some 'transgender women' (AKA men) want to keep their petition to change their MALE names to FEMALE ones kept secret.
"We're AFRAID!!!", they cried to the court.
Good enough reason.
My daughter was an ELSIE long before I needed a screen name moniker.
Not a mystery-lover, then.
“Did you ever bother to look up what St. Paul was dealing with when writing Galatians 1, btw?”
You ever read about the Church in Thyatira?
I’m not challenging it, I’m appreciating it. Have you no sourcing, then?
Catholicism?????
Because Galatians so beautifully addresses the errors in it.
“Rev. Bud’s Down-Home”
Funny you say “down home” when Jesus Christ, His apostles, His disciples, and His first Churches were all gathered in houses for service and worship.
“the Law was our Schoolmaster to lead us to Christ. So it wasn’t the Gospel, the Good News *of* Christ.”
So it led us to Christ, but that isn’t the Gospel. I always thought that Scripture that leads us to accept Jesus Christ and be born again was the good news, but as usual you rcc’s don’t know what it means to be led to Christ.
“For another, when Paul wrote Galatians, he CANNOT have been speaking of Revelations, since John hadn’t written it yet.”
You go pharisee, but Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and guess what He already knew the book of Revelation. I don’t care if Paul knew what he was writing all the matters is that he dictated it as the Holy Spirit of God led him.
Your sarcasm missed.
He did, but Paul's readers at the time, didn't.
I always thought that Scripture that leads us to accept Jesus Christ and be born again was the good news, but as usual you rcc’s don’t know what it means to be led to Christ.
The Holy Spirit works in many different ways. Not all of them can be shoehorned into sola scriptura. While I agree Scripture contains (implicitly at least){*} all the elements doctrinally necessary for salvation (in the "part of this nutritionally complete breakfast" sense, as it were), I disagree with the more...hmm, rigid, Phariseeical, snotass interpretation that anything not explicitly mentioned in Scripture, is AUTOMATICALLY "required" to be of the Enemy.
I gotta be somewhat careful in saying that, since people on these threads seem to anxious to jump the gun in inventing malicious backstories and motivations.
That is, there are any number of Catholics (monks, priests, saints) who (as far as I know) didn't explicitly come to an altar call after hearing the Four Spiritual Laws; and yet over time developed a very close, intimate daily-and-hourly devotion to Jesus; and who subjected themselves to the correction of other believers.
E.g. one of the Catholic, not quite relics, I can't think of a word which won't be seized upon and mocked off the top of my head, but tracts/pamphlets/revelations/devotional aids, is something I didn't think ANY Christian of ANY stripe would find exception to:
The Divine Mercy Chaplet.
But I wouldn't be at ALL surprised, if some "dratted Prottie" didnt get their panties all in a wad, because it isn't recorded that the Nun involved didn't have a "born again" experience.
And within other Evangelical / Fundamentalist circles, one finds reports from the Missionary field, of things like Jesus appearing directly to Muslims, and their converting. Or one of the Fundamentalist preachers, Smith Wigglesworth, traveling on a train, not saying a word; and people would come up to him out of the blue, saying, "Sir, who *are* you? You convict me of sin." You know, without having had to read a tract from the Baptist Bible Society. You get the idea.
("Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.") Well, yeah, it can, and does; but there are people who have heard the Scriptures all their life who don't really believe, and there are people who are followers of Jesus when the Scriptures aren't the thing that led to their conversion. So I think the doctrinal insistence that "God ONLY works this way, cuz my denomination TOLD me so" is wrong. I conclude that that statement is a general truism, not an unshakeable, core-level element of the Christian faith on the level of say, the Resurrection.
I think the important thing...well there are several; even as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, there are a variety of gifts, but the same Lord.
But as far as these threads are concerned, I suspect it would be far better for people to pray for one another even across denominational lines.
{*} You don't find a specific encapsulation of the Trinity verbatim in Scripture; you gotta dig it out of (say) Jesus getting baptised by John the Baptist. And I don't hear even the most fire-breathing fundamentalists getting all bent out of shape over the various creeds; even though they are not recited in Scripture.
Thank you for your reply. I cannot answer it right now, but I do have a response in mind and will write it out soon. I will assume that time is not of the essence on this project.
The way I meant it, it's a Southern thing.
(Various Orthodox Christians might similarly feel out of place at various "gospel missions.")
And speaking of Southern...
Go find a forum supportive of that "Your Best Life Now" dude at Lakewood Church down in Te-hey-ex-as, and complain at him for not following biblical practice, like enjoying fancy clothes and the adulation of others and meeting in a big fancy building, ok?
Otherwise, your complaints look like a mere pretext for something else.
See the question is twofold.
Is the gathering of Christians in homes, necessarily "God's preference" ? Or is it that the early Christians ran the risk of early-season games against the Lions (Lions 1 Christians 0 as the old joke goes) if they tried to meet as Christians in public?
And, did the formalization of Christianity as the official religion later, allow many more to become Christians, so it was good, or did it allow too many to be lukewarm and to pretend, so it was bad?
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