A Pastoral Warning for Easter

To my fellow Christians at St. John’s Lancaster, given in obedience to the admonition to watchmen in Ezekiel 33:1-7.

In April, the Transfiguration Spirituality Center in Glendale, Ohio is hosting a retreat entitled “Christianity, Here and Now! A Weekend with Marcus Borg.” While the event is not sponsored by our Diocese, it is being widely advertised because it is being held at the Convent of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal House, and because the presenter is the Canon Theologian of the Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. In the Name of Christ and for the sake of your souls, I urge you not to attend this event. The speaker clearly denies the physical nature of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He does so in a very seductive way which claims to affirm that Jesus is Lord and that he is resurrected, but he separates the event from the physical return to life of Jesus on that first Easter and re-defines the meaning of the historic Christian doctrine. I quote from the presenter’s website:
The Resurrection of Jesus: “Physical/Bodily” or “Spiritual/Mystical”? at http://www.marcusjborg.com/2011/05/16/the-resurrection-of-jesus/

“Because of the common meaning of “physical/bodily” in modern English, I do not think the resurrection of Jesus means this. Physical/ bodily means fleshly, molecular, protoplasmic, corpuscular existence. But the risen Jesus is not in this sense a physical/bodily reality.”

St. Paul on the other hand says in I Corinthians 15:12-22:

The Resurrection of the Dead, NIV
“12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

The message of the Church is simple and available to all people. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:9. Good Christian people, I bid you flee those who would deny this clear teaching of the Christian Church. Do not support the spreading of their false doctrine by buying their books or by paying to attend their seminars. There are many better ways to explore our faith and to draw closer to our God.

In the Name of God. AMEN.
Bill+
Rector, St. John's