# Are there portions of Christianity who don't believe in the Resurrection? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514 "2018-03-31T04:06:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/1 "2018-03-31T04:06:11Z")
And what are they called? Cause that part just seems so tacked on to me. “Then he rose…taught some and left after an unknown period of time” Kinda abrupt. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/2 "2018-03-31T04:38:00Z")
Good question. Without The Resurrection, Jesus was just another nice Jewish boy with a good message. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/3 "2018-03-31T04:49:01Z")
The Resurrection is the second-most important doctrine of Christianity. The Apostle Paul flatly stated that if it didn’t happen, the rest of the religion is meaningless. I daresay that somebody somewhere who doesn’t believe in the Resurrection CLAIMS to be a Christian, but such a claim would be null and void. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/4 "2018-03-31T04:50:26Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Good question. Without The Resurrection, Jesus was just another nice Jewish boy with a good message. The whole “Beileivth in me and im the only way to heaven and i died for your sins” is still in play isn’t it? I don’t see what the Resurrection brings other than “SEEEEEEE??? I really AMMMM the Son of God!!!”…in case all those miracles before wern’t proof enough. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/5 "2018-03-31T04:57:46Z")
A short internet search has illuminated the fact I am not up to date on the specifics of Resurrection Bodies and how that ties in with Jesus coming back. …still think His second round gets a hell of a short shrift on details compared to His first… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/6 "2018-03-31T05:30:32Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > The whole “Beileivth in me and im the only way to heaven and i died for your sins” is still in play isn’t it? > > I don’t see what the Resurrection brings other than “SEEEEEEE??? I really AMMMM the Son of God!!!”…in case all those miracles before wern’t proof enough. All those miracles before weren’t all that different from miracles done by several prophets. Moses did miracles left and right. The Resurrection is what says, as **Biffster** put it, that he wasn’t just another Jewish nice boy. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/7 "2018-03-31T05:40:59Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > All those miracles before weren’t all that different from miracles done by several prophets. Moses did miracles left and right. The Resurrection is what says, as **Biffster** put it, that he wasn’t just another Jewish nice boy. Well he did bring back Lazarus. That was out of the ordinary. As for Paul and how much he stressed the importance and it being mentioned 100 times in the NT…methinks the lady doth protest too much. But I understand the reasoning a lot better now. Thank you people. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/8 "2018-03-31T06:43:58Z")
The Resurrection is a difficult call. Despite being a faint Christian it is a reach too far to think that the laws of entropy can be reversed. If we burn a stick and gather up the smoke and ashes, can we rebuild the stick? No. That doesn’t matter. The Christian morality of being kind, doing good for others, turning the other cheek, being selfless - these are the essential lessons for all of us. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/9 "2018-03-31T07:06:08Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I daresay that somebody somewhere who doesn’t believe in the Resurrection CLAIMS to be a Christian, but such a claim would be null and void. Yes, there are those who refer to themselves as Christians but do not believe that Jesus was resurrected. I don’t know of a particular term for such people (which is part of what the OP was asking). I don’t think you could come up with a definition, or set of criteria, for who is and is not a Christian, that everyone would agree upon. But yes, according to some people’s definition, a Christian who doesn’t believe in the Resurrection would be a contradiction in terms. And then you have people like the late Professor Marcus Borg, who said things like > [@](#): > > [I do believe in the resurrection of Jesus. I’m just skeptical that it involved anything happening to his corpse. > … > Christ indeed has risen, but to confuse that with an event that you could have photographed, I think is to trivialize the story.](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/1999/03/26/march-26-1999-the-resurrection-of-jesus/15687/) ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/10 "2018-03-31T07:11:51Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Well he did bring back Lazarus. That was out of the ordinary. _Interviewer: What about raising Lazarus from the dead? Jesus: First of all, he wasn’t dead. He was hung over. I told people that. Interviewer: But in the Bible, you said he was dead. Jesus: Uh-uh. I said he looked dead. I said, “Hey! He looks dead!” You see, Lazarus was a very heavy sleeper. Plus, the day before, we had been to a wedding feast and he had put away a lotta wine._ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/11 "2018-03-31T09:01:43Z")
Rather than simple personal variations of belief, the OP seems to be asking for specific churches or other organised religious groups for which this is part of their doctrine. No doubt, the canonical Christian churches believes in, at most, only slight variations of the articles of faith. IMHO, once you start with Jesus being the son of God, the rest are not such a big leap. (The trinity thing is perhaps where logic becomes stretched. Not all faiths are trinitarian - Jehovah’s Witness for one.) People who like some of the teachings, or belong to “Christian” societies - ie most of western civilisation - but don’t accept any of the articles of faith are hardly members of the faithful. No matter what they might like to call themselves. Mormons have a separate set of articles of faith, and they grandfather the resurrection via belief in the testaments. Christian Scientists however have a much shakier relationship with the tenets of mainstream Christianity - and given their ideas on the nature of reality it is far from clear any believe in the resurrection. Prior to Paul, and his taking over of the faith, there may well have been more variations in the set of creeds. That preceded Nicea anyway. Remember that for many back at the start Christianity was a Jewish messianic cult. The Messiah was not expected to be son of God. OTOH, there were lots of biblical precedents for being raised up to sit by God. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/12 "2018-03-31T09:12:48Z")
