Five reasons to deny Jesus’ resurrection from the dead

Did Jesus rise from the dead? The debate continues. This section contains five reasons most commonly “raised” to argue against Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. I’m going to state each argument against. But I won’t refrain from stating my opinions. Here are the arguments against Jesus’ resurrection with my responses to each:

1. There are people who believe that there was no Jesus. He’s a fictional character around which a superstitious new religion called Christianity was created, they say. They hold that Jesus never existed. I don’t think this is an atheistic position necessarily, though some atheists I know (and whom I’ve read) do take this position.

So check out what physicist Albert Einstein—Jewish by birth, Catholic by upbringing, atheist as a young man, and deist as an adult!—had to say about the historical Jesus. His interviewer is German-American poet and writer George Viereck. The interview was published October 26, 1929 in the Saturday Evening Post:

Viereck: “You accept the historical existence of Jesus?”

Einstein: “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”

Viereck: “Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets.”

Einstein: “No man,” Einstein replied, “can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.” (http://politicsandreligion.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/einstein-comments-on-jesus/)

Einstein’s argument is pretty subjective, though. It’s based on feel rather than fact. As he said, when you read the Gospels you get a feeling that Jesus was a real person. His personality comes through. He comes alive on the page in a way that mythical characters don’t. Therefore, Einstein argues that no one can deny—only from reading the Gospels—that Jesus existed, which is a valid argument.

Are there facts that corroborate the Scriptures concerning the existence of Jesus? For some, that “the Bible says so” is enough. But skeptics need more. So, is there extra-biblical historical evidence that Jesus was a real 1st Century human being? The answer is “Yes.” This “Yes” is the biggest hole in the Jesus-is-fiction argument. There are 1st and 2nd Century non-biblical sources that refer to Jesus, including the writings of Tacitus (an example coming up in the ten arguments for Jesus’ resurrection), Pliny the Younger, Josephus, the Jewish Talmud, and more. Not only does the Bible insist on Jesus’ historicity, but other ancient sources insist on the same.

I am aware that some mistrust the provenance of these ancient non-biblical sources, particularly the famous quote about Jesus from Josephus’ “The Antiquities of the Jews.” This quote is considered by some to be in part an interpolation (words interjected later) by a pro-Christian copyist.

• Antiquities of the Jews 18:63-64   Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ.  64 And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, {b} those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, {c} because the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the sect of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Yet some continue to hold that there are no trustworthy historical references to Jesus, period. For them, there is zero evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus. I consider this an extreme view. Tacitus’ quote (coming up) in particular is hard to dismiss.

2. The Bible is not a reliable source for historical information, some argue. Even if Jesus is a historical figure, the Gospel writers provide no more than a fictionalized account of his supposed life, teachings, and works. The Bible, they argue, is full of exaggeration and fabrication. Because it is a flawed human document, the Bible cannot be counted on for historical facts. Therefore, some conclude, no historical claim made by the Bible, perhaps especially the resurrection of Jesus, is trustworthy.

For historians and archaeologists, how accurate is the Bible in describing its settings—what the scholars call the “Sitz im Leben”? Well, books abound on the subject, so obviously I can’t unpack it all here. But my reading of the scholars is that they are generally impressed with the Bible’s accuracy. They will tell you that the Bible syncs pretty well with contemporaneous inscriptions, documents, and archaeological findings. Let me share a few. In a day when all archaeological findings and historical documents are suspected of forgery, however, I want to be as careful and fair as I can with the following descriptions: 

An 8th or 9th Century Aramaic inscription unearthed at Tel Dan (northern Galilee at the foot of Mt. Hermon) in 1993 refers to “the House of David.” [left] This is the only extra-biblical reference to King David ever found, and it has intensified a debate in the world of archaeology because a few scholars—sometimes called “Biblical Minimalists”—believe that David was ancient Israel’s version of King Arthur. They believe David was a myth. But the Tel Dan Inscription threw a big red monkey wrench into the working parts of their mythological conclusion. It appears that David may well have existed as a monarch of Israel, though a few minimalists are holding out that the inscription might be a fake. The find resides today in the Israel Museum, and there are few concerns about its authenticity.

A 1st Century monumental Latin inscription discovered in 1963 at Caesarea Maritima (a Herodian city on the Mediterranean coast of Israel) contains the following:

[DIS AUGUSTI]S TIBERIEUM
[. . . . PO]NTIUS PILATUS
[. . .PRAEF]ECTUS IUDA[EA]E
[. .FECIT D]E[DICAVIT]

It translates:

To the honorable gods (this) Tiberium
Pontius Pilate,
Prefect of Judea,
had dedicated

The so-called Pilate Inscription corroborates the historical existence of a biblical character and his title. Moreover, the Bible’s description of Pilate jibes pretty well with the 1st Century historian Flavius Josephus’ (and others’) descriptions of him. Also housed in the Israel Museum, the Pilate inscription from Caesarea has never been called a forgery.

Three Jewish burial boxes (for bones only) called ossuaries are significant for assessing the Bible’s historicity.

First, there is the bone box inscribed with the name Yehohanan found in North Jerusalem in 1968. This 1st Century Jewish male in his late twenties or early thirties was buried with a Roman crucifixion nail still piercing his heal [left]. His are the only crucified remains ever found because crucified people weren’t typically buried in the Roman Empire. Crucified persons remained on the cross to be eaten by scavengers. Their bones were scattered by hyenas, dogs, and vultures. But in Jerusalem allowances were made for Jewish religious sensibilities in the holy city of Jerusalem. Bodies were allowed to be taken down from the cross for Sabbaths and Holy Days. Studies on Jehohanan’s remains by Vassilios Tsafaris and Joe Zias and others have not only verified the Roman practice of crucifixion, but have verified it was in use in Jerusalem during Jesus’ lifetime. I’ve met Tsafaris and I’ve worked with Zias. They have taught the world a lot about Roman crucifixion. Their work, though around since the late 60s, is not widely known. I suspect that is because Jehohanan wasn’t crucified like Jesus is in medieval art and modern movies. In matters of tradition, facts do not necessarily prevail.

Second, the ornate ossuary of a priest named Caiaphas was found in 1990 in Jerusalem’s Peace Forest. Some debate continues, but not about the ossuary’s authenticity. It is a 1st Century Jewish bone box—an exceptionally elaborate one. The inscription is authentic too. But there is some debate about whether the Caiaphas in the box is the same one in the Bible. Most scholarly authors I’ve read believe that they’re almost certainly one and the same. If so, this is another archaeological verification of a biblical character. At the very least it proves that there was a 1st Century Jerusalem priest named Caiaphas.

Third, the debate rages today (as well as criminal charges and law suits) over an ossuary bearing the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”  [left] The Bible says that Jesus’ father was named Joseph, and Jesus had a brother named James. After Jesus’ death and reported resurrection, James became the first leader of the Jerusalem church. Is this his ossuary? The names Jesus, James, and Joseph were common in that day. But it was uncommon to mention a brother on an ossuary inscription. A typical box would have read “James son of Joseph” only. The scholars wonder, Why mention a brother unless the brother is important?
 

