I struggle with a literal account of the Virgin Birth. Once upon a time I was 100% heretical – rejected Jesus’ incarnation and divinity; resurrection was a spiritual experience; giving sight to the blind was psychosomatic etc etc. Over time and with further study all of those heresies have fallen away, leaving my questions about the Virgin Birth feeling rather lonely and missing their old friends. Yet those questions don’t go away. I’m aware I’m unorthodox on this, but belief isn’t volitional. In particular, I find it deeply depressing to be lining up on the same side as John Spong (nothing personal) – but I’m sure God’s grace is active here as everywhere, and though I am a stubborn mule God will eventually prevail.

These thoughts were prompted by an interesting article here, where I disagreed with “without a Virgin Birth, it seems that the Incarnation falls by the wayside”. If someone could persuade me that that was true, then I’d be more sympathetic to the VB. Yet John’s gospel is by some measure the most incarnational of the four, and as John not only does not have the VB but there is even a suggestion that he is opposed to it, it seems perfectly plausible to have Incarnation without the VB.

In my memory is a letter quoted in a book on reactions to John Robinson’s ‘Honest to God’, from a “housewife” who said (paraphrase) that she had always found it difficult to relate to Jesus because she saw him as a Superman figure, with special abilities, and therefore not all that relevant to her life. From reading Robinson she had felt able to move closer to Him.

So the key issue for me is how to reconcile the VB with full-blooded humanity. Christ has to be one of us – and I can’t see how the VB allows him to be one of us. He must be one of us for ‘what he has not assumed he has not healed’.

I’m aware that I’m wrong – all the other heresies have been consistently overcome through the application of theological understanding (in other words, once I’ve realised what is being claimed, the objections tend to dissolve). I just haven’t got there yet. In so far as I ‘believe’ it, it is because I accept and trust the authority of the church, which has proven its truth to me in every other area. But I just don’t understand it – and that drives me nuts.

Ah well. I’ll keep plodding on.