VIEWPOINT: The American Media Needs To Take A Theology Class (Or Three)

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. I disagree with the claim that there's anything wrong with the correction, though

The original was "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life." The correction was "An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven."

So we have "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life."

The guy in Real Clear Politics claims this only corrected 1 of three mistakes. But what he counts as a second mistake is when Ascension is celebrated. But the corrected version doesn't mention ascension at all, so it's fine. And he think calling the resurrection "the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life" is a mistake, since "many Christian scholars would quibble with the idea that everlasting life was an unfamiliar concept in Israel at the time Jesus preached there". But it doesn't call it "an unfamiliar concept" to some Jews (and, from what I've read, an afterlife was far from a universal concept in Judaism then). It talks about what Christians believe, and I'd counter his 2 OT references with 1 NT one (which trumps OT references) - 1 Corinthians 15:17-18:

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost."

I also think that reporters being unaware that some people with similar religious views to Akin think the same bullshit about rape (point #3) is not 'religious illiteracy', but unfamiliarity with the biological illiteracy of some arseholes who show they don't know enough to be able to take part in a rational debate about rape or abortion. You cannot expect reporters to know exactly what all sects get wrong, and, when covering what a politician has got wrong about biology, why on earth would you even think of checking with a seminary about what they claim? Did they check with everyone who taught him biology in school first? What's more, the seminary has denied they think the BS about the body 'shutting down' fertility after rape, so this looks even less like "religious illiteracy". The author seems to have issued a correction to his own mistake in the next sentence, by linking to the seminary's denial.