Belief in the virgin birth of Jesus was a way of expressing the truth of his divinity at the time of the writing of the gospel of Luke. For many centuries, such a description served Christianity well as a means for understanding the holy reality of Christ. But for many this is no longer the case. Our world is radically different than the world of the early church. The symbols and expression that once made abundant sense, no longer do for millions of us. To force someone who is honestly seeking God to accept this archaic image is both foolish and futile. I simply do not believe that the avoidance of sexual intercourse on the part of Joseph and Mary has anything to do with whether Jesus is divine and no one can make me believe it. No one but God.

How dare we ever assume that we can even begin to fully know the workings of God. To believe in the Holy Spirit is to believe that God can be at work in someone’s life in a very different way than God is at work in mine. To exclude someone from a religious community because they don’t believe precisely as we believe is the antithesis of the work of Jesus.