Easter for Doubters & Skeptics

It’s Holy Week for many of the world’s 2.6 billion Christians (for Eastern Orthodox, it’s next week.) Easter marks the most important holiday in the Christian calendar—the date of Jesus’ alleged resurrection.

But what if you don’t believe? Or if you have major questions about it? Does Easter still matter? Can this holiday still be meaningful if you’re not sure about the whole bodily resurrection thing?

Fifteen years ago, I would’ve said, absolutely not. If you don’t believe in the resurrection, there’s no point and you’re not in the club!!!

For those of us who were raised to read the Bible literally, questioning the resurrection is dangerous territory. In these traditions, miracles are proof of God’s existence, the very cornerstone of faith—if you don’t believe in them, everything else falls apart. In this black-and-white worldview, any speck of doubt can put you on the path to Hell.

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I spent years trying to convince myself to believe Bible stories were factually true, even as scientific evidence and my own lived experience contradicted this interpretation. I was the red-faced teen who tried to argue her high school biology teacher out of teaching evolution. Luckily, I lost.

During this era, I felt constantly at war with myself. How could I silence my doubts while still living in integrity? Answer: I couldn’t. It was a losing battle.

And so I went to the opposite extreme: scientific materialism. My family quit church. I stopped believe in God or anything else that couldn’t be historically or scientifically verified.

But that didn’t satisfy me either. Science is a wonderful tool, but it doesn’t provide a moral framework or answer big life questions about meaning and purpose. I had torn down my old belief structure that was no longer serving me, but I didn’t have anything to replace it with.

The 3+ years of this Substack has been me finding my way to something new—a new way to think about ethics and morality (and how to teach those things to my kids) and to feed the spiritual hunger that’s always been a part of me.

And one of the conclusions I’ve been circling is this: belief is not the most important thing. It might not even be top 10! Basing an entire theory of salvation on belief seems hopeless, because beliefs fluctuate. They evolve. Any system that encourages people to stay frozen at the moment of conversion is, frankly, ridiculous.

Imagine, for example, a marriage where the wedding ceremony was the most important part. Every day that you loved your spouse as much as you did on your wedding day counted as success. But every time you fought with them or checked out a stranger at the gym or envied a single friend meant failure. People under this situation would likely grit their teeth and try to avoid changing (which is impossible) or just give up and get divorced.

In marriage, we recognize that feelings fluctuate. Staying married is arguably more about what you do than what you feel or believe at a given moment. You honor your promises, sometimes joyfully and sometimes sulkily. The point is: you show up.

I think the church (and, TBH, society as a whole) would be a lot healthier if we stopped prioritizing litmus tests and instead focused on showing up.

Sure, you might say, showing up is important, but what about the resurrection? Isn’t belief in the resurrection kind of a dealbreaker for being a Christian?

Eh, I don’t think so? And I’d argue there’s good evidence on my side. In her latest book, Miracles and Wonder, religion scholar Elaine Pagels argues that the authors of the gospel, the apostle Paul, and many of the early church patriarchs disagreed on what actually happened at the resurrection and what it all meant.

Pagels reminds us that the gospels were constructed with the intent to persuade particular audiences, as well as to refute disparaging remarks that were circulating about Jesus in the years after his death.

In the hands of these gospel writers, the most shameful marks against Jesus (his out-of-wedlock birth and his execution by the Roman government) were transformed into holy and miraculous stories that highlighted his divinity.

Keen readers will recognize that this theme of reversal is present in many beats of the gospel stories: the formula is typically “Society/religion/the government values ___, but what’s really valuable is the opposite.” The story of Jesus is, again and again, about the foolishness of those in authority and the wisdom of the poor and marginalized.

Pagels offers up plausible alternate theories about Jesus’ birth and death, but never rules out the miraculous, telling us that’s not her lane as a historian. And I like that approach. I think it’s okay to say we don’t know how these events unfolded. Even if we don’t believe they literally happened, we can appreciate the value these stories have held for people throughout history and for us, today.

And I get it: your mileage may vary. Some of you never got into Christianity; maybe other stories speak to you more. For those sorting through heavy religious trauma, maybe you opt out of Easter. (Too gory!) That’s okay, too. Personally, I’m enjoying finding new ways of looking at these old, tired stories. Maybe that’s because they’re what I was raised on. Or maybe I just find Jesus to be a compelling ideal.

At any rate, this month, I want to look at stories as spiritual tools. Here are some questions I have:

* do stories express our values better than laws and rules?

* does the Left need better stories? Do we lack moral imagination?

* why do we keep building up heroes only to tear them down?

* what role do stories play uniting people from different cultures and religions?

* what stories (religious or not) hold special meaning for you?

What do you think? As always, I love to hear your thoughts, complaints, questions, and recommendations in the comments or via email.

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BONUS MATERIALS:

* I’m really enjoying the daily meditations from The Center for Action and Contemplation (of Richard Rohr and Brian McLaren fame)

* as I’m gearing up for spring break with my teens, this song is my mantra

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