(Some? All?) Gnostic Christians, to the best of my knowledge, believe that Jesus wasn’t resurrected because he didn’t really die - God wouldn’t really do something as oogy as _enter the material world_ because the material world sucks too hard. Essentially, they believed that Jesus was God, but the whole “being born as a man” thing was just one big long illusion. There are Gnostics still around - they hang out in hippy kinda circles - but I don’t know how organised they really are. The last really organised bunch of probable-Gnostics that I can think of were the Cathars in the early middle ages, and the Catholic Church saw to them pretty comprehensively ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/13 "2018-03-31T09:57:45Z")
Isn’t the whole point of Jesus’ continued life that _ **all believers will be saved** _? _From the trivia desk:_ One sentence has been translated into over 1100 different languages. (Is that a record?) **The sentence makes a promise:** > [@Jean 3:16](#): > > Car Dieu a tant aimé le monde qu’il a donné son Fils unique, afin que quiconque croit en lui ne périsse point, mais qu’il ait la vie éternelle. > > God lufede middan-eard swa þæt he sealde hys akennedan sune þæt nan ne for-wurðe þe on hine ge-lefð. Ac habbe þt eche lyf. > > เพราะว่าพระเจ้าทรงรักโลก จนได้ทรงประทานพระบุตรองค์เดียวของพระองค์ เพื่อทุกคนที่เชื่อในพระบุตรนั้นจะไม่พินาศ แต่มีชีวิตนิรันดร์ > > Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ᾽ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον. Wikipedia has an entire page for this sentence; [it even links to one of our Master’s columns :eek:.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/457/whats-with-those-john-3/) > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > _Interviewer: What about raising Lazarus from the dead? > Jesus: First of all, he wasn’t dead. He was hung over. I told people that. > Interviewer: But in the Bible, you said he was dead. > Jesus: Uh-uh. I said he looked dead. I said, “Hey! He looks dead!” You see, Lazarus was a very heavy sleeper. Plus, the day before, we had been to a wedding feast and he had put away a lotta wine._ I remember that wedding. It got so boisterous the host told the waiters to start serving just water, but some meddler broke into the cellar and found another barrel of wine. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/14 "2018-03-31T11:05:08Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Isn’t the whole point of Jesus’ continued life that _ **all believers will be saved** _? Not sure about that. His death provides the atonement for sin of us mere mortals. His resurrection seems to be God pulling a swift one on Satan; getting us all saved without the son remaining dead. Given the son is also the father it all gets confused. This may provide quite a bit of scope for heretical beliefs. You can probably find an entire spectrum of belief in individuals. Not so much in the defined articles of faith. But there is a lot of wiggle room. After all Islam includes Jesus as a prophet of God, just doesn’t do the son of God and resurrection part. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/15 "2018-03-31T11:27:22Z")
I think this question comes down to a question of what the definition of “Christian” ought to be. I’ve tried dictionaries and generally find something like “a person who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ and broadly identifies with the monotheistic religion centered on Christ”. It is hard to imagine a workable or useful definition that doesn’t depend on the individual’s own claim to be Christian, because if anybody other than the individual gets to decide, then there will be endless debates about whether any individual is Christian. So, if someone intends to follow the teachings of Christ, and thinks they are in the club, they are. There are historical accounts of Christ that describe him more or less as a wise teacher. Following his teachings sounds relatively plausible to this atheist. I think the answer to the OP must be “Sure”, though I’m not aware of a term for them. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/16 "2018-03-31T11:51:28Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Well he did bring back Lazarus. That was out of the ordinary. Hmm. Could you briefly list the miracles associated with the prophet Elisha? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/17 "2018-03-31T12:10:27Z")
Both Unitarians and Christians 🙂 sometimes use the word “Christian” to describe Unitarians, to emphasize what Unitarians have in common with the Christian church. If, like Paul, you think that the resurrection is a defining element of Christianity, then you are a fundamentalist :). If, like the Unitarians, you _don’t_ think that it’s a defining element of Christianity, or you just want to be polite, then Unitarians are a portion of Christianity that don’t believe in the resurrection. (No doubt there _are_ Unitarians who believe in the resurrection: it’s a liberal church). ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/18 "2018-03-31T12:39:50Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Both Unitarians and Christians 🙂 sometimes use the word “Christian” to describe Unitarians, to emphasize what Unitarians have in common with the Christian church. > > If, like Paul, you think that the resurrection is a defining element of Christianity, then you are a fundamentalist :). If, like the Unitarians, you _don’t_ think that it’s a defining element of Christianity, or you just want to be polite, then Unitarians are a portion of Christianity that don’t believe in the resurrection. > > (No doubt there _are_ Unitarians who believe in the resurrection: it’s a liberal church). If a Christian did not believe in the resurrection, then it follows he wouldn’t believe in the 2nd coming unless it was some form of a zombie thing. If they believed not in those things, then why the heck go to church? The wine isn’t that good. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/19 "2018-03-31T12:47:45Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > If a Christian did not believe in the resurrection, then it follows he wouldn’t believe in the 2nd coming unless it w I liked this version better. Made it look like you wrote yourself right out of existence just for entertaining the thought. ---
**Author:** ![Chopsticks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cab0a1/32.png) [@Chopsticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chopsticks)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514/20 "2018-03-31T13:04:54Z")
If you want to include people now dead, look up what groups were around at the Council of Nicaea. Some (most? all?) of the lines in the Nicene Creed were in there specifically to rule out some other sect’s heresy. [Other sects](https://youtu.be/iS-0Az7dgRY?t=1m8s) It’s certainly not logically contradictory to believe everything except resurrection. Or at least, no more contradictory than believing everything including resurrection. You keep the death for forgiveness part, so you get “go directly to heaven, do not pass go, do not collect 200 shekels” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-portions-of-christianity-who-dont-believe-in-the-resurrection/811514.md?page=2)