Do you mean you would agree that it's a heresy if it means "equal"? But even if it means "with", what does Mary actually contribute to anyone's redemption? If it is anything at all, then it seems there would be a sharing in the glory for this all important accomplishment. I don't think the Bible supports this at all:
Ps 103:1-4 : Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits — 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, ...
Eph 1:7 : 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace ...
Heb 9:12 : He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.
There are plenty of others and the common denominator is that there is no Mary in any of them. It just seems to me that Christ is lessened if we say that He needed help, AND that we owe thanks to Mary for saving us.
As to "New Eve", wazza big deal? Whatever Mary "is" she is so by the gift of God and not in her own right. If she is "Queen of Heaven" it is not a title inherently hers, but is rather a courtesy title. The "Queen Mother" has no RIGHT to that title. She was queen by marriage not birth and is Queen Mother entirely by courtesy.
I suppose I don't understand the desire to make the connection to Eve or to give her this title. Why does Mary need this additional title? We know that she was "blessed among women" and that she was an honorable and loyal servant of the Lord. In terms of what she would want, I would think that a humble servant would be fine with that. :)
In many ways, I think your comparison to the Queen Mother is apropos. Hers is a title of courtesy and by consent of the people. She also did nothing to merit such a title. Yet, she was an object of great respect and admiration. (This includes, inexplicably, Americans.) While I'm sure she was a very nice person and did some good things, it seems to me that the adoration she received was objectively baseless. I wouldn't imagine that Mary would have wanted to participate in anything like that. Mary was genuinely good and I would think she understood Christ's teaching that the first will be last and the last will be first.
To call us "sons of God" makes us Princes of Heaven in a somewhat similar way, ...
Oh, I don't think so at all. :) Mary is prayed to with her title(s). All believers are sons and daughters of God, but only Mary is the "Queen". I think it's very different.
If God wants to grant gifts and honors to the Theotokos, what's the deal? Shall we be envious because He is generous? Personally, I generally like parties, even when I'm not the guest of honor.
I don't think it's a matter of envy. I think Mary was wonderful, and a role model for all Christians. If God really wanted to grant all the honors and glories given to Mary today, that would be one thing. But I see this as only coming from man. Legitimate honors from God are not without precedent. Christ granted a specific honor to John the Baptist (Luke 7:28). And as I mention above, Mary is also granted a measure of honor in scripture. However, the level some men have decided to raise it to is found no where in scripture. That is why I object. In a sense, I'm even objecting on Mary's behalf.
If you persuade me that I am mistaken in thinking about Mary this way, you will have been (by Grace) Part (a MINOR part, but a part) of the process of bringing me closer to God and to conformity with His will, if only by correcting a misconception I had about Him. You will have shared, my His grace in His redemptive work. -- That's what.
I have to ask. Do you think I am unfamiliar with or have forgotten the tests of Scripture you quote here?
I>It just seems to me that Christ is lessened if we say that He needed help, AND that we owe thanks to Mary for saving us.
I don't think the infinite can be lessened. ANd I owe thanks to people who brought me to to Church, who corrected me, who showed me how Grace could possibly be "irresistible" without crunching my freedom, and on and on and on. I owe so many thanks that they would never give me an Oscar because I'd be there all night and into the next day. I LOVE to give thanks! (Well, okay, not to the IRS, ....) "Thanks" is one name of my chief act of worship, after all, and I see the Grace of God as coming to me in a thousand different ways and through a thousand different conduits. And I think the pipes as well as the Well, and I would be ungenerous, I would be showing that I had not yet drunk so deeply that the suply of thanks was no welling up in me to eternal life If I di dnot thank God for all the people He has given me to thank, and thank him for thinking up gratitude as a thing for me to feel and show. I am in debt all over the place! It's fabulous!
Why does Mary need this additional title?
Mary needs nothing at all! She is full of Grace. But I need to understand how unutterably cosmic the smallest word can be, and how much more beyond the measure of my mind is a woman, a girl really, who gives herself to God, who can say "yes" so intimately and so completely -- by His gift, and bu His gift bring His love into the world. I need to remember that She bore the son who bruised and more, who gave a mortal wound the the head of the ancient serpent.
But even that need is not like."Oh I need to do pushups now," not a burdensome need. It's more like I need to sing because if I don't I'll burst. Like I need to hug my daughter or to kiss my wife.
Without quoting you, yes princes are in some sense "inferior" to queens. I didn't say to the same degree. I said a similar fashion.
You recognize the reference to envy, I hope?
But once again we hit the wall of your thinking that the only revelation of God since well, since back then, is the Bible, and my not thinking about the whole intercourse between God and humanity in the same way at all. Starting with different premises and different modes of argument unsurprisingly leads to different conclusions.
Finally, I think you DO have a cultural "lens". I don't think you get royalty, and how royal titles in another culture are part of the currency of honor. I think the lens not so much of the Reformation as of the Enlightenment and the separation of Church and state provides a distorted understanding of and affect towards this kind of lingo. It's a younger language.
OOPs I'm late for "24".