Dorothee Sölle (1929–2003) analyzes the virgin birth from the perspective of liberation theology and feminist theology in her book Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology. Sölle argues that the doctrine of the virgin birth has been polarized into two extremes by orthodox and liberal theology. She argues that orthodoxy has absurdly elevated the virgin birth to a first-order belief and those who do not affirm the literal miracle of the virgin birth have departed from the Christian faith (as exemplified by the virgin birth being one of the five fundamentals). Sölle continues that liberal theology has discovered that virgin birth is not a first-order belief (as exemplified from its absence from the Gospel of Mark, the fourth Gospel, and Paul) and therefore it should not be a barrier to the Christian faith for those who find the virgin birth untenable (including herself as a young girl). Sölle laments that liberal theology removed the stumbling block of the virgin birth by rendering it superfluous.

Dorothee Sölle was a German liberation theologian and this radical theology led her to discover new meaning for the virgin birth through her study of the virgin birth through the rubric of liberation theology that did not result in the virgin birth as a first-order belief (orthodoxy) or a superfluous belief (liberal theology). Instead, liberal theology approaches the virgin birth "from the perspective of the poor" and the virgin birth is the goodness of the gospel proclaimed specifically "from the poor/for the poor", especially to the poorest of the poor (the women who are the wives of poor.) The virgin birth is the story of the libration of a poor woman (Mary) and her birth of the liberator (Jesus), and how she was entrusted with this subversive secret. Through liberation theology, Dorothee Sölle discovered an exciting and new meaning in the Nativity stories, especially in "Mary's Magnificat in Luke 1" that she declares is "one of the finest feminist texts in the Bible" [1].

During Advent 2019, Sölle challenges us to surrender our fight for either an absolute faith in the inexplicable miracle of the virgin birth or dismissing the virgin birth (and the Nativity stories) as superfluous. Instead, read Mary's Magnificant as a text for the liberation of the captives (c.f. Luke 4:16-22)

I will now provide brief commentary on several selections from Dorothee Sölle's Thinking About God that I summarized above. I've divided them into topical subjects (to allow readers familiar with the conservative vs liberal theology debate to skip to the discussion of the liberation theology interpretation of the virgin birth).

The virgin birth according to orthodoxy / conservative theology

In this first selection, Dorothee Sölle discusses the absurdity of elevating the virgin birth to one of a handful of indispensable and required beliefs, considering its weak attestation in scripture and that many other commandments of Jesus are not considered to be a fundamental like loving our enemies (John 13:34). Many modern theologians--such as Karl Barth--have affirmed the virgin birth without absolutizing it like the American Fundamentalists, but I have to agree with Sölle (and Karl Rahner) because emphasizing the virgin birth as an essential element of the Christian faith results in a vast Mariology that includes dogmas such as the immaculate conception and assumption of Mary.

"Orthodoxy interprets the story literally. Jesus was born of a virgin. This dogmatic statement was even made one of the five 'fundamentals' which the American Fundamentalists opposed to the liberal attempt to modify the content of faith at the beginning of the [20th] century. Among Conservative Evangelicals, the doctrine of the virgin birth is made an essential element of the Christian faith, without which it cannot be confessed. They do not regard attitudes to war and means of mass destruction as something that determines whether one is a believer or not, but the virgin birth does." [2]

The virgin birth according to liberal theology

Dorothee Sölle is among the many Protestant theologians that have followed liberal theology in deemphasizing and demythologizing the virgin birth including Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, Emil Brunner, etc.

"Now the liberal critics come along, open the Bible, and state that the most important authors of the New Testament do not know this story or do not mention it. Mark makes his Gospel begin with the baptism of Jesus, when Jesus is already thirty, and tells us nothing about his childhood. What happened to the virgin Mary was not important for him, nor how Jesus was born. John has Jesus with God from eternity and does not reflect on the birth story, nor does Paul. With the help of its sideline, the so-called history of religious school, liberal theology compared the various religions in their contexts and discovered that the theme of the virgin birth was a fairly widespread one in antiquity. People were fond of saying that significant men and great heroes were born of a virgin. This peripatetic theme was so widespread that a virgin birth could be reported even of people whose fathers were very well known. For example, four hundred years after his death, Socrates, whose father and mother we know, was said to have been born of a virgin because it was thought that this would express his divinity more clearly. So this was a peripatetic theme which was not native to Judaism but to Hellenism. The Hebrew Bible speaks prophetically of 'a young woman' (Isa 7:14), and then the theme got into Luke's account and so found its way into church history. The undertones hostile to sex and women have no support in the Bible. So much for the historical origin of this theme and for liberal theology's critical treatment of it." [3]

