Jesus tangles with the beliefs of the most scrupulous scripture readers, the Pharisees. He argues that Scripture is divine testimony but that it is still possible to believe this testimony as true and be as deaf to what God is saying as if you had no faith at all. The purpose of the entire Bible is to point us to Jesus. Each story is not an end in itself but the means to illuminate the Son.

The Easter story tells us of a new beginning after disaster - that after death there is life. If you spiritualize the resurrection of Jesus, you will have comfort but not the truth. The message of Easter is that right now, Jesus has flesh and bones. This changes the way you think, the way you live, and the way you feel.

The modern critique of religion comes from Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche. Freud claimed that religion is psychological self-justification, that we created God to assuage our guilt and fear. Marx claimed that religion is a sociological self-justification, that we created God to exclude those unlike us. Nietzsche said that religion is nothing but a power trip, an attempt to use God to accrue power over others. However, Jesus himself critiqued religion and turned it on its head.