…whatever we believe in or don’t believe in, we should suspend our disbelief about the power of this Easter story that has shaped some of the greatest imaginings of our civilisation. It was Thomas, the doubter, who said that unless he could put his hands in Jesus’ wounds, he wasn’t having a bar of it. And it was Thomas, humbled, who said: ”Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.”
When it comes to the great religions, the affinities between Christianity and Judaism and Islam, the twinned spiritualities of Buddhism and Hinduism, there are a lot of people who would like to get beyond their ”unbelief”.
And there are plenty, too, who want to crow their unbelief like a creed that could move the stars. But this can’t change the power of the story of the man who was done to death and rose again.
Not to nitpick, but there is no indication it was Thomas who said “help thou my unbelief.” The father of the boy with seizures/an unclean spirit (Mark 9:24) is not named, but pretty surely is not Thomas. Not sure it affects his point, but it suggests we all need to keep doing our fact checking, even columnists.
Re: Levi said of the figure of Christ: ”He was murdered before the beginning of time.”
That reminds me of a wonderful and hope filled quote I have saved from Simon Tugwell:
“Those eyes which looked on all that they had made and saw it was good, looked out from the vantage point of the cross and saw the same world, and saw it with the same relentless love.”
The “affinities” between Christianity and Islam? I wonder what on earth he’s talking about.