“If I were a betting man, I’d bet - my life or one dollar - that the tomb was not empty. Or that there was no Tomb.” Marcus Borg quoted in “The New Christians”, page 154
The modern skeptic attacks Christianity on three fronts:
1. Creation and the Fall of man
2. The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
3. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the Final Judgment of the World
The door of the Gospel swings on these three hinges. Take away one, and the Gospel will cease to have any meaning. Why? Because God has revealed in His Word that the Gospel is good news for one reason, and one reason only.
That reason is that Jesus of Nazareth paid the penalty for man’s sin at a specific geographical location, at a specific time in history, and that His sacrifice accomplished exactly what God intended. Sin was the problem from the fall, it was the problem in Jesus time, and it is the chief problem of mankind in our day.
Creation & The Fall of Man
Creation lays the foundation for an understanding of the problem of sin. God has revealed in His Word that He created the universe, and all that is in it, in six literal solar days. If you don’t believe that, your argument is with God, not with me. That creation was declared by God to be good, but man rebelled, and by that man sin entered into the world. Every man, woman, and child is born with a nature bent by sin, and every thought an imagination of their heart is only sin continually. (Gen. 6)
Creation and the fall of man into sin explain the need for a savior. If the account of creation is false, why should we believe the rest? If the beginning of the Book cannot be trusted, why should there be any talk of a church, let alone an emerging one? What a man believes about creation is crucial to understanding where he stands on the orthodox doctrines of the Christian faith. If he rejects the account of creation, one can only wonder how genuine his faith is, or how he apprehends the God who has revealed Himself in a written Word.
The Crucifixion & Resurrection
The second point of attack for the skeptic is the cross and the empty tomb. The emergent view of the cross is that it is symbolic of the suffering of humanity, and “the co-suffering of God with us.” (Pg 14 
It is interesting to note that Moltmann, Volf, and “many of the liberation theologians of the late twentieth century” have admittedly influenced the author’s view of the crucifixion.
What is missing, and should be noted by anyone examining the truth claims of the emerging church, is that the author and many of his contemporaries do not get their theology from the scriptures, but from the philosophy of men, from the academy, and from their own musings about their experience. In fact, most of the emergent system is built as a response to some negative experiences of its leaders, as is presented in the chapter on the formation of the emergent movement, as well as the four case studies that are presented as evidence of the inner workings of emergent churches.
The orthodox view of the crucifixion is that it is the moment in time where the payment for sin that came into the world at the fall of man was satisfied. Only Jesus, God in the flesh, could have made a satisfaction for sin. And He did it for you and for me, who are unable and unwilling to save ourselves.
The resurrection then is God’s statement to the entire world unto all eternity that He was indeed satisfied, and that the free gift of salvation from our sin is available to all who will but call upon the name of the Lord, asking for and receiving forgiveness and reconciliation with God Himself.
It’s not about you getting along better with your neighbor, or a supposed envelope of friendship. The cross is about you being reconciled to God, and the empty tomb is about God raising Jesus from the dead in victory over sin and death, so that those who believe in Him will have eternal life that starts in the here and now.
While the cross and resurrection are mentioned briefly, it is clear from the author that the views of many in the emergent church are decidedly not orthodox. They should be rejected outright. And while the author’s view of the resurrection is purposefully unclear, there is nothing to be gained by having a conversation with those who knowingly try to subvert the Gospel in a denial of the resurrection, and a revision of the meaning and purpose of the cross. To consider those who hold these views as brothers in Christ, when they openly deny fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, is neither wise nor profitable. Call me a ‘foundationalist’ if you like, but I prefer to align myself with the Scriptures rather than mislead people into a false sense of security by accepting false teachings and teaching others to do likewise.
