Online mag Slate has been on a theology-for-the-masses run of late. First off, a perfectly predictable piece from Episcopal priest Chloe Breyer (daughter of the Supreme Court Justice, btw), outlining her doubts about the Virginal Conception, which are not new to anyone who has read skeptical New Testament scholarship (aka what is taught in most seminaries) over the past thirty years. It’s here, and Albert Mohler takes it apart here:

What? It would be "rash" to rule out the possibility that the Gospel writers mean the opposite of what their words mean because "theologically it works so well?" This is theological insanity, but it is indicative of what has become of "mainstream" biblical scholarship in the liberal academy. Schaberg argues — and Ms. Breyer affirms — that Matthew and Luke (or whoever wrote those two gospels, she would argue) wrote in their gospels that Jesus was born of a virgin so that their readers would understand that they really meant that Jesus was not born of a virgin at all. Still following?

In the same "issue" of Slate, Jack Miles has a far more interesting and thoughtful piece of the silence of the infant Jesus.

Far more useful than Breyer’s open-minded closed-mindedness is a discussion between three scholars, including Larry Hurtado, who has done close and convincing work on the development of devotion to Jesus as Lord among Christians. Short version: It happened very early, is related to the early Christians experience of Jesus himself, and cannot be explained away as simply  a riff on either Jewish or pagan spiritual and theological traditions. It was just too different. I’m glad to see Dr. Hurtado offering the clear-headed kind of thinking on the Gospels we also see from the likes of N.T. Wright on the ..er..pages of Slate.