The Israeli Antiquities Authority to date, however, is calling the ossuary authentic, but part of the inscription (the “brother of Jesus” part) a modern forgery. The Biblical Archaeology Society is calling the whole thing authentic using its own group of experts. It is also calling for a new independent study. If authentic, this is the only 1st Century inscription bearing Jesus’ name ever found, and a confirmation of no less than three Biblical personalities. If a forgery, it’s a nice 1st Century artifact marred by a modern inscription.

There are more city ruins, stele, tablets, inscriptions, bulae, and documents that corroborate biblical texts. I encourage you to explore this fascinating subject on your own (since it’s too much material to cover here).

One more mention, however, just to give you a broader example pairing archaeology and the Bible: the ancient Canaanite cities of Jericho and Hazor. Ruins of 13th Century B.C. Jericho have never been found. There are ruins there from before and after the conquest of the Israelites under Joshua. Remember the spiritual? Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and the walls came a tumblin' down. Well, no one can find those walls. Have the archaeologists just been looking in the wrong place for 13th Century Jericho, or did in never exist? No one knows. By contrast, the 13th Century destruction level of Canaanite Hazor dates exactly to biblical Joshua.

• Joshua 11:13 But Israel burned none of the towns that stood on mounds except Hazor, which Joshua did burn. 

Is there evidence that 13th Century Hazor [left] was burned? You bet. Though there are no findings to corroborate Jericho’s destruction yet, Hazor’s destruction by fire lines up quite nicely with the biblical description and date.

Do biblical minimalists still hold to their view of the Bible as an unreliable source of historical information? Yes. I’ve read several of their papers this year. My sense is that, like those who trust no evidence for the historical Jesus, their view is extreme.

3. Miracles have never occurred, some say. Miracles, by definition, must violate the laws of nature. Some claim that this has never been successfully proven to have ever happened. Therefore, the raising of Jesus never occurred, because by definition, the supernatural resurrection of a man from the dead is a miracle. And there is no such thing as miracles, they contend.

The group of liberal biblical scholars called the “Jesus Seminar” takes this stance. They jettison anything miraculous. Their historical critical methods seek to eliminate those elements from the gospels that they suspect do not go back to the historical Jesus, but are in their opinion the creation of the early church—like miracles. They vote one verse at a time using colored beads (color code pictured below) to indicate their level of certainty.

Colored beads were used by Jesus Seminar to vote on statements made by Jesus in the Gospels:

red:        Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it.

pink:      Jesus probably said something like this.

gray:      Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.

black:    Jesus did not say this; it represents the perspective of a later writer

The most famous authors on the Seminar are John Dominick Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Robert Funk. To them the divine Jesus of Scripture is not tenable. Funk, the convener of the Seminar, said this:

• “We should give Jesus a demotion. It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine. Jesus' divinity goes together with the old theistic way of thinking about God. The plot early Christians invented for a divine redeemer figure is as archaic as the mythology in which it is framed. A Jesus who drops down out of heaven, performs some magical act that frees human beings from the power of sin, rises from the dead, and returns to heaven is simply no longer credible. The notion that he will return at the end of time and sit in cosmic judgment is equally incredible. We must find a new plot for a more credible Jesus.” (http://markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/unmaskingthejesus.htm)

This quote gives you a feel for the work of the “Jesus Seminar.” They’re using modern historical/literary critical methods in search of “the real Jesus” behind the church’s theology—or they might say mythology. To them, the Jesus of the Gospels “as is” won’t do. Their job is to find the true historical Jesus who was 100% human, 0% divine. They believe they are getting at the man Jesus by a sort of excavation of the ancient biblical texts. They remove and discard what they see as the church’s deification of the man. They believe they are producing a picture of the historical Jesus beneath the four Gospels’ theological propaganda.

I disagree with them. I think the only Jesus we can see is the one that the gospels give us. The Jesus of Scripture is the only Jesus we can know, personal revelation aside. Scholars don’t have to buy the biblical picture, but to claim that they are producing a more accurate picture of Jesus than the New Testament Gospels is at best arrogant.

And by the way, the Gospels do not give us an “old theistic way of thinking about God,” as Funk insists. They give us a Trinitarian vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—a vision that was offensive to the Jewish “theists” of the day.

As a pretty empirical guy, I understand those who are skeptical of miracles, including the resurrection of Jesus. If you didn’t have questions about it, I’d be suspicious that you weren’t being completely forthcoming. But are there people today who hold that there never has been and there never will be real miracles? Of course there are. For a time, I was one of them.

4. There are natural explanations for all so-called miracles, some claim. The miracle of Jesus’ resurrection is no exception. The following are five (a. – e.) proposed naturalistic explanations of his “rising” from the dead:

a. The women went to the wrong tomb that Sunday morning and jumped to the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead. They were mistaken, but their rumor was believed and spread.

Problems with this explanation are that, 1) nothing in the accounts suggests that the women went to the wrong tomb, and 2) surely other followers of Jesus, including the man who owned the tomb (Joseph of Aramathea), would have caught the women’s alleged mistake and checked on the correct tomb.

This “wrong tomb theory” doesn’t explain appearance accounts either. Even if they went to the wrong tomb, believers still claimed that they saw the risen Christ that day.

Furthermore, if Jesus wasn’t raised, and if they went to the wrong tomb, then logically Jesus’ body could have (and would have) been found in the correct tomb once they realized their mistake, right? And if under those circumstances the disciples hadn’t found his body, I assure you the Romans or the Jewish authorities would have “trotted it out real quick like” (pardon my Southernese) to dispel any resurrection rumors. But there is no record of that happening.

Finally, the theory that the women went to the wrong tomb must stand up against this:

• Mark 15:47   Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body (soma in Greek means body or corpse) was laid. (italics mine)

And this:

• Matthew 27:58-61   [Joseph of Aramathea] went to Pilate and asked for the body (or the corpse) of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.  59 So Joseph took the body (or the corpse) and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth  60 and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.  61 Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. (italics mine)

And this:

• Luke 23:55  The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body (or his corpse) was laid. (italics mine)

The Gospels say that the women sat there and watched them put him in the tomb. Perhaps, you might argue, that in the early morning light (Easter Sunday) they could have made a mistake and gone to the wrong tomb. You might further argue that in their grief they got confused, and perhaps tears in their eyes did not allow them to see which tomb was which.

To me it’s still not a valid argument. In the Gospels, it’s not the women but the men who more often make the mistakes. The women “get it” sometimes even when the twelve don’t. The Scriptures say that they watched Joseph put Jesus in the tomb. And after everyone was gone, they sat and stayed for a while outside the tomb. No matter poor lighting or welling eyes, I don’t think these women could have gone to the wrong place by accident. And I don’t think they would have gone away spreading a false rumor of his resurrection without double-checking that they were at the right tomb. Even if they hadn’t double-checked, John and Peter and others would have, and did:

• Luke 24:12   But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

• John 20:2-7   So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."  3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.  4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.  6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there,  7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.

b. The disciples experienced a hallucination, some say. It’s argued that they saw what they wanted to see, and out of wishful thinking, they believed they saw something that they told others was the resurrected Jesus.

