Blasphemy that’s fit to print?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 24, 2024

It’s beginning to look a lot like… Well, you know the song.

Every year, around this time, the mainstream media discover the work of some obscure scholar who will cast doubt on Christian orthodoxy. Just before Easter, count on it: some prestigious journal will give feature treatment to a theory questioning the Resurrection. Just before Christmas, this year, it’s an article in the New York Times, by Nicholas Kristof, entitled “A Conversation About the Virgin Birth That Maybe Wasn’t”.

Kristof leads off his piece, an interview with Princeton University’s Elaine Pagels, the author of The Gnostic Gospels, by saying: “I want to be respectful of readers who have a deep faith….” He has an odd way of showing that respect. As Christians prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth, he provides a forum for Pagels’ crackpot theory that Jesus was the product of a Roman soldier’s rape.

Is there evidence to support this hypothesis? Well, there were Roman soldiers, and some were guilty of rape. So there you are.

The breathtaking arrogance of this theory—the willingness to leap from a hypothetical possibility to a published suggestion, without benefit of facts—is characteristic of Pagels. Now it also appears acceptable to the journal that boasts its willingness to provide “All the news that’s fit to print.”

Longtime readers of this site may recall that long ago, in 2006, the late Father Paul Mankowski caught Elaine Pagels in a blatant example of scholarly misconduct: concocting a quotation. (She cobbled together two unrelated phrases from St. Irenaeus, separated by 34 chapters in his own writing, then added a word entirely of her own, to form a sentence that supported her thesis. That sort of malfeasance, exposed so clearly, is ordinarily enough to end a career in academe. As Father Mankowski put it, “Among professional scholars, witness tampering is no joke: once the charge is proven, the miscreant is dismissed from the guild and not re-admitted.”

Yet Elaine Pagels remains in good standing at Princeton. Her books are taken seriously in academic journals. Her ideas are solicited by the New York Times. Why? Because the American academic mainstream—which flows into the media mainstream—wants to hear challenges to Christian orthodoxy, wants to present obstacles to the faith.

Well I don’t. And now, dear reader, I have a confession to make. If you have already clicked on the links above, you may think that I made a mistake. I didn’t. That first link won’t take you to the Kristof story. I’m not going to help the New York Times spread the Bad News: the phony, degrading gospel according to Pagels. I’m going to help you celebrate the Virgin Birth.

Merry, Christmas, reader! Merry Christmas, Mr. Kristof! Merry Christmas, Bedford Falls! Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter! Merry Christmas, New York Times!