The Second Coming of Jesus Christ
The third point of attack is on the Final Judgment, preceded by the second coming of Christ. The emergent view changes the focus away from an eventual return of Christ for judgment, and toward an enterprise engaged in making the world a better place. Rather than see the “narrative” as a revelation of God’s plan to save man from sin, it is the call to “a new way of life”. (Pg 154)
And yet, it should be noted that the emerging church has unhitched itself from the narrative. By denying the truth claims of Scripture, by denying the account of creation, by denying the reality of the empty tomb, and by redefining the purpose of the cross, the emerging church has abandoned all rights to comment on the narrative from which they supposedly get their inspiration to live this so-called “new life”. One has to ask; a new life based upon what?
What value is the new life, if life itself has no meaning? Strip away the empty tomb, and Christianity rings hollow. Take away the need for a savior, and one loses the need to live a new life. As Paul reminds us, “If we have hope only in this life, we are of all men most pitiable.” (1 Cor. 15) Fortunately, the Biblical view on the Second Coming is quite different.
Eventually, on the day that God has chosen, a specific day in the future, God will settle the matter of man’s sin once for all time, in a judgment that every man, woman, and child who has ever lived will experience in their own flesh.
Because that specific Day of Judgment is coming at a moment that no one can predict, it is incumbent upon every human being to come to terms with Jesus. That is, Jesus the Christ, the Jesus that was present at creation, who made all things, who came to live among us, who died in our place, who rose again, who lives forever more, and who is coming again in judgment on a day that God has fixed. (Acts 17)
Conculsion
These three truths: Creation, Crucifixion & Resurrection, and The Second Coming are all foundational to Christianity. They are essential to the Gospel, and without just one the whole system crumbles. That is why skeptics attack on these three points, and all who would examine the claims of men in matters of faith should examine where they stand on these three points.
A careful examination of “The New Christians” reveals a movement that is weighed and found wanting. Anyone who would follow in the footsteps of the emergent church is warned against following the teachings of men like Brian McLaren & Tony Jones. If they call men who deny the basic tenets of Christianity “brothers”, considering them to be of the same faith as them, then one can only wonder what it is that they themselves believe. Any belief system that presents the meaning of Scripture, as a prescription for a “way of life” is a works based, or merit based, system of performance that will lead to eternal destruction.
Sin is your problem. Salvation is available only through the death of Jesus Christ in your place. He was raised in victory over sin and death, and is coming again in judgment. God now calls all men everywhere to turn from their sin in repentance, and to embrace the free gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Repentance is the same message that Jesus preached, it is the same message the apostles preached, and it is the same message the church is called to preach to the culture in our day. The men of the world stand condemned, and all who would seek to be friends with the world (culture) make themselves the enemy of God. Reject the culture of the world, “be saved from this perverse generation”. (Acts 2) Which will you chose?
May you find peace in Christ alone,
~ Doug
Doug
pastorboy
I think that you need to reread this portion of “The New Christians.” You title the post “Tony Jones on the Resurrection” but your post is based on a quote of Marcus Borg that Jones uses to prove his point. THAT point is in opposition to Borg. Jones says that “Borg has fallen into the other gutter of the bowling alley, allowing reason to trump faith - his, we might say, is a “faith in reason.” In no way does Jones question the resurrection. Your post misrepresents Jones and his book.
Due to the fact the the resurrection is mentioned only briefly, it is difficult to determine exactly what Jones believes concerning the resurrection.
Yes, He says that Borg has fallen into the gutter. And John Piper is in the other gutter. And the emergents are walking down the middle. Yet he considers men like Borg to be Christian when they are not. And he identifies with a myriad of false teachers who deny the resurrection, and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.
Therefore, what he believes about the resurrection is rather pointless. If you don’t accept the Biblical account of creation, and you redefine the meaning and purpose of the cross, what you believe about the resurrection doesn’t matter. He can’t have it both ways. Either Christ is risen literally or He is not. If He is, then Tony Jones should be speaking out against those who deny the resurrection and not consider them as brothers in Christ.
Edited for clarification on the author’s view of the resurrection.