The advantage of liberal theology over orthodoxy on the virgin birth

Fundamentalism has always functioned as a barrier to the Christian faith, and Sölle confesses that liberal theology has removed the stumbling block of the virgin birth from people like herself who viewed it as an irrational barrier of entry to the Christian Church.

"I can remember the doubts about Christianity which I had when I was eighteen; one of the problems which I could not crack (not the biggest, but one of them) was this virgin birth, which I found incomprehensible. I did not know why I should believe it; whether Jesus would be better had he been born of a virgin than if he had had a father. I did not understand what that would contribute to my redemption, to my liberation from sin and grief. I still remember clearly how liberated I felt when I learned from liberal theology that this part of the faith was only a Hellenistic interpretation and was not essential to my being a Christian. The liberal paradigm has often liberated people from false stumbling blocks to faith." [4]

The virgin birth according to liberation theology

Sölle's unique and fascinating contribution to the virgin birth debate is her criticism of the orthodox and liberal theologies through her liberation theology. Sölle recognizes that the virgin birth is essential for the gospel because it preaches the gospel from the perspective of the poor and for the poor, not because it is a unique supernatural miracle. The poor can identify with the destitute situation wherein Mary found herself after the annunciation, particularly in extremely common situation among the poor of the whole, especially poor women who are pregnant and without a spouse or support system and facing the shame of the situation. Additionally, Mary is also an icon of liberation theology, because she is tasked with caring for her son Jesus, who is the liberator of herself and the entire world, and keeping Jesus secret until his liberation is realized on the cross.

"But liberal theology with a Latin American stamp is quite different: here the theme of the virgin birth is not superfluous, but is bound up with the struggle for liberation. It is decisive for the liberator to come into the world form among the poor. The majority of poeple in Latin America are born out of wedlock; many do not know who their father is. The situation of the young woman who is expecting a child without being able to count on protection or help is quite normal. She gets into difficulties; perhaps she asks an older friend like Elizabeth for advice; she is afraid of being abandoned, of being punished for infidelity. These are normal situations which often happen in our society too. They are incorporated into liberation theology like this: Mary is one of us; she gives birth to the light, the liberator, the redeemer. In the gospel of the peasants of Solentiname, the angel who announces the birth to her is regarded as 'subversive': 'And Mary immediately also becomes subversive in listening to this message. I believe that she already felt as though she were going into the underground. The birth of a liberator must be kept secret.' That is a completely new approach to the story; it is quite different when one thinks from the perspective of the poor, moreover of the poorest, the wives of the poor." [5]

The advantage of liberation theology over liberal theology and orthodoxy

Sölle restores meaning to Nativity stories that were first abused by orthodoxy and later abandoned by liberal theologies. Elsewhere in her book, Sölle confesses that her new understanding of the Nativities according to the lines of liberation theology has caused her to see Mary's Magnificat (Luke 1) as a purple passage for feminist theology.

"In this sense, the story of the virgin birth is not made superflous by criticism, but understood in a different way. Here liberation theology takes up the orthodox paradigm, but at the same time understands it differently in the framework of this new exegesis, from the poor/for the poor. It no longer conveys hostility to sexuality and domination, but subversion and rebellion. For liberal theology the virgin birth is a stumbling block which is best removed. For liberation theology it is a piece of bread." [6]

Sources:

1. Dorothee Sölle, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Theology. trans. John Bowden. (Bloomsbury T&T Clark: 1997). p. 68.

2. Sölle. Ibid. pp. 40-1

3. Sölle. Ibid.

4. Sölle. Ibid.

5. Sölle. Ibid.

6. Sölle. Ibid.

7. Header contains a painting by Sandro Botticelli - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148199