I am from a Protestant background, but had the good fortune of teaching a class on Mary to a group of young Protestant evangelicals at college. I co-taught with Dr. Tim Perry (the real expert between the two of us), who in October 2006 published
Mary for Evangelicals. This experience, I believe, gives me a unique perspective on the current topic, and in this post I will set up and propose what I will call a healthy and informed Protestant response to Mary.
Currently, Protestantism is pretty much ignoring Mary, an awkward stance to say the least, considering her eminence in the history of the church prior to 1600, both in doctrine and piety. This is typically justified, I suspect, by the
slippery slope fallacy: if we start thinking of Mary as more than a historical character such as Moses or Peter or Elisha or Paul, we will inevitably embrace all the Catholic abuses and exaggerations of true Christian belief. This causes a great degree of apprehension around the subject, an attitude begun by the 2nd generation of Reformers who saw embodied in Mary everything that the Catholics and Protestants disagreed about:
1) the role of humanity in salvation, sola gratia and sola fide, free will
2) the tension between natural theology and revelation, science and religion, human and divine
3) the relationship between scripture and tradition, authority of the institution, the papacy
Howver, the fact is that Mariology and Christology, and derivatively soteriology, are closely intertwined. A minimalist Mariology eventually blossoms into a minimalist Christology. For example, take Theotokos, the primary Marian designation of the early church. Reject or accept? If you reject it, you are saying that Mary was only the mother of the
human half of Jesus, but not the mother of the second person of the Trinity. Hence, his identity is compromised, divided into two in accordance with the Nestorian heresy.
However, Nestoriuss chief concern was not theological but devotional. Saying that Mary is the mother of
God elevates her to the status of divinity. Thus, he advocated the title Christotokos, the mother of Christ, which would not lend itself to the exaltation of the human personage who was only consenting to the divine will, rather than playing an active role.
The pastoral problem is obvious. On the one hand, we have a circuitous route for salvific grace to be transmitted from God to man; for if Mary is indeed situated in the divine realm, whether as the incarnation of the Holy Spirit (so Leo Boff) or as the mother who consoles her angry Son (so Alphonsus de Liguori), then she is a vessel of grace in a way comparable to her Son, rather than being the vessel of grace-predicated person, namely, the Son (so Aquinas). Mary becomes not only venerated, but an independent vehicle of salvation.
If, on the other hand, Mariology is ignored altogether and Christology suffers as a consequence as appears evident by the development of Protestant theology toward 19th century liberalism, and even today in the minimalist Unitarian vision of Jesus identity then we end up with
no divine savior instead of two. The yea or nay in regard to the Theotokos title seems to set the church off into two different directions, both of them ultimately failing to maintain orthodox and functional Christian monotheism.
I dont know what a Protestant mariology would look like. I do agree, however, that they need to take her as their own, and not worry about finding themselves overrun with maximalist tendencies resulting in the full-blown worship (i.e. adoration) of Mary. There is a much greater awareness of the heresy of two saviors than the heresy of no savior. Remember T. S. Eliot:
not with a bang, but a whimper. Protestants need to take steps to escape both ends.
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Besides the theological question, here are some basic ideas how the figure of Mary can deepen religious piety in the Protestant wing of the church (thereby abstaining from that deep respect for the authority of tradition which is held by both the Catholics and the Orthodox.)
1. Mary models for the church and the Christian an authentic piety toward Jesus. Her faith in the announcement of the angel, her praise of God in expecting the arrival of the Messianic era, her contribution and part in bringing forth the kingdom of God to earth, and the sacrifice she had to make in all of this these four points, as expounded by the
Marialis Cultus, have important uses for religious piety. We need to see how faith is worn by real people.
2. Marys intercession for the church deepens ones appreciation for the unity of the mystical body of Christ, which is one even over the boundaries of death. Her unique ability to intercede on our behalf, however, is an unjustified development of the doctrine of the communion of the saints that reflects the historical excesses of the role of the saints in procuring grace from God.
3. The veneration of Mary is simply a logical development, after recognizing the graces God gave her. It is not about what she did, but who she is that calls Christians to honor her, in the same way that we honor the presence of virtue among the living. She is worthy of praise, a praise decidedly inferior to Gods, but certainly superior to the average Christian's. The New Testament recognizes her singular gifts, and so why shouldnt we?
While Marian devotion has not always been healthy, and it is clear from the annals of history that the church has often erred on the side of excess due to causes that are best understood anthropologically this by no means forces her retirement from active duty among Gods people. She is both a real person and a symbol. The real person is with the Lord, praying for us along with all the saints, and the symbol is the immortal memory of her life on earth, especially coupled with her portrayal in the New Testament.
For further study, a good place to start, besides the
Marialus Cultus, is
this article by Timothy George published in January 2007 in
First Things.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
