It Happens Again
A recurring pattern of the virgin birth story
This is the fifth and final article of my series examining the Gospel story of Jesus’s virgin birth as viewed through the lens of “A Course in Miracles.”
Here are links to the other articles:
The Story and the Sign: How the Virgin Birth Changed Its Meaning
When Revelation Becomes Special: Ego, Authorship, and the Writer’s Temptation
I. The Persistence of Pattern
Knowledge of history does not protect us from repeating the mistakes of the past. The fact that something happened before makes it more likely to happen again, not less. Cassandra’s curse was to see it coming and not be believed. Our curse is to see it and not recognize it for what it is.
We may imagine that recognizing a pattern results in its loss of power. But insight does not confer immunity. The most persistent errors survive precisely because they become visible only when seen in the rearview mirror. One of the most basic truths about human perception is that we are unaware of our blind spots.
From a safe historical remove, we can trace how symbols that once pointed toward divine generosity gradually hardened into gates. What began as signs of gift became markers of exception. Access narrowed. Specialness crept in. Reverence remained, but participation diminished. Seen clearly, the pattern is unmistakable.
We have examined the Christmas story of a virgin birth as one way early Christianity framed divine initiative in culturally intelligible terms. And, we have noticed how this seemingly innocuous narrative flourish later hardened into a rigid theological fixture to protect institutional power and control.
The real work begins when we become willing to notice how that same pattern manifests today. “What has happened before will happen again” is not merely a slogan. It is a warning.
II. The Diagnosis
This is where A Course in Miracles becomes useful as psychology but not as theology. The Course does not argue that truth is scarce. It argues the opposite: that truth is wholly available, but often overlooked. The problem is not absence. It is blindness.
Blind spots are not intellectual failures. They are protective. The ego does not hide what is false; it hides what is threatening. And nothing is more threatening to the ego than the suggestion that what is most valuable is also universally available.
If love is given equally, specialness collapses. If insight is ordinary, hierarchy dissolves. If miracles are normal, authority loses its grip.
III. The Maneuver
Faced with this, the ego does not usually object outright. It does something subtler. It agrees while quietly relocating the truth elsewhere. To another time. Another person. Another level of readiness. Another degree of purity. The symbol remains, but its function changes.
From a distance, this maneuver is easy to spot. Up close, it is nearly invisible.
This is why the pattern repeats. It happened in early Christianity. It happens in modern spirituality. It happens in how sacred texts are interpreted. It happens in how insight is taught. It even happens in how freedom itself is discussed. Whenever an idea threatens to level the field, the ego restores distinction without announcing the move.
There you go doing it again.
Not “you” in particular. Not theologians. Not institutions alone. Minds. Human minds. The same minds that long for truth and quietly recoil from its implications.
IV. Recognition, Not Accusation
This is not a moral indictment. It is a perceptual one. Seeing a blind spot does not require guilt; it requires willingness. And seeing it once does not guarantee it will not return. The structure that produced it remains intact.
The Course’s insistence on vigilance makes sense in this light. Vigilance is not about guarding against evil ideas. It is about noticing familiar maneuvers dressed in unfamiliar clothes. The error is not dramatic. It is repetitive.
That is why it has happened before. And that is why it will happen again.
Unless it is noticed—not abstractly, not historically, but personally.
V. What Vigilance Asks
The move preserves reverence. The symbol remains intact. Only function changes. The shift feels respectful, not defensive. This is why it is so hard to see. The ego is not crude. It is subtle. It does not destroy what it cannot tolerate. It reframes it. It makes the universal seem singular, the available seem conditional, the present seem historical.
Vigilance, then, is not moral effort. It is not doctrinal correctness. It is simply noticing when availability narrows. Noticing when admiration replaces participation. Noticing when what was offered is quietly placed out of reach.
The gift is still given. The light does not change.
Only our willingness to see where we step aside does.