The biggest problem here is that mass hallucination just doesn’t happen. Two people having the exact same hallucination would be very strange. Besides, to make a mass hallucination work, you have to have everybody all having the same experience in the same time and place. But that’s not what happened according to Scripture.

The risen Jesus met with individuals, pairs, small groups, and a crowd of 500 in a wide variety of locations—like walking on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, on a mountain in Galilee, in a locked room in Jerusalem, and elsewhere. These appearances, by all accounts, are very different in content, witnesses, and location. There is no uniform experience, much less a uniform hallucination.

c. The “swoon theory” claims that Jesus survived the crucifixion; he was nearly dead and those who examined him only believed him to be dead. But he was merely in a swoon, proponents of this theory say, and he resuscitated later and left the tomb under his own power.

The swoon theory surfaced only in modern times. It’s reported to be the idea of Herrmann Reimarus in the early 19th Century. The theory, however, is full of holes (that I won’t elaborate here). A colleague of mine said, “The Romans were not always original, but they were very efficient [in their duties, including crucifixion detail]. I can’t believe anyone ever gave the swoon theory any credence.” Even David Strauss, arch opponent of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection, argues that the swoon theory is utter nonsense. It contradicts Scripture more than any other attempt to explain away Jesus’ resurrection. Why? The Gospels are emphatic that Jesus was dead:

• Mark 15:37   Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. (see also Matthew 27:50 and Luke 23:46) (bold and italics mine)

• Mark 15:43   Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body (or the corpse) of Jesus. (see also Matthew 27:57-58 and Luke 23:52) (bold and italics mine)

• Mark 15:44-46   Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time.  45 When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body (or the corpse) to Joseph.  46 Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body (or the corpse), wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. (see also Matthew 27:59-60 and Luke 23:53) (bold and italics mine)

• John 19:30   When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished." Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (bold and italics mine)

• John 19:31-33  Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies (or the corpses) left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed.  32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.  33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. (bold and italics mine)

• John 19:34-35  Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.  35 (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.) (bold and italics mine)

In the biblical accounts Jesus was unquestionably dead. The four Gospels all say so. Given what happened to him, no wonder. He was beaten about the head with a reed and with fists. Then his skin was cut to ribbons by scourging. (The Romans used a flagrum—a “cat-o-nine-tails” with bits of metal and/or bone attached to leather strips.) He was too wounded and weakened to carry his own crossbeam. They hung him on the cross by actually nailing him to it. He hung there bleeding for six hours. And after he died, to make sure he was dead, a soldier shoved a spear into his chest cavity. He was just in a swoon? Hardly.

With humor, Strauss asserted that if the swoon theory were true, the disciples would have called for a doctor rather than proclaim him the risen Lord. (The Historical Jesus, Habermas: http://www.garyhabermas.com/books/historicaljesus/historicaljesus.htm)

d. Jesus' resurrection was a fraud, a scheme cooked up by his disciples, some say. After his death and entombment, his followers came by night and stole the body and spread the lie that he'd been resurrected.

Matthew records that the chief priests and Pharisees requested that Pilate post guards at Jesus' tomb to prevent the disciples from stealing his corpse to fake a resurrection (27:62-66). Then Matthew records that once the body was gone, the soldiers were paid hush money. They were instructed to falsify their report saying, "His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep." Matthew concludes this episode by writing that the soldiers took the money, spread the lie about the body being stolen, and their story "is still told . . . to this day." (28:11-15)

It is notable, however, that the Jews (the Judean authorities) went to great lengths to get rid of Jesus. It follows that if they would go to all the trouble to plot against him, arrest and charge him, try him themselves, try him again before Pilate, convict and crucify him, then certainly they would have kept up with his corpse to discredit the claims of resurrection. Imagine it. If the authorities could have produced Jesus' corpse, there would never have been what we call a church. Not one. Jesus' resurrection became the catalyst for Christian preaching and mission. Without it, Christianity would have never been born. The Apostle Paul wrote, ". . . if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain." (1 Cor 15:13-14).

Scholars have long noted that Matthew, more than the other Gospels, makes an effort to defend the resurrection as a historical occurrence. Matthew does this by making sure that the story of a stolen body is acknowledged and addressed, but also by dismissing it as a fabrication. By doing this, however, for some scholars Matthew raises the possibility that the disciples may have, in fact, faked the resurrection by taking his body. Is that possible? Would the disciples have done such a thing? More to the point, in their state of mind, scattered and afraid, could they have quickly reformed and plotted together to steal the corpse, then hide it or dispose of it so that it was never found? Could they have spread a false rumor that he rose from the dead? Would they have risked their lives everyday thereafter in growing numbers to proclaim the lie publicly, even in the Jerusalem Temple itself where they were forbidden to do so? It seems most implausible, since the disciples’ actions can only be seen as extraordinarily courageous and dangerous stand-making or exceedingly stupid and pointless fakery.

e. Jesus did live and then die on a cross, some say, but his resurrection was merely a literary legend created by his early followers to express that his death was not the end. Jesus lived on in the memories of his followers, so they honored his eternal teachings by granting him an honorable resurrection in writing.

Could the resurrection story of Jesus have been a writer’s metaphor for the way in which the memory of Jesus "lived on" in his disciples? Resurrection was an accepted theological concept among the Pharisees and probably most of the Jewish people. (Zeitlin, p. 163-167) Therefore, some have suggested, the gospel writers honored Jesus' memory by granting him a resurrection ‑‑ a worthy, literary device creating a triumphant conclusion to his story. As such, these resurrection stories represent not an actual occurrence, but rather the reawakening of Jesus' life and teachings in the memories of his followers. Is this possible?

Zeitlin undercuts entirely a mythological/metaphorical interpretation by insisting that there appears to be no Jewish expectation in the 1st Century of a resurrection within history. They—the Pharisees in particular—thought of resurrection in the last days, at the end of history. That being the case, it is impossible that all four gospel writers might have honored Jesus' memory by granting him a literary resurrection. To honor him in this way, and thereby providing a triumphant ending to his story, presumes that 1st Century Judaism had some expectation that the messiah would rise from the dead within history. Such is not the case. If anything, a resurrection within history was a shock, unprecedented and completely unexpected, even to Jesus’ disciples in spite of Jesus’ predictions that it would be so, predictions that they did not understand. (Mark 9:9-10 & 31-32; Luke 18:33; Luke 24:44-46; John 20:8-9)

Furthermore, in Acts 5, the disciples take a dangerous stand in the temple before the Jewish authorities. They were thrown in prison. But they escaped and went back up to the temple proclaiming Jesus’ messiahship and death and resurrection again. They were arrested again, this time whipped, then ordered not to speak of Jesus ever again. The authorities wanted to kill the disciples, but a rabbi named Gamaliel talked them into releasing them. Still, the disciples went right back up to the temple and proclaimed Jesus’ again, not only that day, but every day thereafter.

