Last week, the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Community in Syria and Lebanon released an urgent appeal to Evangelical organizations globally, desperately asking for help with the current situation in the Middle East, which they call an “existential threat facing the future of Middle Eastern Minorities, as well as moderate Muslim minorities in the region.
Please read this appeal and act in whatever way you can!
Click here to read the Urgent Appeal now!
Across the world this week, hundreds of millions of us will be singing of that “silent night, holy night†in the town of Bethlehem. But as Christmas approaches, with its beguiling promise of “peace on earth and mercy mildâ€, how many of us will reflect on the words of our great Christmas carols and be reminded that Christianity was a faith born in the East? How many of us are aware that, while the first Christmas took place in the Middle East, there today that same faith is under threat?
[The Telegraph, 21 dez 2013] Last week, the leader of the Catholic Church, His Holiness Pope Francis, chose to cast light on this dark story of persecution by taking to Twitter to warn that we “cannot resign ourselves to think of a Middle East without Christiansâ€.
Later in the week, Prince Charles warned that “Christians in the Middle East are, increasingly, being deliberately attacked by fundamentalist Islamist militants. Christianity was, literally, born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christâ€.
These were expressions of a growing concern that Christians are being deliberately targeted and attacked because of their faith. But why, when popes and princes are speaking up, have so many politicians here in the UK forsaken speaking out?
Across the Middle East, Christians have lived for almost two millennia in the place their faith was born, and since thrived within communities in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere.
Indeed, the Ottoman Empire, which spanned much of today’s modern Middle East, was a multicultural state, with Christians cohabiting alongside Shia, Sunni, Jews, Alawites and Druze.
Yet today, the conflicts raging across the region – in Syria most acutely – are taking on an increasingly sectarian character. Since the start of the conflict in March 2011, more than 450,000 Christians have fled the country.
In Egypt, the plight of the Coptic Christians is of growing concern, with Amnesty International reporting that, this year, 207 churches were attacked and 43 Orthodox churches completely destroyed.
Christian persecution is growing across the Middle East, but tragically, the plight of Christians is global and not regional.
Research by the Pew Centre suggests that Christians are reportedly the most widely persecuted religious group in the world. Their evidence shows that, in 2011, religious groups faced harassment in 160 countries, and that Christians were harassed in the largest number of countries.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group, are waging their bloody conflict and targeting church leaders. This month, there were reports of hundreds of houses being burnt down when members of the Boko Haram attacked Arboko village in Borno State, said to be inhabited by a small Christian community.
And in one brutal attack in Pakistan, in September this year, 81 Christians were killed when their church in Peshawar was targeted by suicide bombers, causing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to describe the victims as Christian “martyrsâ€.
Members of my own denomination, the Church of Scotland, felt that same tragedy very personally when one of our number, Rev Aftab Gohar, minister in Abbotsgrange Church in Grangemouth, discovered that his 79-year-old mother, nephew, niece, two uncles and other friends and relatives were among 122 killed in the attack.
Rev Gohar is blessed with a strength of faith that enables him to offer forgiveness to those who have killed his family members – a powerful statement, bearing testimony to the enduring capacity of faith to nurture reconciliation.
But for such reconciliation to fully take root in our communities, we must first recognise and acknowledge the depth and extent of the divisions that need to be healed.
Thankfully, some politicians have begun to speak up. Last month, Baroness Warsi gave an important and under-reported speech in the United States warning that a “mass exodus is taking place, on a biblical scale. In some places, there is a real danger that Christianity will become extinctâ€. And, earlier this month, the DUP MP Jim Shannon secured a debate in the House of Commons on the persecution of Christians.
But why, given the scale of the suffering, are these still such lone voices?
Across the world, there will be Christians this week for whom attending a church service this Christmas is not an act of faithful witness, but an act of life-risking bravery.
That cannot be right, and we need the courage to say so.
In the UK today, perhaps through a misplaced sense of political correctness, or some sense of embarrassment at “doing God†in an age when secularism is more common, too many politicians seem to fear discussing any matters related to faith.
So the growing persecution of Christians around the world remains a story that goes largely untold, as does proper discussion of its complex roots and causes.
