Replies

FK: "To a person who didn't know what was behind it, "mother of God" "sounds" bad for the reasons already discussed."

Do we really have to redefine our terms because some people don't know enough to figure such things out correctly? Political correctness run amok!

Where in the world do you get political correctness out of this? You don't "have" to redefine anything if you use the term and don't care what the theologically uneducated think. I am just saying that to the average uneducated American Christian, the term, by itself, will lead to thoughts of your faith that you would say are completely wrong. If that is fine with you, then OK. If it isn't and you still want to use the term, then you will have to offer an explanation to go with it for the uneducated.

I am not sure what you expect of an uneducated person in terms of "figuring it out". On its face, the term does appear to stand by itself. Were I an average uneducated Christian and heard that your faith strongly stands behind that term, I would just dismiss your faith outright as a cult or something. I would be wrong, of course, but I do think it would be a "normal" reaction.

"I am not sure what you expect of an uneducated person in terms of "figuring it out". On its face, the term does appear to stand by itself. Were I an average uneducated Christian and heard that your faith strongly stands behind that term, I would just dismiss your faith outright as a cult or something. I would be wrong, of course, but I do think it would be a "normal" reaction."

Odd comment, but marvelously ethnocentric, FK. A "normal" reaction? The simple fact is that every last Orthodox person on earth, every last Roman Catholic person on earth, every last Oriental Orthodox, likely every Lutheran and Anglican, on earth knows exactly what "Mother of God" means when applied to +Mary. That's, oh, 1,600,000,000+/- people, FK. Now my great grandmother from Greece had no education, I doubt she could even read, let alone spell Theotokos, but she only referred to the Mother of God as the Most Holy Theotokos, Panagia (the all holy one) or Panagitsa mou, my little all holy one. I guarantee that when she said those words, she didn't think that +Mary was the mother of the Trinity she praised and proclaimed every single day of her life.

There is no misunderstanding or mystery with the term. The misunderstanding, if indeed there is such, arises exclusively from the abysmal, simplistic "common sense" teaching which, it seems, goes on in sola scriptura assemblies.