I still can’t get over how often people here still post stuff like “If you’re a Christian you have to believe X.”
Nope.
As to the OP’s question, one place to start is the Wikipedia page on Liberal Christianity. It gives a list of quite a few people who don’t believe in certain “traditional” Christian ideas, several of whom do not believe the resurrection took place. Click on the links for each person to find out more. E.g., Bishop John Shelby Spong.
Christianity is not and has never been a monolithic belief system. In the Gospels you see people discussing various concepts of Jesus’ purpose. Paul and the Jerusalem Church were in open dispute. Etc.
No one “owns” Christianity and has a right to tell others what the “official” beliefs are.
A co-worker of mine is a preacher, one of several who “share” the “duty” in a very small (30-40 member) denomination of what he calls THE (ONE and ONLY, GENUINE and ORIGINAL) Church of God. They have no building to worship in, but rather, meet in each others homes…something about the abomination of false temples or some such.
Anyhoo… I distinctly recall from one of his never ending rants: (I paraphrase) There was NO resurrection of Jesus… The notion of such is merely a plot put forth by Catholics (their arch-enemies) for some obscure reason that frankly, I don’t recall. He says Jesus never died, but rather was removed? from the earth, body and spirit, while alive… By God.
He definitely claims to be Christian, in fact (according to him) one of a very small handful of TRUE Christians that inhabit this earth, yet he definitely dis-believes in resurrection.
The very meaning of the word “Worship” is “acknowledgement of worth”, from the Old English weorthscipe. Unitarians like to get together to acknowledge things that are of worth. Freedom, social justice, decent coffee, etc.
The are called “Christians.” “Christian” does not mean “believes in the resurrection of Jesus.” “Christian” literally means “Christ like”.
If one devotes themselves to living a good life by Jesus’s teachings, even if they not only do not believe in the resurrection, but in the divinity and even the existence of Jesus, they are are still a Christian.
“Do you believe in the Resurrection” is a question that sounds clear but often isn’t, because “believe in” is a concept that requires understanding.
We don’t ask if someone believes in iron. We don’t ask if someone believes in gravity. If you don’t believe in iron, you’re an idiot. BUT, if you do believe in iron, you’re also an idiot! That’s the tricky part. Plain facts are not possible to believe in.
If you believe in the Resurrection as a plain fact, you are an idiot, because plain facts aren’t believe-in-able. And if you believe in it as a plain fact, you are at the same time blocking yourself from believing in it in any way that matters.
Luckily, the Resurrection is not a plain fact, it’s an idea. Believing in the Resurrection is believing in an idea, a concept, a philosophy, a metaphor.
The practice of mentally transforming a real “believe-in idea” into a pretended “plain fact”, has (at least in religious circles) a name: idolatry. Believing that Jesus’s physical body physically rose from its physical tomb is plain old idolatry.
The Bible is not lying, but the Bible is also not a history textbook. It’s a book of ideas for believing in, and ideas for believing in are by definition not plain facts. The plain facts in the Bible are worthless trash - many of them are false, and most of the true ones don’t matter - but that’s OK, because the Bible isn’t about plain facts. We can (and must) get our plain facts from the ordinary reliable sources of plain facts, not from a book that was never aiming to get the facts right because it’s about something else entirely.
About 39% of Americans and 35% of Born-again Christians believe that Jesus was crucified but NOT physically resurrected. Cite. But that doesn’t cover spiritual resurrection. 87% of the American population believes in the resurrection of Christ. Among Christians, 85% believe in the resurrection: only 52% of non-Christians believe in the resurrection. More at the link.
As for early Christians, “Followers of the ancient Doceitism heresy believed that Christ was not housed in a human body. He was a phantasm, specter or ghost which merely looked human. Today we might use the term hologram. Thus he was not crucified, did not die and was not resurrected.” Religioustolerance.org
Is the Pope Catholic?
George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury: “While we can be absolutely sure that Jesus lived and that he was certainly crucified on the cross, we cannot with the same certainty say that we know he was raised by God from the dead.”
Well that’s it for the OP. If the Archbishop of Canterbury says Christians don’t have to believe in the resurrection, they don’t. Asked and answered. (Well, not really: Carey says he was misquoted: controversy discussed here: Religioustolerance.org )
George Habermas, fundamentalist historian, says that about 75% of New Testament scholars accept the resurrection as fact. Religioustolerance.org
Overall, given that a large minority of Christians don’t affirm the resurrection, I’d say it wasn’t a strict requirement.
ETA: I suppose some of those who don’t believe in the resurrection are called heretics, but that’s probably not what the OP has in mind. (Apologies for the snark, but this statement is accurate I think.)
Religious officials tripping over themselves (and each other) trying to explain that they were misquoted, that that’s not what they said, that people are misunderstanding, etc etc, (and the fact we have this kind of discussion), are just accidental manifestations of the underlying issue, that many people (including religious officials) conflate belief with fact.
Or (perhaps the case with Archbishop Carey?) they don’t conflate belief with fact, but are afraid to explain it clearly, because if they did explain clearly, too many of their flock would take exception, calling the leader a heretic because the leader did not prop up their long-cherished idolatry.
I am sure there are quite a number that would. There are many that have many stipulations to calling yourself a christian that have nothing to do with the story of Jesus and his resurrection as well.
They like to have what they consider to be a monopoly on being the gatekeepers to paradise in the afterlife. If any 'ol person can call themselves a christian, that hurts their brand.
There are a number of reasons that I would point to the people in these sects and churches, and show how they are not following the teachings of christ, and question how they can call themselves christian as well.
This is what comes of so many Sunday Schools glossing over the zombie apocalypse that was Easter Sunday. I seriously think we missed the boat when we scheduled it so far from Halloween.