• Acts 5:40-42   [W]hen they had called in the apostles, they had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.  41 As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.  42 And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. (italics mine)

According to early Christian records, of Jesus’ twelve apostles, ten were executed. James, the brother of Jesus? Also executed. The Apostle Paul? Executed. They wouldn’t back down, they wouldn’t recant, they wouldn’t shut up, and they wouldn’t stop. Were these men willing to die for a hoax, myth, legend, or lie?

There’s no doubt in my mind that people will continue to look for naturalistic explanations for the resurrection. Their search for resurrection proofs will parallel searches for the lost Ark of the Covenant, the Dead Sea Scrolls’ treasure, and the Holy Grail.

5. All written testimony in the Bible concerning Jesus' resurrection is hearsay, some argue (lawyers perhaps). The Gospels are probably not firsthand accounts, meaning not written by eyewitnesses. The scholarly argument that they were all written in the last third of the 1st Century A.D., some 35-65 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, is convincing to me. Remember how the author of the Third Gospel put it:

• Luke 1:1-4  Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us,  2 just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word,  3 I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,  4 so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (italics mine)

The author of Luke’s Gospel, for one, affirms he was no eyewitness: “. . . events . . . handed on to us by . . . eyewitnesses . . .” There were many gospels written by the time “Luke” wrote his, he claims, and he “investigated everything,” meaning he interviewed eyewitnesses and researched written sources intending to write an accurate and complete account. Yes, some scholarship still maintains that the authors assigned to the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are accurate. Yet no ancient copies of these Gospels name an author. All are written anonymously. The authors’ names were assigned in the late 2nd Century. I agree with scholars who say that the anonymous author of Luke’s Gospel, for example, wrote in the 80s A.D.—50 years after Jesus’ death. That opens the door for the “hearsay objection.” In a court of law, so to speak, Luke’s account (and all Gospel accounts for that matter) would be inadmissible.

We aren’t talking about a legal matter, however. We’re talking about history. Anyone who writes history does so with the aid of sources, especially if that writer is an eyewitness. An honest eyewitness knows he can be wrong. People in law enforcement will tell you that eyewitnesses often are wrong. That’s why history requires all available voices, because if only an eyewitness can write legitimate history, most histories must be discarded, not just the Gospels. Moreover, if hearsay is inadmissible in histories, then that means no one will be allowed to write a biography about someone that they didn’t know personally. And if a biographer knew a subject personally, he would not be allowed to write anything about that person that he did not witness directly. No hearsay means no hearsay. It would be the end of history-writing as we know it. It would be the end of anthropology and archaeology, period. What would be the point?

Do historians make mistakes? Certainly. Do I think that Luke got every historical detail right? Certainly not. A comparison of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John shows variations in the story of Jesus. The question you may fairly ask, however, is, given that our four biblical Gospels are probably written by second generation Christians (not eyewitnesses) and given that they don’t agree in all the details, how reliable are they? Do they show us the life and teaching of a 1st Century Jewish rabbi from Nazareth named Jesus that lines up with non-biblical documents, ancient inscriptions, and archeological evidence? I say they do. The best way to fairly explore this question is to become a student of these Gospels. Agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman wrote of Jesus, “He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees, based on clear and certain evidence.”^⁠ (Ehrman, Bart D. Forged: Writing in the Name of God--why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. Reprint ed. Bravo Ltd, 2012: p. 285)

To some, I’m sure that the biblical accounts of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead remain objectionable. Hearsay. In the court of my own mind, that objection is overruled.

Read the companion blog to this one: Ten Arguments Supporting the Resurrection of Jesus.

For a discussion of Roman crucifixion, see my blog entry: Was Jesus Crucified in the Manner Shown in Paintings and Movies?

HELL HOUSE:

Halloween's Ultimate in Evangelical Perversity

Every Halloween there is out there in Churchianity a little something I like to call the ultimate in evangelical perversity: Hell Houses. A Hell House (also called Judgment House or Doom House) is a take-off on the old haunted house or house of horrors, but Hell House is sponsored by a church and often held at the sponsoring church facility. The idea is to scare the hell out of you, literally. They show you how to get to hell and what it will be like in order to pressure you into "getting saved" so you can be counted on the pastor's tally sheet.

In each successive room of Hell House, visitors are “treated” to a series of brief skits. Typical dramas are a bloody high school shooting at point blank range, a bloody suicide, a bloody abortion performed on a screaming teenager, a bloody satanic ritual killing, and other scenes that might involve bloody drunk drivers, dopers, adulterers, or witchcraft aficionados. (Hell House instruction manuals—yes, there are instruction manuals!—specifically advise you to whip up a large fresh batch of fake blood every day.) As if that isn’t objectionable enough, bloody September 11, 2001 ground zero scenes have become popular too.

At the end of your Hell House experience, there are typically two exits. Visitors are asked to accept salvation by repenting of their sins and accepting Jesus. If they want to do that, they should go through the “good” exit (that they say leads to Jesus and heaven).  If not, they have to exit through the “bad” door (Satan and hell). No one asks anything of you if you leave through the bad door; you just get ignored. But if you exit through the good door, they have you sign stuff having to do with a tally of “souls won” for upcoming religious activities.

I received a letter once from the pastor of a church that sponsored a Hell House. It listed members of the church I served who “received salvation” by departing the good door at their recent annual House of Holy Horrors. The names on the list were mostly teenagers in our youth group, and they reported to me that the pressure put on them was overwhelming.

Do you think that any Hell House visitors have ever been impacted with the love of God? Or did the visitors claim to have “made a decision for Christ” because it was the least anxiety-producing way to escape the intense psychological pressure being applied?

This I know: People attending Hell Houses never hear the gospel, the real gospel of the Bible. Moreover, I never read in Scripture that Jesus ever used fear, gore, intimidation, and psychological pressure to introduce people to his heavenly Father. I will never condone this sick spiritual terrorism. (When a friend of mine read aloud this last sentence in a Bible study class I led, instead of “sick spiritual terrorism” he read “slick spiritual terrorism!” What a terrific Freudian slip!)

What do you think Jesus’ opinion is about the terrorizing procedures of Hell Houses?

I’m clear that the Jesus of scripture cannot condone such scare tactics. I’m clear that he never used such tactics himself. I’m clear that fear cannot bring anyone to God ever.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. (1 John 4:18)

Even though it’s clearly not scriptural, churches continue to use fear to motivate and control Christians. So, how do churches sustain these misguided evangelical scare tactics?

1. They’ve learned that fear works to make you attend and give money.
2. So they plant seeds of doubt about your salvation frequently, perhaps weekly. They can’t allow you to have assurance, much less certainty. Why? Because if they allow salvation certainty or assurance, then fear won’t work anymore to keep you coming and giving money.
3. Then they have to shut down your questions. They say that questions are evidence of faithlessness. They explain that faithlessness brings your salvation into question. And if your salvation is uncertain, fear is more likely to keep you attending and giving money.
4. They discourage independent thinking about Scripture and theology. Your independent attitude will be viewed as an attack on corporate stability and body-count momentum. Only company yes-men need apply. If you won’t knuckle under, you can expect to be barely tolerated, ignored, ostracized, or run off.

