Can you deny the Virgin Birth and Physical Resurrection of Jesus and be a Christian?

Bruce Leiter

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Can you deny the Virgin Birth and Physical Resurrection of Jesus and be a Christian?

My answer is no. I agree with St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Linked for reference.

Yet in a New York Times opinion piece interview with Serene Jones, a Protestant minister, president of Union Theological Seminary the answer is "sure!."

Here is the interview:

Opinion | Reverend, You Say the Virgin Birth Is ‘a Bizarre Claim’?

Let me know your thoughts.
To say what Serene Jones says is to deny the basic truths of the Christian faith and the inspiration of the Bible, especially of the gospels and 1 Corinthians 15. I don't judge whether she's a Christian. God will be her Judge.
 
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Ignatius the Kiwi

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The implications of denying the Virgin birth are kind of breathtaking. For one it means Jesus had a human father and it couldn't have been Joseph since when he discovered she was pregnant he was about to divorce her. Only to be persuaded by an Angel to do otherwise. Hence you make Jesus a bastard, his blessed Mother a (word I probably shouldn't use here) and you also call into question Christ's unique relationship the Father.

What did the angel mean by this? "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit;" I suppose this event didn't happen and was a lie concocted by Matthew to justify Christ's origins. It was believed by those foolish first century folks but us moderns and those liberals now know better what it means to be a Christian.

Would I consider this a Christian belief? I would consider it the sort of belief secularist critics of the bible believe, but a historic Christian position held by anyone even nominally Christian. People who deny the Virgin tend to deny most other Christian positions and beliefs. They can insist they are Christian till they have removed the last doctrine they actually believed, but they aren't Christians.
 
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Calvin_1985

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Matthew, Luke and the historic creeds seem to think this is very important information and for a reason.
It's important to for Ongoing Faith in Father and His miracles that is for certain.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything like that, but I don't pay any mind to any creed or writings of "Church Fathers". Although I don't disagree with what many creeds say, I find absolutely no need for them in my life or any other Christians life. I know others feel differently about for whatever reasons, but not to sound arrogant or prideful, I don't want any of my Faith to have any sort of dependance upon creeds so that it doesn't play any part in what I am able to get from the word of Yahweh. I sumply just leave it all to the Bible and the Hands of Jesus to show me all the Truth I need.
 
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Cis.jd

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You have to remember, nearly every religion has a belief about Jesus.
The JW's believe he is Saint Michael
Islam believes he is a Prophet
Branches of Hinduism believe he was an Avatar

list goes on. If Christians can have their own personal beliefs about Jesus that doesn't align with the Apostles Creed (The Trinity, The Christ, Virgin Birth, etc) then any one these religions I listed can consider themselves christian as well.
 
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Kenny'sID

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"If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9)

Seems to me that's a thread ender there...simply put and as far as I can see, it can't be interpreted any other way.
 
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FireDragon76

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I don't remember a Gospel of Paul?

Paul clearly articulates the Gospel in Romans. He talks about the significance of Jesus Christ for sinners in general.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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Can you deny the Virgin Birth and Physical Resurrection of Jesus and be a Christian?

My answer is no. I agree with St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Linked for reference.

Yet in a New York Times opinion piece interview with Serene Jones, a Protestant minister, president of Union Theological Seminary the answer is "sure!."

Here is the interview:

Opinion | Reverend, You Say the Virgin Birth Is ‘a Bizarre Claim’?

Let me know your thoughts.
If someone believes in a Jesus who did not get resurrected, do they get saved?
 
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Silverback

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Paul clearly articulates the Gospel in Romans. He talks about the significance of Jesus Christ for sinners in general.

Ok, I thought you meant that Paul had a written Gospel like Matthew, Mark, Like and John.
 
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FireDragon76

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Ok, I thought you meant that Paul had a written Gospel like Matthew, Mark, Like and John.

In a way, he does, though. We know he received the Gospel from other Christians of the apostolic age, making his witness apostolic, the same as the other 4 Gospels. If anything, historians actually consider his testimony better in some ways because his epistles are the earliest NT documents we have, and because many of the Gospels are not believed to be eyewitness testimony, either.
 