In some countries, this persecution is perpetrated in the name of a secular ideology, while in others it has its roots in religious intolerance.
So the perpetrators’ motivation is not the primary issue of concern, nor can it be a reason for ignoring the consequences; our neighbours are being attacked for their faith, and that can never be acceptable or justified, whatever the reason given.
People of all faiths and none should be horrified by this persecution. We cannot, and we must not, stand by on the other side in silence for fear of offence.
Of course, Christianity’s long history has had its bloodstained chapters, and of course other religious groups are today subject to persecution.
It is simply wrong for any faith to be persecuted. And yet, across the world, religious groups, of any faith, are being attacked for their beliefs. So, just like anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, anti-Christian persecution must be named for the evil that it is, and challenged systematically by people of faith and of no faith. To do so is not to support one faith over another – it is to say that persecution and oppression of our fellow human beings in the name of any god or ideology is never acceptable and is morally repugnant.
In this 21st century, we should be supporting the building of societies that respect human rights and the rule of law, and make clear that freedom of religion or belief is a universal concern. It is time to acknowledge this issue and speak up and stand with those who are suffering because of their beliefs.
Sixty-five years ago this month, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 18 of that declaration states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom … to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.â€
This coming year, in March, the UK will assume its place on the UN Human Rights Council.
As part of that body, the UK Government will have a unique and timely opportunity to use this platform to speak up for religious freedom as a fundamental human right and speak out against the persecution of Christians.
Acknowledging this wrong is the surest basis on which to begin the journey to reconciliation shown to be possible by Rev Gohar’s faithfulness and hope.
And if the UK government does so, we, as the Opposition, will support them.
Douglas Alexander MP is shadow foreign secretary
While charity and advocacy are widely discussed, there is a growing sense that deep solidarity may be the more appropriate response of faith communities to poverty.
[By Dr. Joerg Rieger, December 12, 2013] Poverty is real and growing. In many places in the United States between 20 and 30 percent of the children experience “food insecurity,” which means that they do not have enough to eat. Unemployment and underemployment are rampant, and even many working people are no longer able to make ends meet. The average wage of workers at Wal-Mart — the world’s largest private employer — falls significantly below the poverty level. As the Wal-Mart model of employment is copied elsewhere, even mid-level jobs are losing full-time status and benefits.
In this climate, religious charity provides some much-needed assistance. Soup kitchens, food pantries, and clothes closets face a higher demand than ever before, and many religious communities support these efforts. Unfortunately, this kind of charity fails to address the underlying problems. Worse yet, by not addressing the root causes, the problems are covered up and in some cases intensified. Typical efforts to provide charity might be compared to a doctor who tries to cure the symptoms of a disease without addressing its cause. For good reasons, key figures of faith from Moses to Jesus did not limit their ministry to charity.
Advocacy for the poor gets closer to the underlying causes of poverty and is solidly rooted in many religious traditions. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible speak out on behalf of the poor and condemn those who “trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain” (Amos 5:11). Mary, the mother of Jesus, proclaims that the God who lifts up the lowly pushes the powerful from their thrones, and fills the hungry with good things while sending the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53). Standing in this tradition, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism in the eighteenth century, proclaimed that the majority of people were poor not due to their own fault but because they were pushed from their lands by wealthy landowners and then exploited in the factories of early capitalism. While Christians in the United States frequently blame the poor for their misery, many biblical and theological traditions take a different approach.
Jesus, taking a cue from the prophets, preached good news to the poor, not charity (Matt 11:5; Luke 4:18). Do today’s faith communities understand that good news to the poor might imply addressing and ending the conditions that create poverty? Preaching good news to the poor leads to questions like, Who can be said to “trample on the poor” and on working people today? Who “takes from them levies of grain,” including fair wages and benefits? Raising such questions was never easy, and there are consequences. Decades ago, the Brazilian Bishop Dom Hélder Câmara put it this way: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist. ” According to Luke, Jesus’ first proclamation of good news to the poor ended with an attempt by the faith community to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:16-30).
