Nick Kristof wants Jesus dead.
The New York Times columnist has released another Christmas interview, this time with Princeton professor Elaine Pagels. The headlines, along with the online reaction, focused on Pagels’ denial of the virgin birth.
As the critics noted, Pagels’ criticism of the Biblical story was weak and it is gross that the New York Times in general, and Kristof in particular, like to take shots at Christianity around Christmastime. And the virgin birth is an essential Christian doctrine. Without it, the claim that Jesus was God made flesh collapses, and the chasm between divine and human remains.
Neither Kristof nor Pagels seem perturbed by this. In Pagels’ words, “as I see it, ‘believing all that stuff’ is not the point. The Christian message, as I experienced it, was transformational. It encouraged me to treat other people well and opened up a world of imagination and wonder.” But despite her assertion, the point of this sort of liberal theology is that it is not transformational—it is just a bit of moral exhortation, self-help, and aesthetic experience that can be added on to an already comfortable life.
There is no comfort in this de-divinized Jesus for those who really need it. Sure, New York Times columnists and Princeton professors can reduce the gospel to “the language of stories and poetry” that teaches us to live a bit better—they already are living well by worldly standards. But this is just an emotional prosperity gospel for those who are already materially prosperous—a Christianity that teaches you to live your best life now.
Christianity without the Incarnation has no justice for the oppressed and abused, no comfort for the sorrowing and suffering, no hope for the hopeless, and no forgiveness for sinners. The Gospel becomes nothing but philosophy and moral inspiration, which are well enough in their place. But we already have plenty of them; we don’t really need Jesus just to provide a bit more.
Of course, theological liberals might insist that, like it or not, supernatural claims about Jesus are just myths, and that it is better to take the small comforts of moral inspiration we can glean from an only human Jesus than to place our faith in a myth of Jesus as a divine redeemer.
But Kristof and Pagels did not make this argument. Rather, they reject the more difficult teachings of Christianity simply because they are difficult. As Pagels put it, “When some Christians said to me that non-Christians are going to hell, I left their church. That made no sense to me.”
Pagels allowed the fear of Hell to lead her to deny the possibility of Heaven. She responded to the teaching that not all are saved by declaring that none are saved, because there is no savior. Some doctrines are hard, and that of damnation is among them. But their very hardness gives people something to cling to, to stand on, to build on, in a way that the softness of Pagels and her interviewer cannot.
Theodicy poses difficult problems, which have been most compellingly expressed through the character of Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov. The best answer, Dostoyevsky suggests, is found in the divine participation in human suffering. We may still struggle with that answer, but the likes of Pagels and Kristof have no answer at all; they have nothing to offer to the tortured children and bereft parents Ivan described.
The poor, the tormented, and the sinful do not need an aesthetic or intellectual appreciation for the inspiring myths of Christianity. They need justice. They need restoration. They need forgiveness. And an attenuated gospel cannot give them that. Of course, skeptics may say that orthodox Christianity cannot deliver these either, but it is another thing entirely to prefer the attenuated gospel to the orthodox, as Kristof seems to.
Kristof has, as he notes, been doing these Yuletide interviews for years now. And despite obviously being haunted by Christianity, he will not surrender to Christ. I used to think this was because Kristof will not give up the sexual revolution, and that is clearly part of it.
But pride is the root of the problem. It is not just that accepting Christianity would require Kristof to change some of his political and cultural views, but that it would require him to radically change his view of himself. Instead of comfortable self-satisfaction, he would have to admit his innate sinfulness and desperate need of a savior. Kristof will happily have Jesus as a teacher, even as an inspiration. He will not bend the knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior.
And so Kristof and Pagels want a Christmas that is under control—a Christmas that adds a little more glow to lives of worldly comfort and success, but which has no hope for the lost and suffering. A Christmas that is human—all too human—without the transformative theophany of the Incarnation. They want a Jesus who was conceived through fornication or rape, rather than by the power of the Holy Spirit. They want a Jesus who was not crucified for our sake, but died dreadfully and meaninglessly with no redemptive purpose. And who remains dead.
