Hagee on cremation

John Hagee's comedy FAQ show continues on. This time with cremation!



Q. Is it wrong for a Christian to choose to be cremated?

A. Burial and cremation are personal choices;

So we’re done. The answer is “No.”

the Bible does not prescribe a particular method for disposing of bodies after death.

Still “No.”

However, Christians have historically followed the Jewish custom of burial, for several reasons.

So “Yes”, then?

First, it shows respect for our physical bodies, which are the creation of God. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made," the Bible says (Ps. 139:14).

Fear, a wonderful trait for any religion.

Jesus Himself chose to come to earth in a physical body just like ours, and He was resurrected in that same body.

As told in the clear contemporary documentation of…I’m sure it’s around here somewhere…

Lets see, Jesus was a big, important figure in first century religion. I’m sure there are lots of people who wrote about him at the time…

Rats.

No worries. I’ll keep looking!

Our bodies are also destined for resurrection;

Really?!? I thought that was reserved for “the Family”

our "natural" bodies will be gloriously transformed into "spiritual" bodies when the dead in Christ are raised (1 Cor. 15).

Sounds great!

At that time, when we receive our glorified bodies, it will not matter whether we were buried or cremated at death.

So we’re back to “No.” Your concision is amazing!

Many Christians who have perished in fires have been involuntarily cremated.

Clearly “No.”

Think of those believers who lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center, for example.


“Randolph Scott!”

Most of the bodies were not recovered; the victims' remains were obliterated and their ashes scattered in the massive pile of rubble. It was humanly impossible to identify the dead, yet the God who created them can identify their bodies down to the last atom.

Cool! Just a side question – for the guy who had just clipped his fingernails before the planes hit, do those atoms count as still his? At what point do the atoms of someone’s spit stop being part of him and start being not his atoms anymore? I’m just asking.

And He will resurrect them "in the twinkling of an eye," exactly as He will those Christians whose bodies were buried and decomposed naturally.

So we’re back to “No.”. It seems odd to use 262 words just to say “No.”

Burial or cremation is a very personal choice.

Ah! A time honored tradition of school kids reaching a word requirement – repeat yourself unnecessarily.

You should discuss it with your closest family members before making a decision, so they will be comfortable in carrying out your decision and living with the memories.

Very good advice! It got really wordy in the middle and never really said “No, it’s not wrong”, so Johhny, you get a C+.

The Minimal Facts Approach

Our good an noble friends over at Apologetics have come up with an interesting whopper - the "Minimal Facts Approach".

Yep, no fooling around here! You have to give them some credit here, when they don't have the facts every once in awhile, they just come right out and say it! Read on for some jaw dropping stuipity!

We have seen that the resurrection of Jesus and Christianity are bound up together

Yep! Can we go back to that and fill in some more detail, though? We need a DNA sample from Mr. Christ, for example.

…but is there good historical evidence that it actually occured?

Good enough for you? No doubt.

Gary Habermas argues there is. In his “minimal facts approach”

* jaw drops *
Minimal facts approach?
Minimal facts approach?!?!?

Would this be the approach where we just get to make stuff up when there aren’t any actual facts for something?
Sorry…I’m just staggered that someone would so bald facedly give his lack of evidence a name that so clearly screams out that he has no evidence…and then publish it! Can I do this in other situations, too?

Police Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?
Me: Yep! But there’s no need for a ticket, I’m using the “doesn’t matter what speed I’m going” approach

Or how about…?

Me: Do you know why my car is making a grinding noise when I step on the brake?
Mechanic: Don’t worry about it. I’m using a “minimal noise noticing” approach

he has come up with 5 facts that virtually all scholars in the field of New Testament studies (liberal, moderate, conservative) affirm. The question before us, is what best explains these facts?
Fact #1 - Jesus died by crucifixion. This fact is recorded in all four gospels as well as being referred to by other NT writers. In addition to these Christian sources, there are several Non-Christian sources that report Jesus’ crucifixion. For example, in AD 115 the Roman historian Tacitus

It took 80 something years for someone to note Mr. Christ’s crucifixion?!? Doesn’t this seem ever so slightly insane? Where were the contemporary accounts? This is like an 80’s hockey writer not knowing Wayne Gretzky.

describes how Christians were blamed for the burning of Rome: “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus [cf. Matt 27:2].” Due to passages like this from outside of the NT

Passages 80 years out of date.

and the strong witness in the NT,

Be still my beating heart.

there is no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was executed by Roman crucifixion around AD 30-33.

Yeah. No doubt at all.

The real question is why?

Why you blithely gloss over the lack of any contemporary documentation and cite something as ridiculous as a "minimal facts approach"? Yeah, that’s a real question, all right.