Why are people poor in the world of global capitalism? It is far from the case that there is not enough to go around. And although it is widely known that the poor are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer, few are aware of the magnitude of this shift. Inequality is greater than ever. In the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus, the top one percent of the population controlled 16 percent of all wealth, while in the United States today the top one percent control 40 percent. While most of their workers earn poverty wages, the Waltons of Wal-Mart are among the richest families in the world. Just six Walton family members control as much wealth as over 40 percent of all Americans.
Since poverty and wealth are not only matters of money but also of power, it is time to move from charity and advocacy to what I am calling “deep solidarity” (see Occupy Religion: Theology of the Multitude and Theology, Religion, and Class). Deep solidarity leads beyond advocacy in two ways. As those of us who do not belong to the one percent are increasingly pushed to the sidelines, even people in the middle are beginning to understand that we are more likely to be in the same boat with the poor and with working people. Solidarity is no longer a matter of the privileged helping the underprivileged; it is a matter of understanding what we have in common and how we all need to work together to organize and to embrace a different power.
Deep solidarity brings into focus God’s power, which is different from the power of the one percent. Deep solidarity reminds us that Godself is found among the poor, among the Hebrew slaves of the Exodus, and among the widows, the orphans, and strangers of the Hebrew Bible. God is transforming the world in and through them. Just as God was and is in Jesus Christ, who was raised in a family of construction workers and lived in deep solidarity with the “least of these.” The 99 percent are invited to join in this deep solidarity with God and others. Indeed, even those who are situated within the exalted one percent are called to “follow me” (see Matt 19:21, Jesus addressing the rich young ruler).
Dr. Joerg Rieger is Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. His work addresses the relation of theology to public life, including reflecting on the misuse of power in politics and economics and the alternative powers that emerge from the bottom up. His books include No Rising Tide: Theology, Economics, and the Future(2009) and Religion, Theology, and Class: Fresh Engagements After Long Silence (2013). Rieger serves on the steering committee of the Dallas Area Christian Progressive Alliance and on the steering committee of Jobs with Justice in North Texas. He is co-founder of the Workers’ Rights Board in the Dallas area.
Originally published here.
Malala Yousafzai survived the Taliban’s attack on her life. She rallies for the rights of girl’s right to education. She is the youngest Nobel peace prize nominee and the winner of the European Union’s prestigious Freedom of Thought award. She is adored by media as she promotes her new autobiography. She is invited for special visits national leaders to discuss terrorism. At the tender age of 16, she is an international hero.
[Chelsen Vicari, The Christian Post, October 18, 2013] The world is cheering on Malala as she stands up for her beliefs, and rightly so. Malala’s bravery and passion for girls’ education is an inspiration to an entire generation. But all the international accolades, media attention, and political gushing over the heroic teenage activists begs the question: If Malala was a Christian standing up for girls’ right to believe in Jesus, would she still receive the same worldwide praise? Sadly, the answer is no.
Asia Bibi is an advocate from Pakistan too. But you probably have never heard her name. She is sitting in a Pakistani prison on death row. Her crime is her Christian faith. After being drug through the streets of her village, pelted with stones and beaten by Muslim extremists she was asked to either renounce Jesus Christ and convert to Islam for face death. Asia stood up for her right to place her faith in Jesus. Where are her prizes from the international community or her story featured on the on the nightly news?
Jon Stewart recently invited Malala onto The Daily Show to share her story. Stewart expressed that he was “humbled” and left “speechless” by Malala and jokingly asked if he could adopt her because he found her activism inspiring. If only Stewart reacted to Christians who face extraordinary challenges for standing up for their faith. Unfortunately, Stewart – along with the rest of the mainstream media – pretends the attack on Christians religious freedoms do not exist or belittle their plights. On the topic of Christian persecution, Stewart mused:
Does anyone know…does the Christian persecution complex have an expiration date? Because…uh…you’ve all been in charge pretty much since…uh…what was that guys name…Constantine. He converted in, what was it, 312 A.D. I’m just saying, enjoy your success.
Apparently, Jon will not be inviting Asia Bibi to join The Daily Show should she, God willing, ever be released from prison.
On its face, America still appears to be the champion of religious freedom here at home and abroad. But if one steps back, and takes a close look at our national leadership, that notion is no longer evident.