I agree wholeheartedly with you, Doug. Tony Jones practices sophism in all of his talk about the resurrection.
He tries to shoot down John Piper over what John said about the I-35 bridge collapse. It’s a thinly veiled attack on Creation. If God did create the universe by speaking it into existence, does it not exist an operate at His pleasure? Doesn’t God have sovereignty over molecules and atoms? What are beams a girders made of?
So Tony Jones, christian-sophist and christian-exestensialist, tries to put himself in the middle with Jesus. Tony says it all rests on faith. That’s very pious, but what is existential faith? It is faith undergirded with doubt.
Tony’s bridge to the resurrection is built with girders of doubt.
No wonder you are blue. I find this Emergent stupidity depressing too.
Here is something that is about what is Jones says concerning Borg. It’s from an EV thingy last year, the AAR Panel at Azusa Pacific College. You can find the podcast of it at the EV website. I’ve given some approximate time indicators to help in referencing.
There are excerpt from both Tony Jones and Diana Butler Bass.
aar part 1–57 minutes in
Jones “When I spoke at the National Cathedral in May, at a conference around Diana’s book, that they were nice enough to invite me to, the evening before I spoke, Marcus Borg spoke, and Marcus Borg for the umpteenth time was asked in the Q&A an old–I remember this so vividly–an old man came up to the microphone in the center aisle of the nave of the national cathedral, and said “Dr. Borg, what about the empty tomb?”. And he said, probably for the umpteenth time, verbatim, this is what he said, “If I had to bet a dollar or my life, I would say the tomb was not empty, or there was no tomb.” I was in the back, sitting around a circle with people my age who came from a mainline church in Wichita, and if you’re a mainliner in Wichita, you’re not really a mainliner in the way that people on the east coast think of mainliners, or people in Minnesota think of mainliners. In the fly-over territory, you don’t get to be a liberal mainliner at a big mainline church in Wichita. You are a bit evangelical, even though you’re a mainline church, because you’re in Wichita. And they were extremely distressed by this response, and it got me to thinking, that emergents don’t have a problem with paradox.”
A few minutes later, Diana Butler Bass responded to what was said here.
minute 1:06
Butler Bass “I really, I just have to jump in real quick, and then we can go to larger questions, but Tony, if Marcus Borg was sitting here and had misquoted you, I would jump in and defend you. Marcus did indeed say exactly what you said, but then three minutes later, he said that “but that in no way undermines the confession of the early church that Jesus lives and Jesus is Lord” and so then he went on to say that he does indeed–I mean I remember how startling it was there in the great high alter of the national cathedral, we got this incredible faith statement, personal faith statement, from Marcus Borg, saying that he does indeed believe in that confession and that he makes that confession proudly with the early church, and so what he actually did was although the way that he got about it was perhaps logical positivism, he came to a place himself of incredible paradox, that he made a faith statement that in a way contradicts old style liberalism and he did it in front of a crowd of some 350 people. And so you both were actually working out of your point of tension or wanting to work out of a paradox its just that your paradoxes where in different places and I wasn’t entirely sure that that you were–there were a couple of people who blogged about that as well, heard the second part of what Marcus said and I did hear it because I went downstairs and was attacked by somebody from the Institute of Religion and Democracy and they were going on about how you know this was just old style liberalism and it’s the same old same old and on and on and on and I said “Did you just hear what Marcus Borg said upstairs, if you weren’t listening, Marcus Borg just said that he believed in Jesus Christ.” And he said “Oh yeah I heard that but it just doesn’t matter”"
And the person she was talking with was exactly right. A person can say they believe in Jesus all they want, but if they deny the resurrection it doesn’t matter. God does not give us the option of believing in a Jesus that didn’t rise from the dead literally.
As the Scriptures says, “If Christ be not raised, then your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins.” Believing in some kind of “spiritual” resurrection is not an option. There is no indication in the text that Jesus resurrection was anything other than physical.
