The popular belief in immortality which in the Western world has largely replaced the Christian symbol of resurrection is a mixture of courage and escape. It tries to maintain one’s self-affirmation even in the face of one’s having to die. But it does this by continuing one’s finitude, that is one’s having to die, infinitely, so that the actual death never will occur. This, however, is an illusion and, logically speaking, a contradiction in terms. It makes endless what, by definition, must come to an end. The “immortality of the soul” is a poor symbol for the courage to be in the face of one’s having to die.
Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be
What if Resurrections life is marked by the acceptance of our role as creators of destiny rather than mere pawns to be moved around by it? In the Christological frame, the idea of destiny remains, but it is understood as forged through the free acts of those dedicated to bringing life. Here destiny no longer refers to some predetermined reality that history conforms to, but rather comes into being through our direct participation in the transformation of the world. In short, we participate in the creation of the eternal itself…The properly Christian answer to the question of what God’s will is for my life is thus: Everything that has brought me to this very moment, the moment in which I must resolutely decided the next step without any cosmic support. Because destiny is open, freedom and responsibility are thrust upon us. There is no plan B, no army of angels ready to descend into the world if we fail to reach out to our neighbor. In Resurrection life we find the courage to face up to this terrifying freedom, we grow the muscles needed to bear its weight, and we discover the compassion required to act. In this new mode of life, we find the conviction required to fully assume responsibility for our fleeting, fragile existence. We are unchained from the shackles that would bind us to some divine script already written and instead experience destiny as something we participate in through a full and loving embrace of the world.
Peter Rollins, Insurrection
It was people who believed robustly in the resurrection, not people who compromised and went in for a mere spiritualized survival, who stood up against Caesar in the first centuries of the Christian era. A piety that sees death as the moment of “going home at last,” the time when we are “called to God’s eternal peace,” has no quarrel with power-mongers who want to carve up the world to suit their own ends. Resurrection, by contrast, has always gone with a strong view of God’s justice and of God as the good creator. Those twin beliefs give rise not to a meek acquiescence to injustice in the world but to a robust determination to oppose it.
N.T. Wright