On Friday, President Barack Obama and the First family invited Malala to join them for a special visit to the White House “to thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls’ education in Pakistan.” In addition, the White House released an official statement declaring:
The United States joins with Pakistan people and so many around the world to celebrate Malala’s courage and her determination to promote the right of all girls to attend school and realize their dream.
The President’s hospitality doesn’t end with Malala’s White House visit. One day after Malala’s shooting he renounced the Taliban’s attack as “disgusting” and offered any military assistance necessary for her medical recovery, according to The Express Tribune. It took the President a whole year before he acknowledged Pastor Saeed Abidini, an American citizen sitting in an Iranian prison. And this was after Saeed’s wife, Nagmeh and the American Center for Law and Justice spent the year on public airwaves and in print begging the President to speak on behalf of her husband. Unfortunately, the President’s concern has not extended far enough. Saeed continues to sit in prison. His crime? His Christian faith.
Secular society’s warm treatment of Malala versus its refusal to acknowledgement of Asia Bibi or Saeed Abidini demonstrates the intentional effort by Leftists such as Jon Stewart, the United Nations and President Obama, to remove religious liberty from the human rights discussion.
It is time the international community, national leaders, and the mainstream media acknowledge the suffering of Christians in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and dare I say, the United States. Too many Believers are being kidnapped, tortured, raped, murdered or ostracized for simply standing up for their faith in Jesus Christ. But most of all, it is time the church stand up for those persecuted in the name of Christ.
Religious liberties – Christian liberties – are their own unique culture battle. One in which Christians cannot afford to stay silent. We are winning the sanctity of life debate because we are bold enough to speak out. But we are losing the marriage debate because we are afraid of being called intolerant or bigoted. We cannot be afraid to call out Christian persecution. Because if we lose the religious liberty debate, then we will lose everything.
The world knows Malala. We must never forget her courage. Now, what about the Christians?
That’s the title of a new book written by Joani Schultz and Thom Schultz. And it’s a question those leaving are more than ready to answer. The problem is, few insiders are listening.
And, of course, that IS the problem.
In a recent issue of Christianity Today, for example, Ed Stetzer wrote an article entitled,“The State of the Church in America: Hint: It’s Not Dying.” He states: “The church is not dying… yes… in a transition… but transitioning is not the same as dying.”
[Steve McSwain, The Huffington Post, Oct 14, 2013] Really? What cartoons have you been watching?
Clearly, the Church is dying. Do your research, Mr. Stetzer. According to the Hartford Institute of Religion Research, more than 40 percent of Americans “say” they go to church weekly. As it turns out, however, less than 20 percent are actually in church. In other words, more than 80 percent of Americans are finding more fulfilling things to do on weekends.
Furthermore, somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors every year. Southern Baptist researcher, Thom Rainer, in a recent article entitled “13 Issues for Churches in 2013” puts the estimate higher. He says between 8,000 and 10,000 churches will likely close this year.
Between the years 2010 and 2012, more than half of all churches in America added not one new member. Each year, nearly 3 million more previous churchgoers enter the ranks of the “religiously unaffiliated.”
Churches aren’t dying?
No, of course not. Churches will always be here. But you can be sure, churches are going through more than a mere “transition.” I study these things carefully. I counsel church leaders within every denomination in America, having crisscrossed this country for nearly two decades counseling congregations as small as two hundred in attendance to churches averaging nearly 20,000 in weekly attendance. As I see it, there are “7” changing trends impacting church-going in America. In this first of two articles, I’ll address the “7” trends impacting church-going. In the second part, I’ll offer several best practices that, as I see it, might reverse the trends contributing to the decline.
Trends Impacting Church Decline:
1. The demographic remapping of America.
Whites are the majority today at 64 percent. In 30 to 40 years, they will be the minority. One in every three people you meet on the street in three to four decades will be of Hispanic origin. In other words, if you are not reaching Hispanics today, your church’s shelf life is already in question.