Hell Houses are just an extreme of modern evangelicalism's standard operating procedure. You could be enjoying a cool October evening at the State Fair when a young man, a complete stranger to you, approaches acting friendly. Smiling. Interrupting. “You enjoying the fair, sir?” he asks you, but not really interested in your reply. “Man, that pretzel looks good,” he continues without waiting for you to respond. Then he springs his little rat trap. “Sir, are you saved? Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? If you died today, are you certain that you will go to heaven?” He pushes a tract into your hands. He doesn’t ask your name. He expresses no interest in where you live, how many kids you’ve got, what you do for a living, or where you may or may not attend church. He doesn’t even apologize for the interruption. He’s at the fair on a single-minded yet misguided mission:

Stop strangers from going to hell.

More than mere rudeness, his actions are coldly impersonal. He’s not there to meet you or get to know you or to have a relationship of any kind with you, much less to walk with you through your struggles in life. He’s engaging you in a non-relational exchange—really more of a bombardment. The true, biblical Gospel is at its core relational. Yet this young man’s approach is decisional.

Earlier, on a garishly painted church bus, he was given instructions by his pastor on what to say and do, so the young man is not entirely to blame. He wasn’t instructed to relate to you. The pastor likened all the “unsaved” (There’s a completely unbiblical word!) at the fair to people in a burning building. He stressed urgency. The idea is to get “bodies” out of the burning building, i.e. to “save them,” meaning save them from hell, or more specifically, save them from God sending them to hell when they die or on judgment day, whenever it is that God supposedly does the judging, condemning, and sending to hell stuff. Amen.

I don’t know how far back the burning building analogy goes, but thanks to the internet I found it in an excerpt from a book by Mississippi evangelist T.T. Martin from 1923:

“Isn't saving a soul from spending eternity in hell ten million times more important than saving a human body from a burning building?”

So there’s our young missionary’s rationale. He has been influenced by his pastor to believe that the end justifies the means. It’s OK to be rude and non-relational to people at the fair because it’s in an effort to save them from God’s sending them to eternal torture. Apparently even dishonest conversational ploys are justifiable given their perceived urgency of the situation. Our young man is doing his job and following his pastor’s instructions, and he likely believes he’s doing what Jesus wants him to do too. So when the pastor asks him at the end of the evening how many he “witnessed” to, he can give him as large a “body count” as possible. He’s punched his ticket with x number of rude interruptions at the fair, x number of "decisions for Christ," x number of bodies saved from burning. His pastor punched his ticket with the recruitment of x number of teens making x number of rude hell-fire-tract-interruptions at the fair resulting in x "decisions."

I can hardly believe that the burning-building crowd can maintain this utter contradiction. Their face on the world is that they have salvation, and you don’t. They have to make you into their image by acting assured of salvation. Yet at the very same time, the key to the message within the walls of many a church is planting seeds of doubt about everyone’s salvation! Only fear will continue to feed the guilt-driven, decisional mechanics of confrontational evangelization. Do you see it? Fear attracts bodies. The church feeds them fear. Fear attracts bodies. The church feeds them fear. Round and round goes the hamster wheel of religion.

Why are the church’s tactics not blackmail and black magic? Isn’t using intimidation and threat to extort money and membership blackmail by definition? Isn’t pressuring people into reciting a formula that’s supposed to presto-chango switch their afterlife destination sorcery by definition? Intimidation and incantation. Threats and spells. Aren’t these blackmail and black magic just in the dictionary sense? Isn’t it obvious? What else could threat and magic words be? But, ironically, the religious folks call it “good news” and “prayer!”

There’s a huge problem here. I am willing to bet that for most people “getting saved from hell when you die” has actually become “the gospel” as they know it. I’m dead serious. Stand at the door of any church following worship. Survey people as they are leaving. When asked what the good news is, won’t most people say this or, with variation, its equivalent: “You can get saved by Jesus so God won’t have to send you to hell when you die!”

There is no treating and a lot of tricking going on at your local Hell House this Halloween.

What if, in the Bible, being “saved” has little to do with reserving a spot in the afterlife and more to do with being set free to live now and forever? What if, rather than fear and threat, the message of Scripture—the good news—is that you can trust and rest and live in the grace of God in Jesus Christ given freely to the world?

For more evangelical bad behavior:
The Prosperity Gospel: God In a Box
Katrina: The Wrath of God?
The Christian Ambush: A True Story
Don't You Hate Christian Tracts?

For a definition of biblical salvation see my blogs:

You’re Saved (part one) and You’re Saved (part two) [You may order a complimentary hard copy of it in booklet form from Plain Truth Ministries on their pdf order form here.]

See also these blogs:

Are We Supposed To Be Afraid of God?

Hell Defined 1 (Sheol and Hades)

Hell Defined 2 (Gehenna and Tartarus)

Lake of Fire Defined

PTM published this blog as an E-Update Feature Article: "Hell House?"

Read more: http://www.myspace.com/bertgary/blog#ixzz11JXa3xQZ

The Prosperity Gospel: God In a Box

These are actual quotes from a televangelist.

“Delayed obedience becomes disobedience,” said the television prosperity preacher, “and the delivery date on your financial harvest is today. If you hesitate, if you doubt, if you stop to think before you call and sow your uncommon seed right now, the delivery date on your harvest will be moved back. If you delay, heaven will delay. Call now. Don’t think. Don’t hesitate. Just simply obey the man of God, and reap your harvest of uncommon prosperity.”

“Don’t let this hour close with your hands closed. Quickly, go to the phone now. God never opens his hands until you open your hands. Call quickly. Call now.”

“When God wants you to have a harvest, he asks you for a seed that authorizes it. When God has a future for you, he talks to you about a seed. The instruction you follow determines the future you create.”

“When I open my hands, God opens His hands. My seed talks to God. My seed is a picture of my covenant to God. When God sees my seed, it is the way he remembers me.”

“When God wants to bless you, he talks to you about a seed. Quickly go to the telephone. Call the number that‘s on the screen. Do it now.”

“Nothing leaves heaven until something leaves earth. A swift response of faith releases a swift response from God. Your seed has never had so much power. If you have ever decided to obey the Holy Spirit, do it today. If you are ever watching a program ordained by the Holy Spirit, this is the one.”

“There is an anointing on the $1,000 seed right now. God will always give you something illogical to do. God will never give you something logical to do. You can do the logical stuff yourself. God doesn’t talk to your mind; he talks to your heart. God doesn’t talk to your logic; he talks to your faith. Call now.”

The televangelist's moneymaking message is built on a “philosophy” of sorts, one that has been called by many names. It has been called Spiritualism, Occult Metaphysics, New Thought, the Law of Attraction, the Secret, Religious Science, the Power of Positive Thinking, Word of Faith, the Prosperity Gospel, the Law of Faith, and even “God.”

Does this philosophy have Christian origins? No, but it has infiltrated Christianity. There are four principle beliefs in the “Christian” version of New Thought. I will demonstrate what they are and why they are not biblical, and, therefore, why they are not Christian at all. The “God” of the Prosperity Gospel is radically different from the God of the biblical Gospel.

