The specifically Christian idea of the Virgin Birth is one of the most controversial and confusing theological concepts around, and a Yuletide blog that didn’t take on the topic wouldn’t be doing its job.

The traditional Via Meadia Yule Blog continues today, Boxing Day, with the second of the Thirteen Posts of Christmas. From Christmas through to Twelfth Night, we explore the Christmas story and the ideas behind the celebration.

Merry Christmas and happy holiday to all!

It’s Christmas Eve today and time for the oldest tradition at Via Meadia, going back to 2009: our annual Yule Blog when we update and present our 13 posts of Christmas running from the preparatory Advent blog on Christmas Eve through Twelfth Night. During the holiday season, we will blog on a light holiday schedule through New Year’s Day. On January 2 we will be back at full force.

Christmas is important to Christians because from their point of view the Baby Jesus is the meaning of Christmas, and the meaning of Christmas is the meaning of life.

The Gospels occupy a kind of center point in human culture as a whole: products of a particular time and place, but comprehensible to all.

If we leave religion out of our national conversation, we end up with a vapid conversation that doesn’t address the deepest realities that move most of the people in this country.

To get any insight at all into what Jesus’ childhood and upbringing were like, you have to do something that sometimes makes Protestants uncomfortable: study Mary.

The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong is what, and who, God is bound and determined to love; the question is how can He do it?

The Christmas story suggests that we can somehow try both to be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and also to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.