And it took me a long time to come to terms with the faith-implications I saw so clearly then. However, that was the beginning of my ability to think critically even about the most threatening questions I could imagine. There is nothing, I concluded, that cannot be asked. Truth is truth; we can't be afraid of it, no matter where it might lead. God (however we might imagine him or her or It) cannot be contradicted by truth. (But all that's another story.)
Of course, Orlando wouldn't be able to understand any of this. And at this point, he doesn't care. Instead, he's just learned about historical "evidence" and is testing out that idea. But some day, he may be interested as most readers are at this point. He'll wake up some day (as I did much later in life) with adult questions. But because our churches and elders who know better, treat adults as children, he'll end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
But what is the baby we're talking about? It's the point-of-faith conveyed in all the infancy narratives. It's that "God" or History or Life Itself is for everyone not just for the analogues of Rome and its Temple mannequins.
No, God is present in unwed teenage mothers. God appears in babies born in smelly rat-infested hovels. God's there in immigrants and refugees fleeing genocidal tyrants like Herod. God is present on death row in tortured insurgents and victims of capital punishment. And some of them (like Jesus himself, Gandhi, King, Dorothy Day and Malcolm) are more alive and influential today than ever they were when they walked the earth. Resurrection is real.
The Jesus stories convey all these things. Yes, all those supporting stories including the infancy narratives are true.
Some of them might even have happened.
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