Comments on: Protestants, Feminists, and the Virgin

By: Gail O

Gail O — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:18:15 +0000

On a personal note, as a Protestant, I did not understand the veneration of Mary. However, there is a painting that changed my mind. It is the Lady of Czestochowa in Poland, also known as the Black Madonna. This painting originated in the 2nd century and is said to have been painted by Luke. Could be true or not. What grabs me about this painting is that Mary looks like a woman from the Holy Land in 2nd century. She is dark, she is thin, and her eyes pierce through you. She looks as though she has suffered great sadness. This is Mary. Not the idealized renderings from the Renaissance. This portrait changed my thoughts of Mary.

By: Sara Curtiss

Sara Curtiss — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:09:18 +0000

Abraham’s faith and obedience make him the vector for the beginning of God’s redemptive work in the OT. Mary serves this purpose in the NT. She is blessed because “she believed that what the Lord said to her would be accomplished,” and she submitted humbly to His will. If we similarly respond to God, we also will have His Son come to dwell in us and be formed in us, and we, too, will manifest Him to the world.

By: Matthew Milliner

Matthew Milliner — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:29:27 +0000

I didn’t know of that article David, and I’m glad to see you go well past Protestant straw men and engage the best arguments. Your comments sound very similar to William Abraham’s intriguing introduction to Tim Perry’s book Mary for Evangelicals:

“It will be interesting to see whether or not Perry can avoid the move to adopt some vision of papal infallibility, once he fully internalizes the robust vision of Mary adopted here.”

On the other hand, as David Cassidy was perhaps suggesting, it is possible to agree with some Catholic teaching on Mary, while disagreeing with Pius IX’s decision to elevate such teachings, in very particular manifestations, to essential matters of faith. Another word for that position, of course, is Orthodoxy.

By: David Mills

David Mills — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:13:37 +0000

I appreciate Matt's post, but I think it is too optimistic, for reasons I gave in my Sharing the Real Mary, written for the Inside Catholic website. This is what David Cassidy is saying from the other side of the question. The "recovery" has severe limits, in accordance, quite rightly, with fundamental Protestant commitments. On another matter, I wouldn't invoke the Orthodox on the Protestant side in this. Their differences with the Catholic Church are over the nature of the dogmas and whether they should be dogmas at all, but they assert as strongly as the Catholic Church the sinlessness of Mary and her being taken into Heaven at her death. The committed Protestant will find himself on this matter no closer to the Orthodox than to the Catholic.

By: Pastor Spomer

Pastor Spomer — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:08:49 +0000

“There is a vast difference between criticizing Mary and criticizing views of her with which one disagrees.”
Indeed David, one can easily imaging Mary shunning adoration as did the angel in Revelation 19:10, “At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! ”

P.S. Nitpick: No offense intended, but Lutherans aren’t Protestants (as the term is usually used today), they’re catholics in protest. I like to call Lutheranism, “An unusually stubborn effort to be catholic.”

By: pentamom

pentamom — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:06:05 +0000

I am not sure the feminist embrace of Mary should be regarded as a good thing by those who honor her, since their reconstruction of her and the use they make of her is in contrast to our faith and hers. If there is a portion of a generation calling her blessed in their own words but those words have an accursed meaning, is that really the same thing?

By: David Cassidy

David Cassidy — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:45:58 +0000

You rightly note there are Protestants who have been writing about Mary and her unique place in redemptive history. Those Protestants however who disagree with devotional practices and prayers directed towards Mary, and dogmatic declarations the Roman Catholic Church has made concerning her status, are not criticizing her, as your opening words infer, but the practices and dogmas themselves. It is in fact a critique of the Church rather than Mary.

There is a vast difference between criticizing Mary and criticizing views of her with which one disagrees. One can be pro-Mary, defending her from the abuse of feminists (for instance) without embracing practices and/or dogmas which large sections of Christendom find novel, superstitious, or even idolatrous. Certainly the faithful Roman Catholic will find the Protestant or Orthodox refusal to embrace as dogma the modern Catholic pronouncements concerning Mary to be dishonoring of her, but this only highlights the larger question of authority which remains the crucial and defining difference among us.