Reflecting on the meaning of Easter, we got thinking about secularists who scoff at the idea that Jesus was resurrected. What exactly are their beliefs? Before analyzing some of them, it’s worth taking a quick look at why the Resurrection story is true.
Faith, of course, is an abiding feature of all religions, but it is not on faith alone that the account of Jesus’ resurrection is persuasive.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes that it is fatuous to believe that the early Christians invented the resurrection as a myth. To wit: The idea of the Messiah dying and coming back to life would have struck Jews at the time as bizarre—there was no concept for this belief in Jewish theological beliefs.
What about the empty tomb?
There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew where it mentions the attempt by some Jews to discredit Christianity by saying the body was stolen. Of course, to make this claim they would have had to have been complicit in at least tacitly admitting that the tomb was empty. But why would Jews or Romans want to steal the body—wouldn’t that keep the story alive? It is even more unbelievable to maintain that the disciples stole the body. That would make them masochists. After all, why would they want to endure being beaten and killed for the sake of a lie?
Then there are the post-Resurrection accounts.
We learn from Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) that Jesus “appeared to Cephas [Peter] then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than 500 brothers at once” and “then to all the apostles.”
Now some secularists will say that they don’t believe in the historical Jesus. Fine. So why do they believe in the writings of the ancients, those like Aristotle, who came before Christ? Lest we forget, it was the monks who preserved the writings of antiquity, and it was St. Patrick who played a pivotal role in this historic exercise. Looks like secularists can’t escape relying on our bounty.
What about their convictions? Just consider the content of some of their beliefs today.
It is now fashionable in elite circles, e.g., the White House and the nation’s leading colleges and universities, to believe that two men can marry and have a family. But men don’t have the anatomical equipment to pull this off, which is why they crib from the largess of heterosexuals.
It is also popular to say that male and female status is “assigned” at birth, and that it can be changed. This, too, is nonsense. No one “assigns” a person’s sex: Hospital personnel typically record the sex of the person (which was knowable prior to birth). Moreover, every person who has ever lived possesses either XX chromosomes or XY chromosomes, making them either female or male, respectively. There is no XYZ third option.
Secular elites believe—Joe Biden is one of them—that men can become pregnant. That is why they refer to pregnant women as “birthing persons,” so as to be inclusive. But everyone lucky enough not to have had his mind corrupted by delusional professors knows that it is always women who carry babies, deliver them and wean them. Furthermore, men can no more menstruate—no need to have tampon dispensers in their bathrooms, even at Ivy League schools—than women can undergo radiation for prostate cancer.
Some secularists believe in the Great Ape Project—Peter Singer does and he teaches at Princeton. They are convinced that chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans should have the same rights as humans. That may not be such a good thing. Before King Kong breaks out the champagne, he should know that Singer believes that parents should be allowed to kill their infants, meaning that little Kong may not make it past the chimp stage.
Other secularists, like the late Christopher Stone, a distinguished law professor, taught his students at USC that “valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland [and] air” should enjoy legal rights. More recently, a judge in New York had to rule on whether an elephant named Happy was entitled to be released from a prison called the Bronx Zoo. Unhappily for him, he lost.
Sorry secularists, you’re in over your skis. Don’t expect us to believe that the resurrection of Jesus is not believable but your fairy tales about pregnant men and tree rights are.
