Was Mary a virgin? Did she stay a virgin? The confusion goes back to Christ’s early followers, who turned a biological necessity into a viceAt Christmastide you can’t escape from the fact that Christianity centres on the birth of a child, and glories in it. But Christians say that this Jewish baby from 2,000 years ago is also the supreme God, and then it gets complicated.Birth generally involves sexual encounter, all messy and sweaty: what about this one? Did Jesus have two human parents? Well, he certainly grew up with a mum and dad, Mary and Joseph; but the story we hear in church at Christmas, amalgamated out of two different accounts in two of the four gospels, suggests that somehow Joseph didn’t get involved in the initial process of parenting, and that Mary had remained a “virgin”. Continue reading…
Via: Why Christianity has been struggling with sex ever since the Nativity | Diarmaid MacCulloch
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PIERS MORGAN: A phone call I received from a fired-up Trump should be a warning to Democrats
President Trump called me for a chat on Saturday. It was our first conversation since he unfollowed me on Twitter in April after I wrote a Mail column telling him to ‘Shut the f*ck up Read more…