 
Law One: The Principle of Revelation Knowledge

Lie One: God is a knowable, non-material, nonphysical power that you can tap into to change the material/physical world.

As Christians, we believe that God is revealed fully in Jesus Christ. “Revelation Knowledge,” as defined by Prosperity Gospel proponents, however, has nothing to do with Jesus. It is completely metaphysical, a branch of philosophy having to do with the ultimate nature of reality.

“Revelation Knowledge” asserts that knowledge of God cannot come from your five senses because all things material are not of God, meaning God cannot communicate to you through the physical. All human understanding and science and knowledge come through the senses, so this principle is both absolutely anti-physical and anti-intellectual. “Revelation Knowledge” asserts that we cannot know God through physical or mental means, and he cannot communicate to us through them.

Origins in the Occult

The roots of New Thought and the Prosperity Gospel are in the occult. The term occult comes from the Latin occultus. It means hidden or secret. “Revelation Knowledge” asserts that the divine is hidden from our senses. “Revelation Knowledge” believes that humans may experience the divine realm through their own thought process, and in so doing actually change the material realm. It is a metaphysical philosophy of magical thinking.

 Earnest Holmes


An alternate term for Occultism is Spiritualism. Spiritualism’s “science” claims that thoughts manifest events. This new “Science of the Mind,” as it is sometimes called, flowered in the late nineteenth century. It was called “Divine Science," “Mental Science,” and the “Science of Right Thinking.” But the title that stuck, thanks to the title of a 1919 cornerstone book in metaphysics by Earnest Holmes, was New Thought.

In New Thought, God became a power within one’s own mind. To believe is to become. We become what we believe.

Becoming a god?

New Thought essentially teaches that one becomes a god as one discerns and infiltrates the divine realm, utilizing its power for use in the material world. For many New Thought advocates, the acid test of their success—of how good a “god” they are—is reflected in how healthy and wealthy they are. Yet what if one is poor or sick or other bad things are happening to one? Whose fault is that? Logically, the sick and poor are at fault. If one gets credit for health and wealth, one also get credit for illness and poverty. There is a dark moralizing undercurrent in New Thought that, if pressed to its logical conclusion, blames the victim. Another way of saying its your fault is: "you deserve it." It is rather karmic in implication: "What goes around comes around." "You got what you deserved." Or to put it in the vernacular of divine retributive justice, "God gotcha."

Jesus saw a lot of suffering in his day, and he rejected any notion of karma or God's punishment. Someone interrupted Jesus while he was teaching to report an atrocity. Pilate’s men had killed some Galileans while they were worshiping. Jesus asked the crowd, “Do you think these men were worse sinners than all the other Galileans?” (Luke 13:2). Jesus is being asked whether these men deserved what they got. Some reasoned that the catastrophe was God’s punishment. But Jesus answered his own question with an emphatic “No.”

Then Jesus brings up another incident. A tower fell on some workers at Siloam, which is an area around a pool in Jerusalem of Judea. The historian Josephus reports that during Jesus’ lifetime an aqueduct was being built there with funds reportedly stolen from the temple treasury. Perhaps the men working on the aqueduct, being paid from the stolen money, were crushed in a construction accident. Jesus asks, “Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” (Luke 18:4)—meaning did they deserve it, and were they perhaps the recipients of God’s retribution for their sin against the temple? Again Jesus says “No.”

What is really telling, however, in Jesus’ take on the men slaughtered by Pilate and the men crushed by the collapsing tower is his call to repentance. He warned the crowd of the peril of an unrepentant life. The word repent, metanoeo, means change-mind. Change your mind about what? Change your mind that God works like that!

Jesus rejected retributive justice and karmic reciprocity. No, he said. Twice. Do not think like that about my heavenly Father. And do not judge people who experience misfortune. That is what I hear Jesus saying. He warned everyone in the crowd, and he warns you and me: If you keep thinking like that, then it applies to you, too. You will have to consider your misfortune as God’s retribution. You will have to condemn yourself.

The underlying moralism in New Thought is bleak. Misfortune in your life is the result of your thinking misfortune into your life. Your misfortune is your failure to block bad thoughts and think only good thoughts.

Not unlike karma and retributive judgment, Occultism (or Spiritualism or New Thought or Word of Faith) makes your fortune or misfortune the direct result of your individual intentional or inadvertent thoughts, words, or deeds. Notice that these philosophies leave no room for accidents and, more alarmingly, leave no room for grace. The last time I checked the Scriptures, Jesus allowed for accidents, and he was big on grace.

This denial of accidents and grace has an underlying legalism. God is reduced to a cosmic principle. God becomes a universal law of reciprocity. You get what you deserve, whether it is payoff or pay back. It is not personal in any way, it does not involve relationship, and it certainly does not involve love. It is merely a cosmic mechanism whereby you determine your own fate. Health or sickness, wealth or poverty, good fortune or bad fortune, they are up to your own ability, your own thought process, your own religious efforts or lack thereof at tapping into “the divine.”

God Cannot Cross the Material-Spiritual Divide?

Another underlying legalism in New Thought is that God is bound by a law that regulates how he can and cannot communicate with us. New Thought would force us to know God by constantly striving to block out the material and intellectual, and constantly striving to “hear” him somehow in our “hearts.”

Isn’t it ironic that New Thought teaches and believes that we cannot reach God through the material world, yet the reason to reach God is to acquire material possessions?

The Bible says that all things were made by the Word of God, Jesus Christ. (John 1:1-4; Colossians 1:16-17; Hebrews 1:2) He made our bodies with the capacity to see, hear, taste, touch and smell. He made the brain that generates our thoughts. God, far from being banned from the material world (as New Thought would have it), made the heavens and the earth and called them “good.”

The Bible, moreover, does not confirm God’s inability to breach the alleged material-spiritual divide. Quite the opposite. The Word of God became flesh. (John 1:14) The Greek word is sarx. Flesh is the ultimate in materiality. God became material. Biblically, there is no alleged material-spiritual divide. Jesus’ incarnation as a human, his death in the flesh, and his resurrection in the body contradict the principle of exclusively non-material and non-intellectual revelation knowledge.

The Bible insists that the one true revelation of God to the world, Jesus Christ, was quite material. “Revelation Knowledge,” this first principle of New Thought, with its material-spiritual dualism, more resembles Plato’s philosophy and early Christian Gnosticism, with their body-spirit dualism, than the Bible.

In Platonism and Gnosticism the body is bad and the spirit is good. The material is bad and the spiritual is good. “Revelation Knowledge,” the Prosperity Gospel’s first principle, is decidedly more pagan and Gnostic than Christian.

What is more, the God of the Bible, far from being an impersonal, non-relational principle, is personal and relational to the core. Jesus’ incarnation as a human says, if nothing else, that God is a person desiring relationship above all. In this sense, the biblical gospel is the exact opposite of New Thought’s Prosperity Gospel.


Law Two: The Principle of Positive Confession
Lie Two: You have within you the power to force the non-material God to materialize what you want by claiming that it is yours.

