LARRY KING’S FANTASY INTERVIEW

By Dr. M. R. Dowler

Lawrence Harvey Zeigler was born in Brooklyn NY in 1933. Soon after he got his first job in 1957 as a broadcaster on a local radio station, Lawrence Zeigler changed his name to Larry King because the station manager felt Lawrence Zeigler sounded too German and too Jewish. Larry King has had a storied career. He has interviewed over 30,000 people during his twenty-five year television career on CNN; and in 1989 the Guinness Book of World Records credited King as having broadcast more hours on radio than anyone.

Of all the people Larry King has talked to over the years, there is one person he said he would love to interview, although he quickly acknowledged an interview would obviously be impossible. When asked who would be the subject of King’s fantasy interview, he stated in the October 22, 1990 issue of People Magazine, “Jesus Christ.” And when pressed as to what he would like to ask Jesus, Larry King replied, “I’d like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin born.”

The doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ is one of the hot-button issues within theology and next to the resurrection of Christ; the virgin birth is one of the most debated and controversial biblical subject.  Theologically, the doctrine of the virgin birth falls within two camps----conservative theology looks at Jesus’ virgin birth as a miracle clearly taught in the scriptures (Isaiah 7:14), while liberal theology sees every birth as a miracle and views Christ’s birth as no different than any human.

These two vastly different perspectives are also seen in their respective big-picture view of Jesus. Liberal theology emphasizes the immense of God---that is, God is seen as everywhere present and active; conservative theology emphasizes the transcendence of God---God is outside of our world, but so interested in the affairs of His human creation that He came to live among us for a brief period of time (Luke 19:10). The virgin birth should be important to us simply because it occurred (Matthew 1:18, 25; Luke 1:26-38). Simply stated, the virgin birth is indispensable to the sinlessness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21), and also serves to remind us that our salvation is as supernatural as was His virgin birth (John 3:5-6). Think about it.