Birth of Dissension?

Christians debate circumstances surrounding Mary and the Christ child

Anne Wiser was 22 years old and living in Paris when a young minister, fresh out of seminary, announced during the Christmas service that he did not believe in the virgin birth.
Mary was a young girl who got herself in trouble, and that's the story she told, the minister said.

"I got up and walked out," Wiser remembers.

Congratulations to her for having the courage to distance herself from those who preach a foreign gospel...I have done the same - it's not something one looks forward to doing, but, when one preaches something so completely opposed to the truth, to the teaching of the Church, everyone, in unison, should leave (IMHO).

That was in 1963. Today, Wiser is the Christian education director at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Yuma, Ariz., on the eastern edge of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego. "All the teachers at St. Paul's teach the virgin birth," she says.

For Wiser, the biblical account of a virgin giving birth to the long-awaited Messiah in a stable in Bethlehem isn't just a sweet story.

"Without the virgin birth, Christianity makes no sense. In order for Jesus to be crucified as a redemption for our sins, he had to be perfect, which means he had to have God as his father."

Here is a smart lady who understands that the truth of these mysteries cannot be rejected without rejecting Christ.

The virgin birth dissenters, however, remain steadfast. To them, it is revisionist history written for a first-century audience of Greeks, Romans and others who were used to hearing such miracles about their gods and kings.

"It's based upon a very ancient mythology," says Harpur, the Canadian who addresses this in his book, "The Pagan Christ." Harpur's book, which was a best seller in Canada and is due to be released in the United States in March, points out several examples of virgin births in mythology that precedes the New Testament by hundreds of years.

"Almost anybody of any importance had either a virgin birth or a supernatural birth," Harpur says.

Fortunately, for Christians, we do not have to rely on people such as these when we have the Fathers of the Church who have written extensively on the subject. And Catholics have the Magisterium, guided by the Holy Spirit to teach us. The Virgin Birth has been taught by all the creeds of Christendom. For us, it is an article of faith - a basic norm of Christian orthodoxy.

Source.