The second principle of the Prosperity Gospel, which flows out of New Thought, builds on its first principle. The second principle is about the power of your mind and mouth to change physical reality.

“What I confess, I possess,” they say. “Believe it and receive it,” they say. “Name it and claim it,” they say.

New Thought entered the Christian Pentecostal movement of the early twentieth century through a movement called Word of Faith. Word of Faith became part of what is widely known as the Prosperity Gospel, enormously popular within charismatic Christianity. Word of Faith is based on “What I confess, I possess” called “Positive Confession,” or alternatively, “The Law of Faith.”

The term “Law of Faith” is itself an illustration of the logical contradictions within New Thought / Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel. It is contradictory to all logic and reason to turn faith into a law.


Who are its familiar proponents?

Secular Versions

Tony Robbins

This occult or spiritualist philosophy—re-popularized today by notables as diverse as bestselling author Eckhart Tolle and motivational guru TonyRobbins—reflects an extreme individualism and self-determination, asserting that the divine operates non-relationally and impersonally through the mastery of the mind. New Thought teaches that there is a thought-connection to a non-personal, universal force that we are able to learn to possess and control for personal success, health, wealth, and happiness. 

Tom Cruise and John Travolta

Perhaps the most well-known version of this spiritualist philosophy today is found in Dianetics and Scientology made popular by fiction author L. Ron Hubbard and celebrity proponents like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. The same spiritualist philosophy is called the Law of Attraction and was popularized by author Rhonda Byrne in The Secret, and in The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill.

Non-Pentecostal Protestant Versions

Norman Vincent Peale

Norman Vincent Peale was not the first to attempt a syncretizing of Christianity and New Thought, but he was the first to popularize it and become known worldwide. Peale’s emphasis on positive imagery and self-affirmation, outlined in his 1952 classic text, The Power of Positive Thinking, is one of the most well-known, popularized versions of self-help teachings of our generation.

In a little-known and overlooked interview, Peale regards his mentor as the giant of occult metaphysics, Earnest Holmes, the author of the foundational New Age text, Science of the Mind. The interview was for Holmes’ magazine, New Thought. Peale said that in 1920 he read Holmes’ book, Creative Mind and Success. That little book formed the basis of The Power of Positive Thinking. Tellingly, however, Peale’s biography and memoirs make no mention of Holmes.

Robert Schuller

Peale's positive thinking fueled the television messages of Robert Schuller and Joel Osteen. Schuller's book titles reveal his debt to Peale: Move Ahead with Positive Thinking; You Can Become the Person You Want to Be; and Become a Possibility Thinker Now.

Joel Osteen 

Osteen, now boasting the largest congregation in the US, followed Peale and Schuller with a message of positive attitudes, thoughts, and words manifesting health and wealth. He preaches that miracles are in your mouth, and your words become your reality.


Pentecostal Protestant Versions

Oral Roberts

The pioneer of New Thought in Pentecostal Protestant broadcasting was Oral Roberts. He coined the phrase “seed faith giving.” He mentored Kenneth Copeland. 

Kenneth Copeland

Copeland calls this Law of Faith the “faith-force.” He teaches that “the spirit world” can be commanded to do our bidding. Faith, in Copeland’s theology, is a power principle that we command to control our physical reality. This is the same principle used by occultist New Thought but under a different name. Mentored by Roberts, Copland in turn mentored Atlanta's Creflo Dollar.

Creflo Dollar

Faith, as defined by the Bible, however, is trust and rest in the good news that our relationship with God is based on his goodness rather than our own. “Come to me and find rest for your souls,” he said. Biblical faith is not a law. Scriptural faith is not an impersonal cosmic principle to be manipulated for prosperity. It is, rather, simple trust in a personal God who dares to love in relationship.

As the Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel dominates Christian television, there are many other names to mention including TV personalities as diverse as Benny Hinn, Marcus and Joni Lamb, Paul and Jan Crouch, Robert Tilton, Rod Parsley, Mike Murdock, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Eddie Long, and T.D. Jakes. Their theological movement has been called Positive Confession or Word of Faith. It emphasizes “faith force” activation and “seed faith giving” for individual health and wealth. 

God Obeys Humans?

The legalistic lie behind New Thought / Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel is that God is transformed into a pawn who must obey human commands. This false gospel has created a god who set up a legal, universal principle that says that he has to obey when we think and say the right things.

New Thought / Word of Faith / Prosperity Gospel emphasis is on a positive attitude yielding positive results, and a negative attitude yielding negative results. Thinking positively is said to force God to yield positive results for you. According to this unbiblical teaching, the words you think and say have direct results in the physical world.

The “Christian” proponents of New Thought are syncretists. Syncretism is the attempt to combine opposing philosophies. They scour the Scriptures for verses that support their occult philosophy. And they are good at it. But the shotgun wedding is a bad one. New Thought defines God as a universal principle to be tapped and controlled by human thought. Word of Faith defines faith in exactly the same way.

The Bible, on the other hand, defines God as a Person (more specifically, three Persons who are one), not as a cosmic law-bound pawn. And the Bible defines faith as trust in that Person, not as a cosmic principle for manipulating the material world with words and thoughts.


Law Three: The Principle of Divine Healing
Lie Three: You have within you the power to force the non-material God to heal your material body.

Just as the second principle of the Prosperity Gospel, originally known as New Thought, grew out of its first principle, the third principle is founded on the second. If and when your body is sick, New Thought teaches that your physical healing is a done deal. It is called “a faith-fact” by some of its proponents, who include the late Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science), the late Kathryn Kuhlman, the late Oral Roberts and the well-known, very much alive Benny Hinn, among many others.

Benny Hinn

According to the Prosperity Gospel, the ultimate test of your faith is to claim your healing complete when you are still experiencing symptoms. Any continuing symptoms, they say, are not real, but a trick of the devil to hinder your faith and steal your healing. The legalism should be obvious.

According to the Prosperity Gospel, your physical well-being is entirely dependent on how well you manipulate God with the faith-force. If you really get healed or if you enjoy sustained health, it is due to your prowess at naming and claiming your healing. But if you get sick or stay sick, it is your fault. Your continuing sickness is explained as your lack of faith, unbelief or sin.

The Prosperity Gospel is the worst kind of fear-driven hamster wheel because, it is claimed, “The Principle of Divine Healing” works in reverse, too. If you talk aloud to someone about the possibility of getting cancer, that might cause cancer. If you worry about it in your mind, you can actually call cancer into existence in your body. What a slavish, paranoid existence!

Joyce Meyers

Many so-called “faith-healers” have emphasized this principle and have been extremely successful in securing the funds for their broadcasts by taking up offerings prior to the healing portions of their “worship services.” I attended two Ernest Angley healing crusades, and I have friends who attended a Joyce Meyer event. Two things they have in common are the emphasis on contributions up front, and the fact that this protracted portion of their events is not broadcast on television.

Earnest Angley

Again, in this “gospel,” God is a cosmic principle, a universal law, an invisible faith-force, one that you somehow “hear” non-sensually and non-intellectually, yet one that you control with your thoughts. If you claim yourself healed, (and perhaps also apply the power of the almighty dollar in the evangelist’s offering plate), then God must heal you.

