Interesting Take On Virgin Birth By NYT

So, Nicholas D. Kristof has an editorial in the New York Times. I've also reprinted here with my thoughts.

Believe It, or Not
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Today marks the Roman Catholics' Feast of the Assumption, honoring the moment that they believe God brought the Virgin Mary into Heaven. So here's a fact appropriate for the day: Americans are three times as likely to believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (83 percent) as in evolution (28 percent).

That's great news. Both are articles of faith but the Virgin Birth has more evidence.

So this day is an opportunity to look at perhaps the most fundamental divide between America and the rest of the industrialized world: faith. Religion remains central to American life, and is getting more so, in a way that is true of no other industrialized country, with the possible exception of South Korea.

Again, all good so far.....

Americans believe, 58 percent to 40 percent, that it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. In contrast, other developed countries overwhelmingly believe that it is not necessary. In France, only 13 percent agree with the U.S. view. (For details on the polls cited in this column, go to www.nytimes.com/kristofresponds.)

America is a great nation and France needs to be paved. Could we have a parallel here? Where the heck do people think morality comes from? Maybe some of the people in France need to read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Without a standard of morality then you've got relativism.

The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. The percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points in the latest poll.

OK, this is where if you are a person who takes their faith seriously will be offended. What Kristoff is really saying is that if you believe in miracles then you are an idiot.

My grandfather was fairly typical of his generation: A devout and active Presbyterian elder, he nonetheless believed firmly in evolution and regarded the Virgin Birth as a pious legend. Those kinds of mainline Christians are vanishing, replaced by evangelicals. Since 1960, the number of Pentecostalists has increased fourfold, while the number of Episcopalians has dropped almost in half.

Too many people treat church as just a little place to go and be social. Any church that has as an elder who does not believe in the Virgin Birth of Christ is a church that is not worthy of Christ. I'd bet money that grandfather also didn't believe in the resurrection of Christ or that Jesus is God. Again, to take Christianity seriously you can't just throw out the Virgin Birth or the resurrection.

The result is a gulf not only between America and the rest of the industrialized world, but a growing split at home as well. One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America.

Ugh!!!! I rather enjoy my intellectual Christian friends. Our faith is based on facts not just because we want to believe. The Bible itself is extremely reliable historically so why would it lie about Jesus?

Some liberals wear T-shirts declaring, "So Many Right-Wing Christians . . . So Few Lions." On the other side, there are attitudes like those on a Web site, dutyisours.com/gwbush.htm, explaining the 2000 election this way:

"God defeated armies of Philistines and others with confusion. Dimpled and hanging chads may also be because of God's intervention on those who were voting incorrectly. Why is GW Bush our president? It was God's choice."

So equating people that want Christians dead verses believing George W. Bush was God's choice???? You've got to be kidding. Heck, I believe it was God's choice that Bill Clinton was President.

The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine America's emphasis on faith because most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth, and for Mary's assumption into Heaven (which was proclaimed as Catholic dogma only in 1950), as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith. As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng puts it in "On Being a Christian," the Virgin Birth is a "collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary" narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were widespread in many parts of the ancient world.

If you go to biblical scholars that automatically reject miracles, like many in the "Jesus Seminars" then they will have a different conclusion. To believe this type of mindset these people must know everything if they believe miracles cannot occur. Now as a Protestent I do not believe in the assumption of Mary to heaven but am in full agreement about Mary conceiving Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Who is Hans Küng?

Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his book "Mary Through the Centuries" that the earliest references to Mary (like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel).

Hey Pelikan, you forgot to mention Isaiah 7:14 which clearly prophesizes about the future Virgin Birth. Oh yeah, who is Jaroslav Pelikan? Just because someone calls themselves a theologian does not make them correct. There are countless others who take a completely different view.

Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.

What sweeping generalities. I'd expect more from a person who writes as a profession. The only part he's got correct is the scientific evidence. We cannot reproduce the Virgin Birth but he's saying because he hasn't found evidence or Biblical scholars that disagree with him that the Virgin Birth must not be true. How can only 91 percent of Christians not believe in the Virgin Birth? That number should be 100%.

I'm not denigrating anyone's beliefs. And I don't pretend to know why America is so much more infused with religious faith than the rest of the world. But I do think that we're in the middle of another religious Great Awakening, and that while this may bring spiritual comfort to many, it will also mean a growing polarization within our society.

You are not denigrating anyone's beliefs? What did you just do? Praise God America has a lot of faith but we are nothing compared to the wonderful saints in Africa and other areas. Sorry Mr. Kristoff but Europe is not the rest of the world.

But mostly, I'm troubled by the way the great intellectual traditions of Catholic and Protestant churches alike are withering, leaving the scholarly and religious worlds increasingly antagonistic. I worry partly because of the time I've spent with self-satisfied and unquestioning mullahs and imams, for the Islamic world is in crisis today in large part because of a similar drift away from a rich intellectual tradition and toward the mystical. The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain.

The Church is becoming more intellectual than ever! We don't just accept things because some priest or pastor says so. Many of us do our homework and look at why, intellectually, Christianity is true. True Christianity is nothing like radical Islam. The more Christians apply their faith AND intellect the better Christianity will become. How intellectual is it really to just dismiss miracles? If there is a God then He can do anything He needs to do.

There are plenty of intellectuals who believed in the Virging Birth. In terms of intellectualism I'd put anybody up against former atheist turned Christian, C.S. Lewis. All it takes is a little digging to realize that there are plenty of intellectuals who believe in the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Faith and being intellectual are not mutually exclusive.

To listen to some great messages from my pastor, Dr. Mark Foreman, please go here. Pastor Mark uses intellect and logic to show how God's fingerprints touch so much and point to Christ.

Posted by Tim at August 17, 2003 10:00 PM