Jesus claimed He had the power to raise himself from the dead and His followers would be raised from the dead. That’s a unique claim in the literature of religion.

McDowell’s remark highlights what Christian apologetics often presents as Christianity’s distinctive feature: a founder who not only teaches about life after death but publicly predicts his own resurrection and links his followers’ future resurrection to his. The claim is framed as “unique” to underscore an evidential argument—if Jesus uniquely staked his authority on a verifiable, historical event (his rising), then the truth of Christianity is tied to that event rather than to private mystical insight or purely ethical teaching. The quote thus functions less as neutral comparative religion and more as a rhetorical pivot toward the resurrection as Christianity’s central apologetic test-case.