Chris Weimer

Would a mythical Christ really, truly, honestly, take away from the Christian message?

Toto

Depends on what the Christian message is.

For a lot of liberal Christians, no.

For Christians who think that a supernatural Resurrection is part of the redemption of sin and cures Adam and Eve's fall from grace, yes.

Amaleq13

I think that depends on how "the Christian message" is defined. If we look to Paul for our definition, the answer seems to me to be "No". If, on the other hand, we move forward in time several centuries where many Christian statements of creed include assertions of the historicity of significant portions of the Gospel stories (eg "suffered under Pontius Pilate), then answer would be "Yes".

Chris Weimer

What would be interesting to see is a church that focuses on a mythical Christ contra historical fictions. Anyone know of any?

Toto

There's Theosophy, which has a group in LA.

Chris Weimer

I wouldn't describe Theosophy as a Christian group though... I didn't even realize they had a concept of mythical Christ among their, um, teachings.

Amaleq13

I'm not aware of any but the following paragraph from Price's review of Acharya suggests there was such a church in th early history of Christianity:


"There are other fascinating ideas in this book which deserve consideration. One is Gerald Massey’s revisionist theory of docetism (The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ). Though the significance of the fact is seldom noticed, the jibes of ancient pagans who dismissed Christ as another like Hermes and Perseus certainly seem to imply they meant that Jesus had not existed as an historical figure at all. Massey suggests that this was the original docetism: right-thinking Christians believed “Jesusâ€? had never arrived on earth at all. The gospel stories were understood simply as allegories, none of them historical reports. What we are in the habit of calling docetism would have been a later attempt to harmonize original docetism with naive belief in the historical reality of the gospel tales: Jesus did visit earth at a particular time in the past but only in holographic semblance, a la the Acts of John, where people reach out to touch Jesus and their hand goes right through him!Â* It would be much like the eighteenth century Rationalist reading of the gospel stories as historical but only seemingly supernatural."

Wallener

If you're Spong, no. If you're Falwell, yes. So I guess it depends what you consider to be "the" Christian message.

Peter Kirby

What about our own Quentin David Jones?

best,
Peter Kirby

show_no_mercy

What exactly did Paul believe? I was under the impression that he believed in a HJ, but just wasn't a witness to the HJ.