If Borg is going to bet his life that there was no tomb, then he doesn’t believe in the Biblical Jesus. It is another jesus of his own making. And if Tony Jones is going to consider those who deny the resurrection, like Borg, as genuine Christians then he too is embracing a false Jesus. He can’t have it both ways.
If he rejects those who deny the resurrection, and does not consider them as brothers in Christ, then he needs to say so plainly, and condemn those who deny the resurrection.
The leaders in the emergent church think it is cool and funny to obfuscate about their doctrine. They purposely try to avoid stating what they believe, as evidenced by the appendix in TNC where Tony uses another author to explain their lack of a doctrinal statement.
Well it’s not cute, and its not funny, and they will not think it is funny when they have to stand before God in the day of judgment and give an account for their obfuscation.
Denying the resurrection is no laughing matter. It is heresy, plain and simple. If Tony Jones considers people who deny the resurrection as brothers in faith with him, then he is severely mislead at best, and quite possibly an unbeliever playing at church.
And if these men are representative of the emerging church, as they claim to be, then they and their teachings are to be rejected outright. Conversation with them in any form other than evangelism is pointless.
For the moment, I would take care in thinking that Jones necessarily agrees with Butler Bass here, because it is she who is trying to say that Borg believes in Jesus and in the creeds even though he essentially thinks the resurrection didn’t happen.
But it does raise questions about what they mean by paradox. Butler Bass seems to say that Borg is an example of it, which I take to mean that while he doesn’t believe in the resurrection, he does claim to agree with the creeds, which I would think say that Christ resurrected from the dead. Is this what they mean by paradox, that a person can say something didn’t happen but still confess faith in it? What does that mean? Is this like saying that they don’t believe in it as fact, but have a belief in it as a story or as a mythology?
How can anyone say what he agrees with when he won’t say?
“Borg believes in Jesus and in the creeds even though he
essentially thinks the resurrection didn’t happen.”
My point:
1. If he (or anyone else for that matter) does not believe
in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, whatever
else he believes about anything else is irrelevant.
2. If he does not believe that the literal bodily
resurrection of Jesus Christ ever happened, it puts him
automatically in the category of an unbeliever.
3. And, anyone who identifies themselves as a “brother”
(meaning, A fellow Christian) with the one who denies the
physical resurrection of Jesus Christ puts themselves in the
same category.
They are not believing the Biblical Jesus. It is another
Jesus of their own making.
Remember Jacques Derrida, from the book, guys? Obfuscation is play in the Emergent arsenal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Derrida#Intentional_obfuscation
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=1118
–As Paul well understood, Christianity stands or falls with the empty grave. If Christ is not raised, we are to be pitied, for our faith is in vain. Those who would preach a resurrectionless Christianity have substituted the truth of the gospel for a lie. But, asserted Paul, Christ is risen from the dead. Our faith is not in vain, but is in the risen Lord. He willingly faced death on a cross and defeated death from the grave. The Resurrection is the ultimate sign of God’s vindication of His Son.
The great good news of the resurrection is this — those who come to Christ by faith will share in His victory over sin and death. Belief in the resurrection of Christ is clearly essential in order for one to be a Christian. The Christian church has understood this from the beginning, and the Apostle Paul left no room for doubt when he declared that those who are saved are those who confess with their lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead [Romans 10:9].–
http://www.united.edu/portrait/index.shtml
For anyone interested, this site seems to be a somewhat simplistic but rather telling summation of Borg’s beliefs.
He seems to set great stress upon what he calls the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus’, as if they are two different people, or rather in his mind the pre-Easter is the real historic Jesus and the post-Easter is some kind of construct the church came up with over time and filled into the New Testament stories.
His take on the resurrection can be found on this page.
http://www.united.edu/portrait/post1.shtml
–Easter does not have to include something happening to Jesus’ body.
–The foundational meaning of Easter is that Jesus’ followers experienced his continuing presence as a living reality.
–An empty tomb is one way to talk about that experience.–