Religion Without Miracles

By the time that the young Christian church was ready to challenge the Roman empire, it had augmented its origins with astounding miracles. The Galilean peasant- become- evangelist Jesus was heralded as being born of a virgin in a sainted village as angels sang in heaven and a star moved across the sky.  His career was filled with miracles and his death affected all mankind. 

These miracles surely impressed the worldly Romans with the cosmic nature of Jesus' ministry.  But without the miracles, would Christianity have held them as a valid revelation of God?  Would we become Christians without those miracles?

Surely those miracles awake our slumbering imaginations.  They arouse our awareness of the unsolved mystery of human existence and beg for any kind of alternative explanation of our being. They argue that if Jesus was to be the savior of mankind, then the usual order of heaven and earth should rightly be altered. Roman civilization was not as skeptical as modern minds are, so it was open to reports of such amazing events.

How about us today?  With our scientific mind-set and our investigative archaeological research, our tendency is to treat these miracles as literary exaggerations. There may be  reasoned explanations for each one, as thousands of sermons attest. But the substance remains questionable: would Christianity be a viable religion without the miracles?

My answer is YES.  The scientific mind-set pays no homage to such naturalistic miracles.  It is intent with miracles on a different scale.  Human existence, the evolutionary urge, the nature of light, the circulation of blood, the convolutions of the ego -  these are among the miracles that beg for some accountability.  The more subtle miracles surround issues of love and forgiveness, grace and faith, and these remain as challenges for every generation.  Poetic and dramatic creations make vivid explanations in every new age.

We have, then, in the biblical record an account of the evangelist Jesus attracting crowds of people to hear his message.  That message had its unique influence.  But it was the charismatic nature of Jesus that caused people to open their passions to him and find  themselves with God.  That experience, augmented with miracle stories, was the Christian message.  Without the miracles, we can still thrive as Christians.