Furthermore, America is aging. Go into almost any traditional, mainline church in America, observe the attendees and you’ll quickly see a disproportionate number of gray-headed folks in comparison to all the others. According to Pew Research, every day for the next 16 years, 10,000 new baby boomers will enter retirement. If you cannot see where this is headed, my friend, there is not much you can see.
2. Technology.
Technology is changing everything we do, including how we “do” church. Yet, there are scores of churches that are still operating in the age of the Industrial Revolution. Instead of embracing the technology and adapting their worship experiences to include the technology, scores of traditional churches, mainline Protestant, and almost all Catholic churches do not utilize the very instruments that, without which, few Millennials would know how to communicate or interact.
However, when I suggest to pastors and priests, as I frequently do, that they should use social media and, even in worship, they should, for example, right smack in the middle of a sermon, ask the youth and young adults to text their questions about the sermon’s topic… that you’ll retrieve them on your smartphone… and, before dismissing, answer the three best questions about today’s sermon, most of the ministers look at me as if I’ve lost my mind. What they should be more concerned about is why the Millennials have little or no interest in what they have to say.
3. Leadership Crisis
Enough has been written about this in the past. But you can be sure, clergy abuse, the cover-up by the Church, and fundamentalist preachers and congregations have been driving people away from the Church, and continue to drive people away, faster than any other causes combined.
4. Competition
People have more choices on weekends than simply going to church. Further, the feelings of shame and guilt many people used to feel and church leaders used to promote for not attending church every week is gone.
There are still those, however, who want to categorize Christians as an explanation for the church’s decline in attendance in a futile effort to make things not look so bad. But this, too, is the illusion that many church leaders and denominational executives are perpetrating but nobody is paying attention. They are just too blind to see that.
For example, in the very same article I referenced above, Ed Stetzer has concocted three different categories of Christians he conveniently thinks explains the dire situation faced by the church.
He says there is a kind of “classification” system between those who “profess Christianity” as their faith choice.
I’ve got news for you, Mr. Stetzer, there are scores of people who have left the church, not because they possess some phony or inferior faith, as you would like to believe, but precisely because they do not want to be around judgmental people like you. They have left, not to abandon their faith, but precisely because they wish to preserve it. You would be much better off to leave the judgment-making to Someone infinitely more qualified to do so (Matt. 7:1).
5. Religious Pluralism
Speaking of competition, there is a fifth trend impacting the decline of the church in America. People have more choices today. Credit this to the social changes in the ’60s, to the Internet, to the influx of immigrants and minorities, to whatever you’d like, but the fact is, people today meet other people today of entirely different faith traditions and, if they are discovering anything at all, it is that there are scores of people who live as much, if not more, like Christ than many of the Christians they used to sit beside in church.
The diversity of this nation is only going to expand. Which is why, you might debate some of Diana Eck’s conclusions, the Harvard scholar and researcher, but her basic premise in correctly stated in the title of her book, A New Religious America: How a ‘Christian Country’ Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation.
6. The “Contemporary” Worship Experience
This, too, has contributed to the decline of the church. It’s been the trend in the last couple of decades for traditional, mainline churches to pretend to be something they’re not. Many of them have experimented with praise bands, the installation of screens, praise music, leisure dress on the platform, and… well… you know how well that’s been received.
Frankly, it has largely proven to be a fatal mistake. Of course, there are exceptions to this everywhere and especially in those churches where there is an un-traditional look already, staging, an amphitheater-style seating, as well as the budget to hire the finest musicians to perform for worship. In traditional, mainline churches, however, trying to make a stained-glass atmosphere pass as the contemporary worship place has met with about as much success as a karaoke singer auditioning for The X Factor.
7. Phony Advertising
There’s one more trend I’ll mention I believe is having devastating impact on the Church and most certainly contributing to its decline. You cannot tell Millennials that your church welcomes everybody — that all can come to Jesus — and then, when they come, what they find are few mixed races or no mixed couples.
You cannot say, “Everybody is welcome here if, by that, you really mean, so long as you’re like the rest of us, straight and in a traditional family.”
In the words of Rachel Evans, a millennial herself and a blogger for CNN, “Having been advertised to our whole lives, we millennials have highly sensitive BS meters.”
