Jesus Christ was miraculously born of the virgin Mary who concieved by the pwoer of the Holy Ghost. He went on to miraculously take all of our sins and trnansgressions upon himself in the atonement, and then miraculously arise in a glorious resurrection on the third day, overcoming sin and death and allowing us all the opportunity to do the same.
And He (our Savior) did it all as a result of His matchless love for us.
A belief, and faith in those principles and truths is patently not “less intellectual”, it is faithful and aligns with eternal truths mankind’s science is incapable of grasping, but which nonetheless are true.
At thei Christmas time, when we celebrate His holy birth, I thank God for Him and for those very truths that are meant to set us free, and lead us to Him and His guidance in this world of so much uncertainty, so much suffering, so much pain, and so much evil and crime.
It allows us to overcome all of that and bring peace and true charity and love into the world and to those around us.
Ummmm, yes.
“American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time,” he explains”
Nonsense, American Christians and Christians from time recorded believe in all manner of miracles, from creation out of nothing to chariots of fire to water into wine to the RESURRECTION, lest we forget -
what poppycock this denier is spouting. Christianity without miracles is not Christianity.
There’s nothing “untenable”, “less intellectual”, or “more mystical” about this. Why would the Virgin Birth be impossible for God, who created everything?
Would this fool have people believe we are not to lift ourselves up and know that our spirit comes from the Lord..?
Hmmm. I just do. Never really thought about it in that manner.
Yes, non-negotiable.
In response to the question of the title, only fools would dare challenge the Lord.
You might find it interesting that some translations of the old testament refer to the mother of the son of God as a young girl and not a virgin.
“most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth … as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith”
I wonder how these brilliant scholars view the evidence for Creation.
(Hint to scholars: if God can create the universe, you think the virgin birth was difficult for him?)
Just another attempt to discredit part of the bible, to try to put a ‘hole’ in it to allow further discrediting.
What’s next?
Should we toss out that Jesus was the Son of God?
Just rewrite this in your head to “Kristof is absolutely aghast that so many Americans believe in the divinity of Jesus.”
There are actually some hardcore leftist pseudo-clergy who are using this argument. They hate the idea that Christianity is a religion, not a secular philosophy on a par with other secular philosophies.
One of the most influential-to-Marxism philosophers prior to Marx was Georg Hegel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel
His most influential idea was that an idea, or even an entire philosophy, was a “thesis”, and that if you argue against it, or even if you do not agree with it, you create an “antithesis”. And in a weird, Darwinian struggle of ideas, the end result is a “synthesis”, a better combination of the two ideas, or philosophies, into a new idea or philosophy.
It seems to make sense to people who don’t think about it too much.
But if you do, what comes to mind is not philosophy, but religion. Religion defies synthesis, because it refuses to compromise its beliefs with anti-religious ideas and philosophies.
And this bugs the hell out of philosophical types.
This is why they have such a bitter hatred of religion, precisely because it rejects the idea that it is just the same as some armchair philosopher’s theory.
This is why the divine, the unknown and the unknowable of religion are so hated, because philosophy has no such unshakable and unchanging ideas. If God says something, then it is the eternal truth. If a philosopher says something, it is just one guy’s opinion, and doesn’t change anything.
And they just can’t bear that thought.
Look, it’s real simple. Do you believe in God? An omnipotent God? A creator God that brought all things into being? Then, why, for God’s sake (and yours) do you think that he can’t bring about a divine revelation of Himself in a manuscript (with more correlation than any other documents in ancient history) and cannot suspend the laws he created to evidence His own divinity?
If you don’t (or can’t) believe, then just forget about God and the virgin birth. Just go ahead and relax. He’ll remind you about it on Judgement Day.
How about the Cross? The Death, Burial and Resurrection?
God taking a handful of ordinary people and using them to change the world?
How about that God become Man? Leaving everything that was good and perfect to come and live down here in the mud. Bad food, stubbed toes, sweat, tears, sunburn, toothaches.... all the stuff that we have to go though because we don't have a choice and He chose to do it? And He did it because He loves us and wants for us to be with Him? Us? He loves us enough to live like us just to allow us the option of coming to live with Him?
Marinate your brain in that for a while.
When you think about the rest of it the virgin birth is not the most amazing part of the story.
a. We are born in the image of Adam after the Fall, We share his original sin by real imputation and his sin nature by genetic transmission. Thus we share his spiritual death, His sin is our sin, his sin nature our sin nature, his condemnation our condemnation. Rom. 5:14.
b. Christ is in the image of Adam before the fall.
c. Since Jesus was born of a virgin, there is no reception of a sin nature or imputation of AOS.
d. God the Father imputed all our sins to Christ on the cross, Rom. 5:15.
The result then is that man is declared righteous, he is not made righteous, sin is not overlooked, it is not just as if I had never sinned. He is declared by God to be righteous not because of what he is or will be but solely because he possesses the righteousness of Christ.
http://deanbible.org/Media/Doctrines/H-N/Imputation%20and%20Justification.pdf
You can believe anything you want to believe, it’s a free country.
If you want to believe in Jesus Christ you must believe in the whole story or none of it.
That’s your choice.