(This is the eighth in my series of Bil’s ideas about ten misconceptions in Christianity today. This post suggests that the institutional church thinks Jesus ascended. He didn’t!)
This year (2026), Ascension Day was on May 14. Holy Ascension Day for the Orthodox Church was on May 21.
This holy day drives me nuts for several reasons.
To begin with, it’s a figment of the church’s imagination. No such event ever happened. Since Easter is not an actual event but a strong metaphor for transformation, the notion that there was an ascension is simply incorrect in every respect.
In 1963, when we were in the Holy Land with twenty-five teenagers from Hawai’i, our Arab Muslim tour guide took us to a spot surrounded by trees and rocks. He pointed to a flat pancake-shaped indentation in a rock and said that this was Jesus’s footprint as he ascended into the heavens. I wanted to tell the tour guide that he was crazy. Instead, looking at the round shape in the rock, I blurted, “I didn’t know Jesus had a clubfoot.” My group laughed, and the guide glared at me. I felt a lot better.
Why am I so convinced that the ascension is a complete lie? Throughout my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness the exploration of outer space. It’s almost more than I can grasp. A Canadian astronomer told me at least 145 trillion (that’s twelve zeros) different galaxies exist, and so far, outer space remains uninhabitable. Does the church really want me to promote an ascension lie? The answer is yes!
As far as I can tell, the true reason for Ascension Day is tied to another myth—that Easter was an actual occurrence. The issue I have with this idea is that Easter is a metaphor, not a real event. With a dead man supposedly coming back, the church needed to hide that fact. So, another falsehood was required. An ascension provides just that. This idea has lasted for centuries. Then the telescope and space exploration made Easter and much of the church’s teachings irrelevant. Now we have a Gemini Jesus moving through space at rocket speeds without a space suit, dodging space debris, heading to some mansions somewhere in the 145 trillion galaxies to live with NoOneUpThere. This fantasy has gone on for centuries, and the institutional church stubbornly refuses to end it, which would mean telling the truth.
If the church admitted that we are clueless about Jesus’s birth, that miracles are not real events, that Easter is just a metaphor, and that the Bible is religious history rather than actual history, Jesus’s main message, agape, would remain unaffected. I can’t understand why the church, of all places, is so afraid to tell believers the truth.
For me, the ascension story is just one small example of a huge problem the church refuses to acknowledge. It has allowed these fictional stories to become main events. The Nativity accounts invented Christmas. Mary’s virginity has fueled the Mariology cult, which I feel is a larger religion than Christianity. The resurrection stories have led to the Easter Bunny, which has attracted more people to Easter egg hunts than to church services.
Why can’t the institutional Christian churches focus all their energy on the powerful message of Easter—one that emphasizes agape, loving all creatures of Creation unconditionally, regardless of where they are on their life’s journey—as their most effective tool to make this a better world in which to live?
What do you think?
PeaceLoveJoyHopeKindness
Bil
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P.S. People often ask me provocative questions about current events, both religious and secular. I have found that some of these questions are being asked universally. I’ll be periodically alternating regular articles with one of those questions and my answer. I invite you to send me your question to bilaulenbach@yahoo.com.
Image by Reijo Telaranta from Pixabay
I have to agree with you and have for a number of years. I still say pretty much say the same prays I have used for years even though they aren’t going anywhere. I’am too old to change my ways. Thank you for saying things that I have believed in the back of my mind for most of my 84 years.
I agree, agape ❤️
Lest we forget- ALL religions have their own fairy tales, This happens to be the “Christian.” story What is astounding- and frightening- is how many people around the world, regardless of religious belief, believe these fables and cannot let go. It is.the main reason so many people leave religion and determine that religious people are not smart.