Jesus was not the only person who rose from the dead that day. There was an earthquake. Quite a few dead people rose up and walked into town.
There is also this little tidbit, which has sparked quite a few conspiracy theories:
*Bolding mine
This is where the Gnostics point in their claim that Jesus wasn’t dead to start with. The soldiers and Pilate knew well that if the Jewish prisoners weren’t dead by sunset, their families wouldn’t come and take their bodies on the Sabbath. This meant corpses stinking up the place for an extra 24 hours in the heat of Jerusalem. Not a very pleasant task for them to take them down the following day. So, did Joseph get Jesus down off the cross still alive?
John addresses this problem by claiming that the soldiers went around breaking the legs of the crucified folks so they would die faster. But according to John they found Jesus already gone,and so pierced his side with a spear to prove it.
So there’s plenty of room for question about the resurrection even among biblical literalists. Which is why I always wonder whether such people have actually read the whole thing themselves.
The real “proof of divinity” was not the resurrection but the ascension. Jesus was seen to ascend corporeally into heaven; he left no body behind in the end.
I am also always baffled by those who define Christianity more through the words of Paul then through the words of Jesus. Jesus was pretty clear about what he wanted from us:
Love they neighbor as thy self
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
Whatever you do unto the least of God’s children, you do unto me*
Remember me* not by building temples, but in everyday things, like when you eat and drink. (His words in no way suggest the ritual cannibalization of his body practiced by so many “Christians” today.)
*“me” here refers to Jesus himself, but also as God the Father
Utilitarianism is a belief - approximately, “do what is good for all, not only what is good for one”. (Arguing over “what is good” and “who is all” are perfectly legitimate, as well as arguing that I’ve got the idea of utilitarianism wrong, but unnecessary right now.)
It would be quite odd for someone to say, “I believe utilitarianism literally”. Of what use (ha ha) could that statement be?
Religious beliefs can’t be literal or non-literal, because the target of every religious belief is an idea, not a fact.
If my friend says “Dude, I’m in deep shit”, I have a choice to make.
I can decide that I don’t believe him at all in any way, and that he’s lying.
I can decide to believe him metaphorically, that he is in big trouble.
I can decide to believe him literally, that his body is partly submerged in a pile of dung.
I can decide to believe him both metaphorically and literally at the same time, that he is in big trouble because his body is partly submerged in a pile of dung.
Only one choice out of those four can possibly be correct.
If he’s lying, he’s lying. No mystery there.
Among the other three choices, the correct one is whichever one he actually meant. If he meant it literally, then if I take it metaphorically I am wrong. If he meant it metaphorically, then if I take it literally I am wrong. If he meant both at once, then he probably likes puns.
Taking something literally when it was meant metaphorically is not a sign of seriousness or respect. My belief in my friend is not stronger if I insist on taking every word he says literally. In fact, my belief in my friend is stronger when I take what he says in the way he meant it. If I look at him and I see no poop, I should not decide to doubt myself and believe in the poop - I should switch my thinking into metaphorical mode and see if his statement makes more sense that way.
Believing or not believing the history-book content of the Bible is not a religious issue at all. It’s a side issue that has nothing to do with your religious beliefs or anyone else’s. Because historical facts are not religion, and if you’re reading the Bible as a history textbook then at that moment you are not even involved in a religion-related activity.
Like if you were reading Gone with the Wind - as a recipe book. There might be recipes in there, or at least some food might be described, … but in that moment, “reading Gone with the Wind” is not what you’re doing - you’re just looking for something where it doesn’t belong. And you can’t tell in that moment if it’s a good novel or not - all you can figure out is that this recipe book is not much good.
But isn’t having faith supposed to be the whole point? Those first Christians didn’t have faith; they had objective evidence. If God felt that a demonstration was necessary to prove his message was true, then he should have been consistent and given demonstrations to everyone. I’d believe in divine power if I witnessed it happening.
Those who had “objective evidence” were (let’s be generous) between zero and ten people. There’s no corroboration from anyone outside that tiny group. They claimed a man died and then came back.
If I came back from the dead, I guarantee that you would hear about it that very day, unless you don’t pay any attention to news at all. It would be the biggest news ever, in the history of humanity. Far bigger than the one that happened two thousand and eighteen years ago or so, because truth, and because evidence.
The fact that Jesus’s resurrection was not immediate worldwide public knowledge in the few months after he died, while not actual proof of anything, is very suspicious in the context of such a major piece of news. In fact, it didn’t even become widespread local knowledge! Nobody anywhere talked about it or wrote about it until years later, except that tiny group who were all friends.
So, imagine that you meet a tiny group of people who are all friends with each other, and they claim their friend died and then came back from the dead - but he’s gone again now, he got taken back to heaven again, and they’re so sorry you missed the whole thing, didn’t you hear about it?
That’s missing my point. It’s not an issue of whether you have faith or not. The issue is that faith is supposed to be enough.
But if that’s the case, then why did Jesus perform miracles and rise from the dead? Shouldn’t people have believe his message on faith alone without needing to see any manifestation of divine power?
Is faith enough to make you believe in a philosophy?
Is faith enough to make you believe a lie?
Is faith enough to make you believe in a philosophy that uses a complex creatively-written dramatic story to make its point?
Is faith enough to make you believe in a philosophy that promotes a highly-biased and extensively-doctored history book as the only potential source of true statements?
The miracles are BS in the factual sense, every last one of them, but it’s creative writing, not history. You don’t finish a novel and then say “Come on, those things never happened” - because of course they didn’t happen, and when you started reading you knew factual history was not the point of the book.
Faith is enough, for what real religion requires. For a fake religion based on misinterpreting a serious set of true metaphors as a laughable set of fake facts, no amount of faith can ever be enough.
