Growing number of Protestants taking a closer look at Mary

Beverly Roberts Gaventa had never thought much about the Virgin Mary. She was, after all, a Presbyterian who was rather suspicious of all the attention lavished on the mother of Jesus.

So when she was asked to help edit a book about Mary, Gaventa at first declined. ''I can't do that,'' she said. ''I'm a Protestant.''

But the more she explored Mary, the more Gaventa grew to like her. As a mother, Gaventa found a maternal kinship. As a Christian, she found a soul mate who wrestled at times with God's will. This Mary had a strong faith, with real questions and real emotions.

''For most Protestants, Mary is little more than a character in the Christmas story,'' she writes in her new book, ''Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary.''

''She creeps into our consciousness along with the Advent wreath,'' she writes, ''making a brief appearance perhaps in sermon and song, and then she disappears along with the creche, no later than Epiphany.''

Gaventa, a professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, is one of a growing number of Protestant theologians who say it's time for Protestant churches to give Mary another look.

''It's clear in the Gospel of Luke that all generations will call Mary blessed, and we really haven't done that,'' Gaventa said. ''What we're saying is that attention we have given Mary is very negative rather than the positive attention she might deserve.''

For Christianity's first 1,500 years, Mary fared pretty well. Her legacy birthed universities, conquests and cathedrals. But then, with the Protestant Reformation, Mary became a theological lightning rod between Protestants and Catholics.

Protestants, led by Martin Luther, were concerned that Mary and all the saints had usurped the importance of God's grace in the salvation process. The statues, the stained glass, the rosaries were all too much for the iconoclastic Luther. In the process, Mary dropped off the Protestant radar screen.

''After the Reformation, Catholics had a severe case of fixation on Mary and Protestants had a severe case of amnesia,'' said Sister Elizabeth Johnson, a theologian at Fordham University in New York. ''We went into our extremes.''

Things only deteriorated when, in 1854, Pope Pius IX declared that Mary had been born without the stain of original sin --- the Immaculate Conception --- and in 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared that Mary did not die like other mortals but had been ''assumed body and soul into the glory of heaven'' --- the Assumption of Mary.

Both doctrines carried the weight of papal infallibility. Most Protestants rejected both because neither is explicitly found in Scripture, and they were equally uncomfortable placing Mary too close to the throne of her son, Jesus, the ''one mediator'' between man and God.

Johnson, who conceded that some Catholics ''went off the rails'' in their devotion to Mary, spent eight years on a Catholic-Lutheran dialogue team discussing the issue. The group's final report in 1990 said Catholic prayers to saints are neither ''idolatrous or injurious'' to Christian faith, but ''must be protected against abuse.''

The 1990 statement was the first major step in dismantling the theological wall that had grown up around Mary and separated Protestants from Catholics.

Joel Green, an evangelical professor at Asbury Theological Seminary who contributed to Gaventa's book, said there is much that even conservative Protestants can learn from Mary.

Green said Mary --- immaculate or not, assumed or otherwise --- really teaches all Christians about evangelicals' two favorite words: faith and grace. The Christmas story, he said, ''is much more about the Holy Spirit than gynecology.''

''Her sin or sinlessness is not on the table,'' said Green, a Methodist. ''What is on the table is God's grace and her embracing the vocation God has put before her . . . that's the bottom line. I don't need an immaculate conception to get there.''

Many Catholics could agree with that, though many also would go further. The Rev. Johann Roten, director of the world's largest Marian library at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said both sides can agree that Mary was, in fact, the first Christian.

''Who is the ultimate embodiment of the Christian faith?'' said Roten, a Catholic priest. ''It's Mary. Everything begins with her. It's because of her 'yes' that things begin to happen. The nativity was possible only through the naked faith of Mary.''

Certainly there are aspects about Mary that will continue to divide the two sides. Nancy Duff, who teaches with Gaventa at Princeton, argues that Mary makes a strong case for women's ordination, a notion that would offend most Catholic leaders.

Duff, also a contributor to Gaventa's book, said Protestants will still ''recoil'' from the idea of praying to Mary or displaying statues. In other words, don't look for a St. Mary's Baptist Church any time soon.

''We don't venerate the saints, but we can see Mary as a significant biblical figure who gives witness to Christ,'' she said. ''There's just no reason for us to overlook Mary.''

The Protestant Reformers on Mary

7. THE PROTESTANT REFORMERS ON MARY

When Fundamentalists study the writings of the Reformers on Mary, the Mother of Jesus, they will find that the Reformers accepted almost every major Marian doctrine and considered these doctrines to be both scriptural and fundamental to the historic Christian Faith.

Martin Luther:

Mary the Mother of God

Throughout his life Luther maintained without change the historic Christian affirmation that Mary was the Mother of God:

"She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God."¹

Perpetual Virginity

Again throughout his life Luther held that Mary's perpetual virginity was an article of faith for all Christians - and interpreted Galatians 4:4 to mean that Christ was "born of a woman" alone.

