…that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:8-9, NASB)

Being A Christian Without Believing What Christians Believe?

John Dominic Crossan is a Roman Catholic in the field of biblical studies who was even “an ordained priest from 1957 to 1969.” His website also tells us that Crossan was “co-director of the Jesus Seminar from 1985-1996 and chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature from 1992-1998” (Online source). Setting this upfront in order to say that despite his being dead wrong in his conclusions Crossan is a legitimate scholar whose — always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth (2 Timothy 3:7).

The first page of his book Who Killed Jesus? carries this endorsement from Progressive Christian [read: apostate] Marcus Borg:

For centuries, the Good Friday liturgy of the church has said that “the Jews” killed Jesus. With clarity and passion, Crossan persuasively argues that the gospel stories of Jesus’ passion are not primarily history remembered, but a creative (and ultimately destructive) combination of prophecy historicized and early Christian propaganda. Written at a popular and engaging level, important for both Christian and scholars, this book by today’s premier Jesus scholar is the primary alternative to Raymond Brown’s reading of the history behind these narratives of suffering that have caused so much suffering.

Almost brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it. Resisting the urge to wrestle with the snake concerning Dr. Borg’s fantasies let me simply ask the following quick questions: Whatever did the Church do before scholars like Borg and Crossan showed up? And what makes us think that men e.g. like Polycarp, literally a disciple of the Apostle John, would allow themselves to be martyred for a “story” of fictitious “Christian propaganda” that was merely “prophecy historicized”?

Now let’s examine a bit of Crossan’s information that Marcus Borg thinks is so “important for both Christian and scholar.” Crossan gives us some personal testimony about how:

The resurrection of Jesus means for me that the human empowerment that some people experienced in Lower Gahilee [sic] at the start of the first century in and through Jesus is now available to any person in any place at any time who finds God in and through that same Jesus.

Empty tombs stories and physical appearance stories are perfectly valid parables expressing that faith, akin in their own way to the Good Samaritan story. They are, for me, parables of resurrection not the resurrection itself. Resurrection as the continuing experience of God’s presence in and through Jesus is the heart of Christian faith. (216)

Well, reading the above one would almost believe that this man is a Christian. And this is why it’s so important to get those who teach you about the Bible to define their terms. It kind of sounds as if Crossan believes in the Bodily Resurrection of Christ Jesus of Nazareth; but if you thought that, you’d be wrong:

In conclusion, what is the historicity of the burial account [of Jesus]? From Roman expectations, the body of Jesus and of any others crucified with him would have been left on the cross as carrion [dead and putrefying flesh] for the crows and the dogs. From Jewish expectations, would not Deuteronomy 21:22-23 have been followed? Maybe, but only the barest maybe…

But, even if it was, the soldiers who crucified Jesus probably would have done it, speedily and indifferently, in a necessary shallow and mounded grave rather than a rock-hewn tomb. That would mean lime, at best, and the dogs again, at worst. (187, 188)

Gathering Around Teachers To Tell Us What We Want To Hear

Now according to our opening text John Dominic Crossan isn’t even a Christian but in Why Everything Must Change: A Conversation with Brian McLaren in the October 2007 edition of The Other Journal at Mars Hill Graduate School when the Emergent Guru is asked who were “your guides were in this new reading of Jesus in his first-century context” Brian McLaren informs us:

N. T. Wright’s work has been really, really influential in my thinking. And then people like Dominic Crossan. I think Dominic is doing some great work on this front. And Marcus Borg as well, even though I think a lot people really misunderstand him. All of them are saying: we feel there is more to Jesus than what is often given credit! (Online source)

Are we really this naïve in the American Christian Church that we’ll believe all if this rubbish? And then John Dominic Crossan also shows up on “Rob’s suggested reading” list at the Nooma website of Emergent Church icon Rob Bell; specifically you’ll find Bell recommending Excavating Jesus: Beneath The Stones, Behind The Texts by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed.

Men and women, don’t you think it’s well past time to start asking some serious questions as to why these Emerging Church leaders are going to apostate heretics like Borg and Crossan to teach us about a Savior they do not believe in? *wink* Because we know it’s really only a coincidence that these influential men in the postliberal cult of the Emergent Church are all reading and recommending the same heretics.

Below you’ll see John Dominic Crossan speaking of “resurrection”; note the similarity in illustration and language to what Emergent Church purveyor of a counterfeit Christianity Rob Bell said about the Virgin Birth, which I cover in Rob Bell: “Trampolinianity” and the Virgin Birth: