Peter Rollins has made a challenging statement on his blog entitled, “My Confession: I deny the Resurrection”. The title is provacative, but I think everyone will enjoy the message. Here’s a taste:

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed. – Peter Rollins

I don’t personally think the story of Jesus’ resurrection has much (if any) historical merit. I agree with Marcus Borg who famously said about the empty tomb, “If I had to bet a dollar or my life, then I’d bet that the tomb was either not empty or there was no tomb.” The brilliance of Peter Rollins’ statement is that it dismantles all arguments on all sides of the divisive debate about the literal physical nature of the resurrection. What I hear in Peter’s claim is that acceptance of the resurrection story does not mean claiming intellectual certainty or even a remote hope that it literally happened. Faith is not what modern people often mean when they use the word “belief” as a type of intellectual confidence. Faith is not a measurement of our ability to claim certainty about improvable things. Faith is an affirmation through living.

I hope to affirm that the resurrected Christ lives and breathes today because we are his body that now takes up his cause. I agree with Saint Paul who hinges Christian faith on the resurrection of Christ back into the world. I agree that without Jesus’ message and values becoming real flesh and blood action in the world through us, then our simplistic truth claims and systematic beliefs become meaningless.

Many of my friends can somehow see this bigger picture of faith without discarding the more superstitious views most of us learned as children. For me, I just couldn’t get here from there. The superstitions often stop many people from ever looking for deeper meanings. I am so glad that Peter Rollins challenges the old debates and asks us to move past our disagreements that divide us. I don't think he is suggesting that those debates shouldn't happen, but I’m glad he’s offered this challenge to focus together on the bigger meaning of resurrection.