By Christmas vacation of my first year in college, I had become an expert on the birds and the bees. Biology was my major, and after a semester in the freshman class, I was certain that I knew more biology than most adults did in my hometown ... including my minister. A few days before Christmas, I stopped in to see him. He received me warmly and asked how I had fared in my first semester. “Okay,” I replied, skillfully avoiding the subject of my mediocre grades. “But I’ve come home with some questions.”

“Really?” he replied. “Like what?”

“Like the virgin birth,” I said. “I’ve taken a lot of biology, as you know,” skillfully avoiding that “a lot” constituted a single course where I received a B-. “And I think this whole business of a virgin birth doesn’t make much sense to me. It doesn’t …