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Silverback

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In a way, he does, though. We know he received the Gospel from other Christians of the apostolic age, making his witness apostolic, the same as the other 4 Gospels. If anything, historians actually consider his testimony better in some ways because his epistles are the earliest NT documents we have.

I agree, I have always noticed in my discussions with my Catholic friends, that the writings of Paul seem to be less important, and they will usually defer to the Gospels, early fathers (accept for maybe Augustine) and tradition.
 
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FireDragon76

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I agree, I have always noticed in my discussions with my Catholic friends, that the writings of Paul seem to be less important, and they will usually defer to the Gospels, early fathers (accept for maybe Augustine) and tradition.

That's because Catholics traditionally allegorize him into being an Aristotilian just like them. It's really quite ridiculous. It's only more modern Catholic scholars that are willing to consider Paul at face value. Most take a track similar to N.T. Wright and at least admit he teaches a forensic view of justification.

I think Orthodoxy's approach to Paul is more complicated, but he's still not as prominent as in Lutheran or Reformed thought. One thing I learned in Orthodoxy about Paul is to clearly see his mysticism of the Cosmic Christ as one of his central themes- Christ is not just someone who dies to undo the curse of Adam's sin, but also a divine being that reconciles creation, including all its limitations and seeming oppositions, in his being. That's something that's similar to what the theologian Albert Schweitzer also noted about him (and Schweitzer was also a liberal, BTW- now that I'm on a roll advocating for the legitimacy of liberalism as a potentially illuminating perspective), something many Protestants simply have glossed over traditionally.
 
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Silverback

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That's because Catholics traditionally allegorize him into being an Aristotilian just like them. It's really quite ridiculous. It's only more modern Catholic scholars that are willing to consider Paul at face value. Most take a track similar to N.T. Wright and at least admit he teaches a forensic view of justification.

I think Orthodoxy's approach to Paul is more complicated, but he's still not as prominent as

Although the Orthodox have had some rough spots over the centuries, I think most of there doctrine was settled by 787. The military, political, and social issues during the reformation left the Eastern Church out of the whole mess in the west.
 
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redleghunter

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If someone believes in a Jesus who did not get resurrected, do they get saved?
No.
 
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Theological liberals like (UTS) will go to great lengths at discrediting God's Word and miracles. It only reveals whose side they are batting for.
It's even worse: Union Theological Seminary is a bedrock of Marxist Liberation Theology.
 
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Can you deny the Virgin Birth and Physical Resurrection of Jesus and be a Christian?

My answer is no. I agree with St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Linked for reference.

Yet in a New York Times opinion piece interview with Serene Jones, a Protestant minister, president of Union Theological Seminary the answer is "sure!."

Here is the interview:

Opinion | Reverend, You Say the Virgin Birth Is ‘a Bizarre Claim’?

Let me know your thoughts.

In perusing the article/interview with Jones you provided, I thought it was interesting how Jones articulated her view on the Virgin Birth, i.e. 'why' she doesn't think it's all that serious of an issue. And she said:

I find the virgin birth a bizarre claim. It has nothing to do with Jesus’ message. The virgin birth only becomes important if you have a theology in which sexuality is considered sinful. It also promotes this notion that the pure, untouched female body is the best body, and that idea has led to centuries of oppressing women.
I could be wrong, but it almost seems to me that her activist predilections drive her theological interpretive matrix ...

This approach to the Bible is kind of strange, but at the same time, since Union Theological Seminary is and has been 'Liberal' in its framework, we might keep in mind that it doesn't produce 'cookie-cutter' theologies as the more evangelical seminaries may tend to do (so, let's not just put all of the Union theologians in a box of judgement, close the lid, and think "they're all the same"!).

Personally, I like some of the work of a few figures who have attended Union, even if I don't necessarily agree with all they have taught or the ways in which they have interpreted the Bible; Paul Tillich is but one example ... James H. Cone is another.
 
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