Time & Perspective Quote by David Edward Jenkins

Jenkins threads a needle that few churchmen even attempt: he refuses to let theology collapse into either credulous supernaturalism or flat-footed atheism. The first clause concedes divine possibility with a shrugging generosity: if God is God, the rules aren’t a cage. That move disarms the classic apologetic trap where faith is made to live or die on whether miracles are technically feasible. Then comes the pivot - “but I very much doubt if He would” - which shifts the argument from power to character. Not “Could it happen?” but “Would God choose to do it, and why?”

The subtext is a critique of how Christianity often treats extraordinary biological claims as proof of holiness, as if God’s credibility depends on special effects. Jenkins, a theologian shaped by 20th-century biblical scholarship and postwar intellectual seriousness, is reading the virgin birth less as an obstetric report and more as a story the early church told to say something about Jesus’s significance. His skepticism isn’t sneering; it’s pastoral. He’s trying to protect belief from becoming a brittle loyalty test: affirm the miracle or you’re out.

The line also exposes an ethical anxiety: a God who “arranges” a virgin birth starts to look like a divine impresario staging spectacle, not a God disclosed in ordinary human vulnerability. Jenkins is arguing that if God enters history, the signature would be humility, not headlines.