Posted on 03/13/2005 7:16:00 PM PST by churchillbuff
....In a shift whose ideological breadth is unusual in the fragmented Protestant world, a long-standing wall around Mary appears to be eroding. It is not that Protestants are converting to Catholicism's dramatic exaltation: the singing of Salve Regina, the Rosary's Marian Mysteries, the entreaty to her in the Hail Mary to "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death." Rather, a growing number of Christian thinkers who are neither Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox (another branch of faith to which Mary is central) have concluded that their various traditions have shortchanged her in the very arena in which Protestantism most prides itself: the careful and full reading of Scripture.
Arguments on the Virgin's behalf have appeared in a flurry of scholarly essays and popular articles, on the covers of the usually conservative Christianity Today (headline: The Blessed Evangelical Mary) and the usually liberal Christian Century (St. Mary for protestants). They are being preached, if not yet in many churches then in a denominational cross section—and not just at modest addresses like Maguire's in Xenia but also from mighty pulpits like that at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, where longtime senior pastor John Buchanan recently delivered a major message on the Virgin ending with the words "Hail Mary ... Blessed are you among us all."
This could probably not have happened at some other time. Robert Jenson, author of the respected text Systematic Theology, chuckles when asked whether the pastor of his Lutheran youth would have approved of his (fairly extreme) position that Protestants, like Catholics, should pray for Mary's intercession. "My pastor would have been horrified," he says, adding, "The pastor was my father." Yet today Catholics and Protestants feel freer to explore each other's beliefs and practices. Feminism has encouraged popular speculations on the lives of female biblical figures and the role of the divine feminine (think The Red Tent and The Da Vinci Code). A growing interest, on both the Protestant right and left, in practices and texts from Christianity's first 1,500 years has led to immersion in the habitual Marianism of the early and medieval church. And the influx of millions of Hispanic immigrants from Catholic cultures into American Protestantism may eventually accelerate progress toward a pro-Marian tipping point—on whose other side may lie changes not just in sermon topic but in liturgy, personal piety and a re-evaluation of the actual messages of the Reformation.
The movement is not yet prevalent in the pews. And it has its critics. While granting that Mary shows up more in the New Testament than some churches recognize, Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Southern Seminary, charges that those who use her full record to justify new "theological constructions" around her are guilty of "overreaching," "wishful thinking" and effectively "flirting with Catholic devotion." Yet Lutheran theologian Carl Braaten, co-editor of an essay collection on what might be called Marian upgrade, claims, "We don't have to go back to Catholicism. We can go back to our own roots and sources. It could be done without shocking the congregation. I can't predict how exactly it will happen. Some of it will be good, and some of it may be bad.
But I think it's going to happen." .....
Ping.
That's pretty much the Catholic Church's teaching as well, though we likely disagree on the timing:
As a non-Christian I congratulate you on the most logical post on this thread. :D
Lemme guess - someone's going to say that Mary is dead, not realizing that the saints are more alive than we are.
First I've heard of this and can say now I don't agree with it. Mary was Jesus's mother nothing more and nothing less.
There is only one person in all humanity of whom God has one picture, and in whom there is a perfect conformity between what He wanted her to be and what she is, and that is His Own Mother. The model and the copy are perfect. As Eden was the Paradise of Creation, Mary is the Paradise of th Incarnation. The closer one gets to the fire, the greater the heat; the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. But since no one was ever closer to God than the woman whose human portals He threw open to walk this earth, then no one could have been more pure than she. We do not start with Mary. We start with Christ. The less we think of Him, the less we think of her; the more we think of Him, the more we think of her; the more we adore His Divinity, the more we venerate her Motherhood. It may be objected: 'Our Lord is enough for me. I have no need of her.' But He needed her, whether we do or not. God, Who made the sun, also made the moon. The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. All its light is reflected from the sun. The Blessed Mother reflects her Divine Son; without Him, she is nothing. With Him, she is the Mother of Men. {Archbishop Fulton Sheen, The World's First Love, 1952}
Martin Luther writes very respectfully of Mary and uses all of the Catholic names for her except Queen of Heaven.
A less favorable attitude, and even occasional scorn for Mary, gradually came into the Protestant churches probably because they wanted to separate themselves from the Catholic Church.
swmobuffalo has written above that Mary was Jesus' mother, nothing more and nothing less. Being Jesus' mother is, however, if you think about it, something pretty unusual in human history.
All grace comes from God, but Jesus listens to the prayers of the faithful, and whom would he be more likely to listen to than to His mother? When she asks him to do something in the Bible, He does it.
Catholics do not worship Mary. We worship God.
http://www.catholic.com/library/mary_saints.asp
As prophesied she had to be of the House of David, be a virgin, etc.
In short, she's not just Jesus' mother, she is a person whose existence was prophesied ~ and other than the Messiah Himself, there really aren't all that many people like that.
Still not going to take up devotions to Mary though ~ she's still on the same kharmic wheel as the rest of us, waiting on the End Times and the Final Judgment.
Absolutely ridiculous statement. The Old Testament had been existence for some time. Or don't the Catholics consider that the Bible?
Not to mention that the New Testament scriptures were also voraciously read and taught from...they just hadn't been collated yet.
Me either. Probably Catholic wishful thinking. Not that I am anti-Catholic per se.
This has to do with the communion of saints, part of the Apostles Creed. It's interesting to me that many protestants hold this creed, but apparently we disagree on the meaning of the communion of saints therein.
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In Her 6 Appearances before 3 small deeply religious children at -FATIMA- Portugal in 1917 the Blessed Virgin Mary predicted:
-The Rise of a World Communism in Russia that hadn't yet been created
-A Coming World War II over 20 years ahead of time
-The soon approaching death of 2 of these 3 Portugese children which quickly came to pass. The 3rd child, a lifelong Carmelite Nun LUCIA, passed on last February 12th at age 97 looking decades younger then her age.
-The attempted assassination of Pope JOHN PAUL II over 60 years ahead of time.
Not your ordinary Mother of JESUS, perhaps..?
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I can't find anything in my Bible about an "Invisible Church." Got a reference?
Mary was a sinner saved by grace just as any sinner. Silly to think she was sinless as those who believe in the immaculate conception do.
Luther's words follow:
It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary's soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God's gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin.
(Sermon: "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," December [?] 1527; from Hartmann Grisar, S.J., Luther, authorised translation from the German by E.M. Lamond; edited by Luigi Cappadelta, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, first edition, 1915, Vol. IV [of 6], p. 238; taken from the German Werke, Erlangen, 1826-1868, edited by J.G. Plochmann and J.A. Irmischer, 2nd ed. edited by L. Enders, Frankfurt, 1862 ff., 67 volumes; citation from 152, p. 58)
She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin- something exceedingly great. For God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil.
(Personal {"Little"} Prayer Book, 1522)
Maybe that part was written in invisible ink.
Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.
Wow...what a bunch of extra-Biblical nonsense.
"Could be true, some sectors of "protestantism" are degrading.."
Yep, right back to where they started -- the truth.
I'll play it safe and not go out on a limb like that but show a little bit more respect..........And I'm an agnostic most of the time.
Would you tell George W. Bush to his face that, "Barbara is the President's mother nothing more and nothing less"?
Well this is the thing, Saint Bernadette said that Mary appeared to her and said she was the immaculate conception (I don't know what that means) BUT
what's wierd is, Saint Bernadettes body is in a glass coffin on display, and her body is uncorrupted. It hasn't decomposed! It hasn't rotted, or, I'm not any religion but things like that make me wonder.
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