"It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a Virgin."²

The Immaculate Conception

Yet again the Immaculate Conception was a doctrine Luther defended to his death (as confirmed by Lutheran scholars like Arthur Piepkorn). Like Augustine, Luther saw an unbreakable link between Mary's divine maternity, perpetual virginity and Immaculate Conception. Although his formulation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not clear-cut, he held that her soul was devoid of sin from the beginning:

"But the other conception, namely the infusion of the soul, it is piously and suitably believed, was without any sin, so that while the soul was being infused, she would at the same time be cleansed from original sin and adorned with the gifts of God to receive the holy soul thus infused. And thus, in the very moment in which she began to live, she was without all sin..."³

Assumption

Although he did not make it an article of faith, Luther said of the doctrine of the Assumption:

"There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know."⁴

Honor to Mary

Despite his unremitting criticism of the traditional doctrines of Marian mediation and intercession, to the end Luther continued to proclaim that Mary should be honored. He made it a point to preach on her feast days.

"The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart."⁵

"Is Christ only to be adored? Or is the holy Mother of God rather not to be honoured? This is the woman who crushed the Serpent's head. Hear us. For your Son denies you nothing."⁶ Luther made this statement in his last sermon at Wittenberg in January 1546.

John Calvin: It has been said that John Calvin belonged to the second generation of the Reformers and certainly his theology of double predestination governed his views on Marian and all other Christian doctrine . Although Calvin was not as profuse in his praise of Mary as Martin Luther he did not deny her perpetual virginity. The term he used most commonly in referring to Mary was "Holy Virgin".

"Elizabeth called Mary Mother of the Lord, because the unity of the person in the two natures of Christ was such that she could have said that the mortal man engendered in the womb of Mary was at the same time the eternal God."⁷
"Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ."⁸ Calvin translated "brothers" in this context to mean cousins or relatives.
"It cannot be denied that God in choosing and destining Mary to be the Mother of his Son, granted her the highest honor."⁹
"To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Son."¹⁰

Ulrich Zwingli:

"It was given to her what belongs to no creature, that in the flesh she should bring forth the Son of God."¹¹
"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin."¹² Zwingli used Exodus 4:22 to defend the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
"I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary."¹³
"Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin."¹⁴
"It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother."¹⁵
"The more the honor and love of Christ increases among men, so much the esteem and honor given to Mary should grow."¹⁶

We might wonder why the Marian affirmations of the Reformers did not survive in the teaching of their heirs - particularly the Fundamentalists. This break with the past did not come through any new discovery or revelation. The Reformers themselves (see above) took a benign even positive view of Marian doctrine - although they did reject Marian mediation because of their rejection of all human mediation. Moreover, while there were some excesses in popular Marian piety, Marian doctrine as taught in the pre-Reformation era drew its inspiration from the witness of Scripture and was rooted in Christology. The real reason for the break with the past must be attributed to the iconoclastic passion of the followers of the Reformation and the consequences of some Reformation principles. Even more influential in the break with Mary was the influence of the Enlightenment Era which essentially questioned or denied the mysteries of faith.

Unfortunately the Marian teachings and preachings of the Reformers have been "covered up" by their most zealous followers - with damaging theological and practical consequences. This "cover-up" can be detected even in Chosen by God: Mary in Evangelical Perspective, an Evangelical critique of Mariology. One of the contributors admits that "Most remarkable to modern Protestants is the Reformers' almost universal acceptance of Mary's continuing virginity, and their widespread reluctance to declare Mary a sinner". He then asks if it is "a favourable providence" that kept these Marian teachings of the Reformers from being "transmitted to the Protestant churches"!¹⁷

What is interpreted as "Providence" by a Marian critic may legitimately be interpreted as a force of a very different kind by a Christian who has recognized the role of Mary in God’s plan.

NOTES

^{1 Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], volume 24, 107.
2 Martin Luther, op. cit., Volume 11, 319-320.
3 Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works,
English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St.
Louis], Volume 4, 694.
4 [Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works (Translation by William J. Cole) 10, p. 268.
5 [Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works
(Translation by William J. Cole) 10, III, p.313.
6 Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Volume 51, 128-129.
7 John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900], Volume 45, 35.
8 Bernard Leeming, "Protestants and Our Lady", Marian Library Studies, January 1967, p.9.
9 John Calvin, Calvini Opera [Braunshweig-Berlin, 1863-1900], Volume 45, 348.
10 John Calvin, A Harmony of Matthew, Mark and Luke (St. Andrew's Press, Edinburgh, 1972), p.32.
11 Ulrich Zwingli, In Evang. Luc., Opera Completa [Zurich, 1828-42], Volume 6, I, 639
12 Ulrich Zwingli, Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Volume 1, 424.
13 E. Stakemeier, De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, K. Balic, ed., (Rome, 1962), 456.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ulrich Zwingli, Zwingli Opera, Corpus Reformatorum, Volume 1, 427-428.
17 David F. Wright, ed., Chosen by God: Mary in Evangelical Perspective (London: Marshall Pickering, 1989), 180.}

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