Don't insult one's religion -- unless it's Christianity

The Ottawa Citizen ^ | John Robson

[lightman]

John Robson The Ottawa Citizen

Friday, March 02, 2007

Well, it's Lent, when Jesus-debunking news stories rise from the dead. This time it's a tomb with the whole family gathered, including his wife and kid. Unless it's just the dusty bones of decency and good sense in those boxes.

In a way it's a backhanded tribute that, to the modern mind, Christianity is like a train wreck: gruesome, but they can't look away. Newspapers don't greet major Buddhist festivals with claims that Siddhartha Gautama was a cokehead, or open Ramadan by saying Mohammed was -- (do NOT fill in this blank). As we said while not reprinting the infamous Danish cartoons, never would we insult someone's beliefs or faith tradition -- and by the way did you know that Jesus wasn't resurrected, plus he had sex with Magdalene.

This latest Christ-married-and-founded-the-Merovingians-or-some-other-"potential -dynasty" fantasy is a brain wreck.

The Globe and Mail story (online in their "Science" section, no less) said, "If their evidence is verified, the film, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, and a companion book, would raise profound questions for Christians and their faith." It also called the evidence "compelling" and said "if further DNA testing were to link Jesus and 'his brother' Yose with Mary, it would call into question the entire doctrine of the virgin birth ..."

Who writes this stuff? If science is the issue, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth prevents Jesus sharing Joseph's DNA, not Mary's. And how could the evidence be "verified"? Even if someone had written "Jesus of Nazareth" on one of the boxes, which he didn't, you can't compare the DNA in the tomb with known samples of Christ's DNA unless, say, you plan to swab a communion wafer. Preferably Roman Catholic because you want transubstantiation not consubstantiation let alone commemoration, which ... oh, never mind.

This is not a theological issue. It's a journalistic one. Kate Heartfield recently wrote in these pages that "journalists tend to be -- in their professional lives -- cynical, contrary and mistrustful." Right. We may no longer carry the hip flask and pork-pie hat with press card in it, but if our mothers say they love us, we still check it out. The bones of Jesus's kid, however, we print without even proofreading. Didn't we ask why they'd put Mary Magdelene's name cryptically in Greek?

Real skeptics would also ask how Joseph, a poor artisan from backward Nazareth notorious for believing his fiancee's claim that God got her pregnant, could afford a fancy tomb in Jerusalem where his family would later quietly join him after causing a vast upheaval. Or did the outcast family buy it after the crucifixion, bring Joseph's bones, and get quietly buried there over decades? As Michael Coren noted in the National Post on Wednesday, Roman and Jewish authorities ransacked Jerusalem to find Jesus's body in order to prove he wasn't resurrected and put an end to this troubling new religion. They failed. But James Cameron? He just brilliantly stumbled over it.

Of course, scripture explains a fancy tomb for Jesus. It says Joseph of Arimathea bought it. Scripture also explains that the body vanished because Christ was resurrected. But never mind that silly old Bible. We're talking about Jesus.

The Citizen's initial front-page story spoke of "a tomb that may have once held holy bones." But if Jesus was not the Messiah, what's holy about his bones? As C.S. Lewis rightly says, Christ presents just three choices: Liar, lunatic or Lord. Each is problematic. But the search for a fourth option is silly. Normally it's theologically feeble-mined. This one skipped theological. (As Coren also noted Wednesday, Mr. Cameron said, "I'm not a theologist." That we believe.) And you can't get Jesus off the hook, or cross, by saying the Gospels misrepresent him. As our only source for Christ's specific words and deeds, they too must be dismissed as fraud or frenzy or else taken with terrifying seriousness. If Matthew made up the Sermon on the Mount, why did he do it? And how? And why was he believed?

If you're looking for fraud or folly among the evangelists in this tomb question, you're digging in the wrong place. Say, maybe I can write a bestseller claiming the missing ossuary of "James" contained Jimmy Hoffa. By the way, I'm a space alien. And king of France.

Still, I'm pleased that the Raiders of the Lost Credibility plan to open another tomb, just 20 metres away, with three ossuaries. It's probably the Father, Son and Holy Ghost in there.

John Robson's column appears weekly.

