From: mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Preaching to the Moderns
Date: 22 Dec 92 08:09:13 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <Dec.20.17.14.00.1992.21975@farside.rutgers.edu>
Steve.Hayes@f22.n7101.z5.fidonet.org writes:

>Surely one of the significant things about the virgin birth is that it shows 
>that in Christ there is a new creation, that God is making a fresh start.

At the risk of belaboring my one, modest, point about all this --
if God "made a fresh start"  of creation in Jesus, then it would
seem that we, like Esau, in the "bad" line are in no way helped.
It is *us* -- the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve -- who stand
in such desperate need of salvation that God became incarnate of
Mary to BECOME ONE OF US, Who is then God-with-us.

If God became a "new" creation that is NOT human, it amounts to
thumbing His nose at us.  And if there *is* no distinction between
Christ's humanity and our own, then this Virginity business is at
best a distraction.  I think that Steve's response is an honest
and "reasonable" one -- but I don't think it addresses the problem
I have of *why virginity?*   The implication of a Virgin Birth, to
me and in a different way I think to the Hellenistic world, is to
QUALIFY the humanity of Christ in a manner that tends to make Him
other than human.  If I see this as a "first draft" of the position
that later got worked out as the two natures of Christ (since I
too will affirm that Jesus as the Son is Incarnate God), I can live
with it.  But I am thoroughly uncomfortable about the terms of this
formulation.

The unbelievers "know" [and I quote this because *I* know no such
thing, despite sympathizing with them] that the Virgin Birth is
"just" another one of these demigod myths, like all the myriads of
offspring of Zeus.  For the *same* reason that I find such myths
lamentable exercises of human imagination with little or nothing
to do with reality, I am -- integrity demands -- skeptical of the
Virginity of Mary.

If you want me to "believe" that Mary was a virgin, why is it you
reject OTHER "miraculous" births, like that of Krishna, for example?
If I am expected to DISBELIEVE the religious testimony of Hindus,
why should I believe that of Christians? (in the matter of claims
about history that are inherently unverifiable).

I place my trust in Christian witness to a reality that I can reach
out and touch, like Thomas after the Resurrection.  The Virginity
of Mary is NOT something that I can EVER know about in this way.
Equally, I don't "know" that it is false; how could I?

I can take the Annunciation as the conjoining of God and Humankind
in Mary's son.  That much is a central Christian witness which I will
affirm.  But the vehicle for this affirmation is a myth, that is a
STORY whose elements register the meanings that the telling intends
to convey.  Charley is advising me "not to pursue" this matter.  OK
-- but the only way I can AVOID "pursuing" it is if the question of
the relation of myth to historical fact is disregarded.  If that is
what makes Charley "post-modern" I am only reluctantly willing to
follow his example, and then only after ascertaining that historical
examination could not possibly establish the point.  I am fixed in
history -- that *is* what makes me "modern."  I can no more disregard
that than I can disregard my political nature as an American citizen.
A post-modern *might* (I don't believe this describes Charley :-))
find history, and what we can know of it, irrelevant -- but to me,
a substantial part of what makes Christianity "real" is the irruption
of God into history as a carpenter's son, almost 2000 years ago.
Take this as an Advent meditation:

	O come, o come Immanuel
	And ransom captive Israel
	That mourns in lonely exile here
	Until the Son of God appear ...

or in the words of the collect:

	Almighty God, give us grace to case away the works of
	darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time
	of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came
	to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when
	he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both
	the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal;
	through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
	Spirit, one God, now and forever.


-- 
Michael L. Siemon	"We honour founders of these starving cities
mls@panix.com		 Whose honour is the image of our sorrow ...
			 They built by rivers and at night the water
			 Running past the windows comforted their sorrow."