The only other option is to fall on one’s knees in confession and worship before Jesus, the incarnate God in the manger, the crucified Savior, the risen and living Lord of All, who is seated at the right hand of the Father and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
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While I appreciate the article, writing about the ruminations of established NY Times columnists is a waste of time. A much more interesting article would have been charting Elon Musk’s journey from liberal technocrat to culture warrior and defender of bourgeois values. He’s a first rate intellect who knows what he’s talking about unlike Kristof who is a smug pundit with a dubious track record.
Pray for the conversion of the left.
Perhaps extremely intelligent- but wise?
From Google’s AI overview of the meaning of the name “Kristof”:
The surname Kristof has multiple origins and meanings:
Hungarian and Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, and Croatian: From the personal names Kristóf and Krištof, which are equivalents of the Greek name Christophoros, meaning “Christ-bearing”
Bulgarian and Macedonian: A Westernized form of the patronymic Hristov
North America: A shortened form of patronymics and other derivatives of the personal names Kristóf and Krištof
Whoa! Now there is a name I haven’t heard of for a long time Elaine Pagels!!! I first seen her on a programme on the UK’s Channel four in the mid 80s pushing the gnostic triple and she still is!! Another demonstration of the patience that God has with someone that they may realise the Truth before they have a Pontius Pilate moment and see in revealed in truth,then of course for repentance it’s too late!
Good and necessary article.
Kristof and Pagels represent the de facto beliefs of our culture.
i read the Kristof piece. It was awful. Not only for the content but for the timinig. Worse, too, is he mocks the belief of two billion people. Ugh!
I wonder if Elaine Pagels and Nick Kristoff realize that most Americans, including me, have never heard of them and really don’t care in the least what they think or are interested in reading their anti-Christian books. I wish that they could go head-to-head with G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, or Thomas Aquinas–I would read or watch that! God have mercy on their souls and God protect their students from their poisonous ideas!
Kristof and Pagels were meant for eachother. Kindred spirits presumedly righteously angered at the rest of us. Kristof a decrier of social injustice, Pagels censure of Christian injustice.
Both are the progeny of academia bluebloods. Pagels’ dad William McKinley Hiesey, physiological botanist at Stanford. Pagels holds more interest because of her specialty in religion at Princeton. Her rediscovery of faith came at the loss of her son and husband, when wandering forlorn on the cold, rainy streets of NYC she entered an uptown Protestant Church and was taken by the warm friendship [injustice was an early on issue when as a young girl the fundamentalist Church she attended said a deceased Jewish friend was in hell because he wasn’t saved].
Catholicism with its doctrine of compliance or condemnation is a perceived enemy, the Gnostic Gospels a welcome source for her attacks against the faith. Some of her arguments are literally Beyond Belief [the title of one of her books]. How Princeton elevated her is also beyond reason, but then, academia in America has wandered way off center.
That both find it necessary to besmirch Christianity at Christmastime shows their angst regarding the truths of the faith. It reveals their vulnerability, the possible conversion of their views to the truth if we offer prayer and sacrifice. Blake’s rundown of both is correct insofar of my knowledge. A good Christmas story for serious consideration and cause for charitable recourse. Folks out there need us rigid, hardcore believers.
Can we really expect more from a secular press in a secularized society? Heresies are not new, they began before the Apostles were dead.
I always remember decades ago, the headline on the front page of the New York Times “God is Dead!”. Kristof’s article falls in line with that type of thinking. Kristof and Pagels analysis is strictly humanistic, and completely omits any concept of faith and spiritual beliefs. Any religious experience has bypassed them. Those who have had religious experiences can attest to the true divinity of Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit. Love is the answer to life. When down trodden, rich or poor, we seek God’s love to comfort and help us. Never once is love mentioned by Kristof or Pagels. That clearly demonstrates the shortsightedness of their thinking and analysis. Hopefully, the Holy Spirit will awaken them to God’s love, and the love of his Son Jesus Christ.
One of the hard things to understand is why the NY Times is considered as the Newspaper of Record. The Paper has no problems with spilling out lies and is essentially a propaganda arm of the left. This article does not deserve comment, comments on it on promotes the idea that the author and Times are worthy of our attention. They are not, in a sense it reminds me of when I was in high school. The supposedly wise guys published their own underground paper that everyone thought was cool. In the end it was gibberish, the same goes for this article in the Times and the Times itself, its just gibberish.