Picture this god like a slot machine. The gambling addict is seated before it, putting in quarter after quarter while chanting, “I won. I won. I won.” No jackpot, but if he only believes what he is saying, it will have to happen in the material world, and the jackpot will have to come pouring out.

If the Prosperity Gospel is correct, all Christians have a right to be healed, and have the power to force God’s hand to heal them. But, in the Bible, Epaphroditus, Trophimus, Timothy and the Apostle Paul were all sick. Paul was chronically sick. Three times he prayed to the Lord to heal him, but the Lord said “No” (2 Corinthians 12:7).

Was that a lack of faith on the part of Paul and these others? Was it their own fault that they were sick? Were they spiritually inadequate?


Law Four: The Principle of Material Prosperity
Lie Four: You have within you the power to force the non-material God to give you material wealth and money.

This fourth law or principle of the Prosperity Gospel, rising out of the earlier teachings of New Thought, like the third, flows out of the second principle. The late Oral Roberts was, perhaps, the most famous proponent of this fourth principle. He coined the phrase “seed-faith giving.” We are back to god, the one-armed bandit.

Oral Roberts

“Seed-faith giving” claims that if you give money or belongings “to God” (meaning to their ministries), then God is obligated to give you more money in return, thus blessing you with financial prosperity. Thus the name, “Prosperity Gospel.” It is a double-your-money-back guarantee—at least double. A ten-fold or even a one-hundred fold return is sometimes promised.

Mike Murdock

Other popular and successful proponents of this principle are Robert Tilton, Creflo Dollar, Paul and Jan Crouch, Rod Parsley, Mike Murdock and again Kenneth Copland (and wife, Gloria). There are many more. The Pentecostal Prosperity Gospel dominates cable broadcasting, so much so that this brand of “Christianity” might be presumed by the uninformed viewer to be representative of all Christian believers.

Robert Tilton

This fourth and final principle is more than a religious, legal trap. It is more than just another self-salvation program. It is a successful money-making scheme.

Prosperity Gospel proponents promise people that they have the key to ending their financial woes. If the victims of Prosperity Gospel preachers will just let go of the money in their pockets, they are assured God will automatically have to let go of the prosperity that is in God’s pocket for them. It is a principle of reciprocity that God is obligated to obey.

On the other hand, however, it is also your fault if you are in a financial crisis—not because you made mistakes, but because you failed to implement the “faith-force.” Or your sins have messed things up.

Let us say that you sent your last $100 to the televangelist, and that you did not get the $1,000 back from God that he guaranteed. Well, that is your fault. You sinned or lacked faith or were in some way spiritually deficient. It would have worked, they say, if there were not something seriously wrong with you. So get back on the hamster wheel, try harder, pray longer, get all the sin out of your life, and send more money next time.

The Prosperity Gospel proclaims that the poor are not blessed. Far from it. It proclaims, “When you are not blessed, your misfortune is your fault and you deserve it.” The poor, according to the Prosperity Gospel, are self-cursed and God-abandoned. What a cold-hearted message to the poor, the sick, and the otherwise unfortunate ones whom Jesus loved and embraced and blessed—“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20)

In the Bible, we find Jesus warning about wealth and greed, we find Jesus showing concern for and solidarity with the poor and blessing them, and we find Paul hungry for lack of funds.

Prosperity Philosophers or Gurus of Greed?

This Prosperity Gospel, with its four principles, has its secular parallels in Dianetics / Scientology made popular today by celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in books like The Secret / Law of Attraction made popular by author Rhonda Byrne, and in other modern prosperity gimmicks like The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill, now available by infomercial for the low price of only $49.95.

These “secular” gimmicks promote the underlying belief that you have the power in your mind, in your mouth, or in your hand to get individual health, wealth and happiness—a belief in common with the Prosperity Gospel. You can manipulate a universal principle if you learn the trick. And the proponents of this secret will sell you the trick for a low, low, introductory price.

This is oppressive religion. Underlying the Prosperity Gospel and New Thought is the very same selfish, occultist legalism—the same impersonal, individualistic hamster-wheel; the same futile, self-salvation religion.

A Summary Contrast of the Biblical Gospel and the Prosperity Gospel

The four laws of the Prosperity Gospel utterly contradict the biblical gospel.

1. God is not a faceless, impersonal force locked away from the material world. In Jesus Christ we see the face of God, flesh and bone and blood, entering and embracing this material world personally, passionately, intimately, for the sake of a relationship of love with us.

2. Scriptural faith is not a force whereby we can command a non-material God to do our bidding in the material world. It is simple rest and trust in the good news that Jesus Christ has finished salvation for the world.

3. You cannot force a non-material God to heal you by claiming yourself already healed. This is superstitious, magical thinking. It is oppressive, futile religion. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, a healer by all accounts in the Bible, suffered pain. God in the flesh experienced suffering in the material world. Likewise, his earliest followers suffered, some were sick, and some were even killed. What entitles Christ-followers an exemption today?

4. You can’t force a non-material God to make you rich in the material world by claiming that you possess riches. Again, this is magical thinking. It is radical individualism and materialism. And it is futile religion. Jesus had few possessions and little money, he warned about wealth and greed, and he loved and blessed the poor.

Prosperity Gospel Versus the Cross

While the Prosperity Gospel promises escape from suffering, God in Christ and his cross moves into suffering. There is no escapism in the cross. God does not run from pain. In the cross, God enters raw pain, and he does so naked and vulnerable.

While the Prosperity Gospel promise is concerned exclusively with selfish, individual gain through magical thinking, God in Christ and his cross is concerned exclusively with radically humble self-giving and suffering for the sake of others.

In the same way that the Prosperity Gospel does not deal with sin or suffering, neither does it deal with death. You have to stop sinning, it says, using magical thinking to make you healthy and wealthy. You can end your suffering magically, it says, by thinking it away, too. But how do you think away death?

In contrast to the Prosperity Gospel, in the biblical gospel, specifically in the cross of Jesus Christ, God enters even death. He does not run away from death. He does not use magical thinking to avoid death. God the Son willingly lays down his life.

A Clear Choice?

Could the “God” of the Prosperity Gospel and the God of the biblical gospel be more different? One is an impersonal principle, a faceless force, a cosmic law to be manipulated for individual profit. The other is a divine Person with a face—a dear friend, a willing servant, determined to face horrific suffering though scarred beyond recognition, determined to face death though he himself is life— all for the love of us.

Will you be manipulated by the cold, hands-off, run-from-pain, get-rich-quick “god” of the Prosperity Gospel? Or will you believe in and accept the warm, hands-on, walk-with-you-through-everything-and-run-from-nothing God of the biblical gospel?

To me, the choice is clear. But, tragically, my “Christian” cable television station schedule today tells me otherwise.

For more evangelical bad behavior:
Hell House
Katrina - The Wrath of God?
The Christian Ambush: A True Story
Don't You Hate Christian Tracts?

To see the layout of this article just published in Plain Truth Magazine go here: The Prosperity Gospel: God In a Box