[lightman]

In a way it's a backhanded tribute that, to the modern mind, Christianity is like a train wreck: gruesome, but they can't look away. Newspapers don't greet major Buddhist festivals with claims that Siddhartha Gautama was a cokehead, or open Ramadan by saying Mohammed was -- (do NOT fill in this blank). As we said while not reprinting the infamous Danish cartoons, never would we insult someone's beliefs or faith tradition -- and by the way did you know that Jesus wasn't resurrected, plus he had sex with Magdalene.

Anti-Christian is the only acceptable modern prejudice.

[lightman]

For your ping lists.

[lightman]

Ping!

[Westbrook]

> Mohammed was -- (do NOT fill in this blank).

Au contraire.

The blank MUST be filled it, because we KNOW it is the truth.

Even Mahomet's own descendents describe what he was.

Treacherous
Lecherous
Murderer
Brigand
Liar
Truce breaker
Pedophile
Polygamist
Pirate
Plunderer
Rapist
Lunatic

Did I leave anything out?

.

[CANBFORGIVEN]

Jesus is the ONLY one with any real power, compared to all other gods. That is why they continue to try and disprove and discredit Christianity.

[pbear8]

Thank for posting this. We enjoyed reading it.

[Kolokotronis]

"Anti-Christian is the only acceptable modern prejudice."

Of course it is! What is the modern Zeitgeist? The Evil One, not the Holy Spirit. What do we hear from so many modern churchmen but that "The Holy Spirit is doing a new thing. Sin is no sin. There are many ways to God"? They preach, and have preached, a "new gospel" for the past 40 years or so and society, especially the elites, have bought into it. Look how successful the Evil One has been in convincing society that he doesn't exist! Our own government has become a proponent of this heresy. The Clinton Administration bombed Orthodox Christians because they fought the Mohammedan death cult; the Bush Administration stands aside while Mohammedans destroy Christian churches and monasteries in Kosovo and Iraq, all the while proclaiming that Islam is the religion of peace. Our little children right in our home towns are taught that evil lifestyles are "normal" from the first grade on and if we protest, we run the risk of being arrested.

As Christians, though, we must continue to fight and fight harder than we have before. Many of us will loose the honors we have heaped up in the world. You know, it has always, or almost always, been like this for Christians. The Evil One seeds our souls with despair and if we succumb to that despair, or even compromise with it, he wins and we are lost.

"Just as our Lord is solicitous about our salvation, so too the murderer of men, the devil, strives to lead a man into despair ... Judas the betrayer was fainthearted and unskilled in battle, and so the enemy, seeing his despair, attacked him and forced him to hang himself; but Peter, a firm rock, when he fell into great sin, like one skilled in battle did not despair nor lose heart, but shed bitter tears from a burning heart, and the enemy, seeing these tears, his eyes scorched as by fire, fled far from him wailing in pain." +Seraphim of Sarov

"Do not be despondent when fighting against the incorporeal enemy, but even in the midst of your afflictions and oppression praise the Lord, Who has found you worthy to suffer for Him, by struggling against the subtlety of the serpent, and to be wounded for Him at every hour; for had you not lived piously, and endeavored to become united to God, the enemy would not have attacked and tormented you." +John of Kronstadt.

[joylyn]

We all expect a story like this during Lent, and sometimes during Advent as well. I've often wondered if the editors/owners of the news magazines, major newspapers and TV networks ever stop to think that the timing of these "revelations" is a calculated insult to a large percentage of their customer base. Most Christians are so inured to this treatment that we rarely bother to complain.

[NYer]

Finally ... a journalist who does not feel compelled to follow mainstream secularism - and does so with a sense of humor. Thanks for this great post!

[NewCenturions]

John Robson sees this crap for what it is. Good article.

[Jaded]

Great article!

[AlaninSA]

You left out terrorist.

[Westbrook]

> You left out terrorist.

My apologies.

Yes, that dubious title also belongs in the list.

Thank you for the correction.

.

[SunkenCiv]

thanks go to GoLightly and xcamel for compiling the list (thus far) of such topics, and to whomever started the handy keyword:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=jesustomb

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1789769/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1789966/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1790456/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1790579/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1790608/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1790818/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1790884/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1790953/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791244/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1791251/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791284/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791352/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791365/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791383/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791513/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791544/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791583/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791588/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791610/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791891/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1792121/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1792190/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1792305/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1792583/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1793097/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1794358/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1794359/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794668/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794698/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794854/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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