In other words, cut the bull. If everyone is not really equally welcomed to the table at your church, stop advertising that you are open to anyone. That is not only a lie, but Millennials can see through the phony façade as clearly as an astronomer, looking through the Hubble telescope, can see the infinity of space.
There are other trends. These are just a few of them. In Part Two, I’ll offer some “best practices” I think the Church should seriously consider if it ever plans to get real and honest about its future and its influence on culture and society.
Relationship between religious minority, dictator more complicated than portrayed in media.The relationship between Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his country’s Christian minority is far more complex than the portrait drawn by Assad allies and opponents of a U.S. military intervention, according to Christians from the region and Middle East experts.
[Alana Goodman, Washington Free Beacon, September 17, 2013] Assad’s supporters often describe the Alawite leader as a protector and ally of Christians. Opponents of a U.S. strike have now picked up the argument, pointing to brutal attacks on Christians by rebel-allied jihadist groups as evidence that the West would be better off keeping Assad in power. Continue lendo
For the first time ever, the US no longer has a majority of Protestants as the number of people with no religious affiliation rises, a study has found.[BBC, 10 october 2012] The Pew report found only 48% of adults identified themselves as Protestants, down from 53% five years ago.
The long-expected decline was pinned to a rise in those claiming no religion – about 20% of Americans, the study said.
There are no Protestants on the Republican presidential ticket for the first time this year.
Nor are there any Protestant Supreme Court justices. Continue lendo
On this 11th anniversary of 9/11, it’s a good day for us to look back and assess the damage.
[Brian McLaren, The Huffington Post, 9.11.2012] The damage to buildings long been accounted for, and much has been rebuilt. The damage to the economy has also been debated and estimated — and replaced by new, greater, primarily self-inflicted economic wounds.
The damage to families is, of course, impossible to assess or quantify. It can only be mourned.
But there’s another impact of those attacks that is still too seldom tallied: how our religious communities have turned from their deepest teachings and values of peace and reconciliation, and have too often become possessed, we might say, by spirits of fear, revenge, isolation and hostility. Continue lendo
Can love ever be sinful? The entire tradition of Christian doctrine teaches that there is such a thing as inverted, perverted love. Human beings are created for love, as creatures of the God who is Love. And yet that divine appointment is corrupted whenever people turn away from God or love other things more than God.Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…” (Matt. 10:37, NRSV). Love for God must take precedence over love for our parents, even though love for parents is commanded by the fourth commandment. Continue lendo
Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.
[Jennifer Abbasi, LiveScience Contributor, The Huffington Post, July 17, 2012] Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.
Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing “sexy” clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit. Continue lendo
GP, dentist and alternative medicine practitioner are filmed allegedly offering to carry out or arrange FGM.[The Guardian, As many as 100,000 women in Britain have undergone female genital mutilations (FGM) with medics in the UK offering to carry out the illegal procedure on girls as young as 10, it has been reported.
Investigators from the Sunday Times said they had secretly filmed a doctor, dentist and alternative medicine practitioner who were allegedly willing to perform FGM or arrange for the operation to be carried out. The doctor and dentist deny any wrongdoing.
[PIC]Â Waris Dirie, a model who campaigns against FGM, said: ‘If a white girl is abused, police break down the door. If a black girl is mutilated, no one takes care of her.’ Photograph: Joerg Carstensen/EPA Continue lendo
In an age of video, TV, camcorders and iPhones, adept users can capture important events in a digital medium that can be transmitted quickly to people around the world. What would a resurrection appearance of Jesus have looked like if an alert apostle had an iPhone and, assuming the apostle was not immediately told by Jesus to “put that iPhone away,” the apostle captured a minute of Jesus’s appearance with the iPhone video running? Of course, this is a hypothetical and no answer could possibly be definitive. But the question raises interesting issues.
Before we get to the video of Jesus, let’s start with what we know. Although Jesus appeared in many different situations to the disciples, the appearances share some common characteristics, all of which have to be taken into consideration when addressing the issue of an electronic transmission of the appearance of the risen Lord. Hundreds of scholars have poured over the resurrection appearances and subjected them to critical analysis. The most important findings are summarized in the following observations, which are supported by a large majority of biblical scholars. Continue lendo