Sarx

Do a google on the tmatt trio. Go ahead. Three quesitions. Terry says:

All together now — if you want to know where people who say that they are Christian believers fall on a left-to-right theological spectrum, just ask these questions:

So I decided to answer the questions…

(1) Are the biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this event really happen?

The first question is a red herring. There are no accounts of Jesus’ resurrection in the Bible. There are only accounts of people finding an empty tomb. Certainly I believe people discovered an empty tomb – else some enterprising non-beliver would be even now flaunting a body.

I believe the tomb was empty: and we can move forward from that. That doesn’t say anything about how it was done, harrowing hell, after-death appearances, ghosts eatting fish or Jesus breaking bread in Emmaus. Everyone of those stories could be a liturgical invention.

But the tomb was empty on Easter.

(2) Is salvation found through Jesus Christ, alone? Was Jesus being literal when he said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)?

Another red herring. Did Jesus actually say that or, as some scholars say, are the “I Am” statements in John part of a catechism? We’ve no way to be sure one way or the other. We can, however, be 100% certain that the Church teaches this. I’ll side with the Church Fathers who, believing this, still maintained a open and universalist stance. I’m in the minority, I know: but I’m patristic.

(3) Is sex outside of the Sacrament of Marriage a sin.

Yes. Define marriage. Define sacrament and define Sin.

This is what the Church teaches. But the question is asked in such a way that one is forced (a la a political poll) to answer without reasoning. Conservatives are drawing in part on a weak assumption that Jesus showing up at a wedding feast is the blessing on the “Sacrament” of Marriage. There are other traditions that the groom at the feast was St John and that Jesus convinced him that not-marriage was the higher calling. Our understanding of marriage as “Sacrament” is very much post-Jesus and not even shared by all Christians.

And Jesus seemed to put more emphasis on divorce than sex.

The question and a positive reply also assumes that the cultural understandings of marriage, which had changed amply through the course Hebrew Scriptures can not continue to change now.

So, yes. Sure. So is wearing linen and wool at the same time and eating shrimp.