Like the naked emperor’s courtiers, he has only believed what he has been told to believe. It is easy to criticize this clergyman for being dishonest, but we must forgive him.
In other words, he is able to fool everybody-even himself.Ī plain thinking person might be excused for distrusting the clergyman: “He has said one thing, but means another!” It is then understandable when the ordinary fellow in the street puts the modern clergyman in the same category as the politician, the used car salesman, and the snake oil man. Bloggins in the front row thinks he means is that he believes that Jesus’ body was brought back to life miraculously that his disciples saw it, put their fingers in the nail holes, and watched him eat a breakfast of broiled fish and toast. So on Easter Day, Reverend Mandrake will stand in the pulpit and proclaim, “Today we celebrate the glorious resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.” What he means by this is, “In some wonderful way the teachings of Jesus were remembered by his disciples after he was dead.” However, what Mrs. Like most magicians, they use this sleight of hand to mystify and entertain their audience. Many modern clergymen and women understand the resurrection in this way. This is like saying I believe in marriage, but not a marriage where people do anything so crude as to make love. What the bishop meant was, that he believed in the resurrection, but not the physical resurrection. The bishop, like many modern theologians, was an expert at verbal legerdemain. “The resurrection,” he stated, “was not a conjuring trick with bones.” What many people did not notice at the time was that this was a conjuring trick with words. The bishop said he believed in the resurrection, but not in any crude physical way. Some years ago there was an Anglican bishop who was asked his opinion about the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day. Surely the true meaning of this belief is that he continued to exist in some spiritual manner”? What are we to make of the Christian who says: “I am not so naïve or literal in my understanding as to expect Jesus physically to rise from the dead.
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