Posted on 12/23/2002 8:02:48 AM PST by dead
What you blithely dismiss as a "medieval fascination and fetish" is a defined article of faith for 1 billion Catholics and 300 million Eastern Orthodox. Maybe you ought to be a bit more circumspect about your dismissals.
Jesus himself indicates this when he tells his mother its not yet his time in regards to changing the wedding wine into water. Further, John and Mark start there gospels with John the baptist. This minsiter is on fairly firm ground with this comment seeing that 1/2 the Gospel writers agree as well As Jesus himself.
I came from a high Church background and like it myself.
It's not important whether or not you like it. If you allow it, it is inconciderate and it's only a matter of time before the government bans it. It will be your own fault because you are so inconciderate of others who don't like it.
The vestry of our little church all but banned it by telling the new priest he better not do it again after I tricked him into thinking everyone would be fine with it occasionally.
sad
http://mb-soft.com/believe/txo/arianism.htm
Excerpt from the site:
Arianism was a 4th-century Christian heresy named for Arius (c.250-c.336), a priest in Alexandria. Arius denied the full deity of the preexistent Son of God who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. He held that the Son, while divine and like God ("of like substance"), was created by God as the agent through whom he created the universe. Arius said of the Son, "there was a time when he was not." Arianism became so widespread in the Christian church and resulted in such disunity that the emperor Constantine convoked a church council at Nicaea in 325 (see Councils of Nicaea).
Led by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the council condemned Arianism and stated that the Son was consubstantial (of one and the same substance or being) and coeternal with the Father, a belief formulated as homoousios ("of one substance") against the Arian position of homoiousios ("of like substance"). Nonetheless, the conflict continued, aided by the conflicting politics of the empire after the death of Constantine (337).
Three types of Arianism emerged: radical Arianism, which asserted that the Son was "dissimilar" to the Father; homoeanism, which held that the Son was similar to the Father; and semi-Arianism, which shaded off into orthodoxy and held that the Son was similar yet distinct from the Father.
After an initial victory of the homoean party in 357, the semi-Arians joined the ranks of orthodoxy, which finally triumphed except in Teutonic Christianity, where Arianism survived until after the conversion (496) of the Franks. Although much of the dispute about Arianism seems a battle over words (Edward Gibbon scornfully observed that Christianity was split over a single iota, the difference between homoousios and homoiousios), a fundamental issue involving the integrity of the Gospel was at stake: whether God was really in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
John doesn't deal with Jesus' birth, he deals with his existence since the creation which I would say overshadows the birth a bit. However, if even one gospel writer felt the nature of the birth is irrelevant why do you place a higher standard on this clergy person when his views would conform with St. Mark ? But, lets look at John the baptist who prepared the way fro Jesus. Did he mentioned the virgin birth ? No. Well certainly Jesus himself might have used these creditentials ? No, he didn't.
So, we have you holding the clergy person to a higher standard of witness than Mark, John the baptist, arguably John, and even Jesus himself.
Besides, it isn't just the gospels. Prophecy in the Old Testament affirm Jesus's ancestry and nature and most of the books of the New Testament make a referral in some regards.
I don't disagree. The fact that prophecy was fufilled doesn't negate whether the nature of the birth is as important as his minsitry as an adult. You can't have it both ways. If you believe Jesus died for your sins, you can't believe he was a regular John Q. Public. Perfect attonement came from God dying the death we deserved. The Christmas story is the sine qua non (without which not) of the New Testament. Perhaps the other gospel writers took it as understood... who knows? I do know, though, that they didn't contradict the other two gospels in their accounts.
If you review the rest of my posts you will see I believe its impossoble to conclude that Mary was anything but a virgin (in the sexual sense). That isn't the point I took issue with you on. The point I took issue was your basing your argument on the importance of the nature of his birth vs. the importance of his ministry. If Mark and John both neglect to cover it, I would assume its 50/50 whether its a key posistion. To support my view we also can look at the apostles creed which dates us back to early Christian statements of belief and possibly conclude from it that even they side stepped the nature of birth by calling Mary Virgin Mary, thereby leaving the question of what is meant by "virgin" an open one.
I'm no biblical scholar so this is supposition on my part but I think it likely the gospel writers wrote within their understanding. John and Mark were there for Jesus's ministry and later life so they stuck to this topic. Luke, on the other hand, has shown himself to be an historian (as in the Book of Acts) and reached back earlier.
I maintain that this "priest" is discounting his own faith. It's not doubt (or at least it doesn't register as such in the article), it's open rejection of this part of Christ's nature. That is huge and he should resign this "job.
If we take your theory we would have to conlude that no one bothered to tell Mark or John about the virgin birth and if they did, they both concluded it wasn't relevant. Either way its wrong to hang this man on this fine point. It is however reasonable to hang him on rejecting what appears to me to be a clear reading of the scriptute that Mary was in fact a virgin and that this did in fact fufill prophesy.
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