Are Christian symbols ripe for change?
11/16/2002 By CHRISTINE WICKER / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News Last winter, Bible scholar Robert W. Funk called for new symbols to represent a new kind of Christianity that centers on the historical Jesus movement. By spring, scholars at his Westar Institute were coming up with ideas.The Lord’s Supper would stay, but it would omit any mention of sacrifice. Consuming the blood and body of Jesus would probably be out. Instead, he envisioned a dinner, open to everybody, representing the kinship of all humans. Dr. Funk is the founder of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars who use historical records and ancient texts in an attempt to separate what the human or historical Jesus actually did or said from what his followers later attributed to him for spiritual or political reasons. In his new faith, salt might replace the cross as a central symbol because followers of the historical Jesus typically don’t believe that Jesus died for humanity’s sins and was physically resurr
