This article isn’t really for the pupils or to do with classroom practice as such… it is more for teachers who are themselves struggling with the idea that Christianity has an actual, factual, historical basis. Here at the RRC we can offer theological tomes arguing exactly what this one page article states in brief so we thought you might find it interesting!
So… when you are asking the pupils to summarise what they now know about Christianity and they ask you “is it true?” you may be able to encourage them to think about the diversity of knowledge: how some knowledge comes to us as a matter of historical fact (Jesus existed as a historical person), some as a matter of experience (Paul’s letters and the Gospels tell us what people knew and believed about Jesus from their own personal experiences and from the personal experiences of others), some as an aspect of faith (what happens to us after we die, what does it mean to say that Jesus died and was risen again?)
To read the article in full by Paul Carter (published on the 4/9/14) please see:
An Atheist’s Defense of the Historicity of Jesus
.
.