Posted on 11/02/2006 12:44:03 PM PST by Alex Murphy
The Lost Soul of Scott Hahn
By John W. Robbins
Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism. Scott and Kimberly Hahn. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993. Foreword by Peter Kreeft
What sorts of people write autobiographies when they are healthy and well at 35? Generally there are three sorts: egotists, egomaniacs, and megalomaniacs. There seems to be no other plausible reason for writing the story of one's life when it has barely begun. But the fawning Peter Kreeft, a confused mind who wrote the Foreword for this book, disagrees. According to Kreeft, Scott and Kimberly Hahn are "one of the beautiful and bright-shining stars in the firmament of hope for our desperate days." The Hahns, writes Kreeft shamelessly, "are simply very bright, clear-thinking and irrefutably reasonable... passionately in love with Truth and with honesty. They are incapable of fudging anything except fudge." Kreeft calls the Hahns "stars" for only one reason: their noisy rejection of Christianity and conversion to Roman Catholicism. They have no other "achievement."
I once knew Scott Hahn. I met him about twelve years ago when he was a Presbyterian minister living in the Washington, D.C. area. (I had spoken to Hahn by phone before that: When he was a student at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, I paid him to record the guest lectures of Gordon Clark at the seminary.) Being an administrative assistant to a Member of Congress at the time, I invited Hahn (and others) to speak to a group of Congressional staffers, and he spoke on his favorite topic, "familism," which is his apotheosis of the family. At the time I had no knowledge of Hahn's real theological views; I was naive enough to think that a Presbyterian minister actually believed Presbyterian doctrine, and Hahn dissembled well enough. He fooled me, and a number of other people as well. In a discussion I had with Hahn after his lecture, it became clear that one of Hahn's preoccupations – in addition to his obsession with the notion of family – was eschatology: He was a postmillennialist who had been heavily influenced by the Reconstructionist movement. In fact, he was the (unordained) pastor of a Reconstructionist church in Fairfax, Virginia.
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Romeward Bound
Hahn is one of a few seminary-trained, apparently well-educated Protestant ministers who have joined the Roman Catholic Church over the last few years. The Hahns have gained some notoriety from their speeches and tapes, and now this book, which is based on their speeches, will add to that notoriety. One remark his wife makes in this book suggests that Hahn's desire to be noticed is great: "Scott suffered tremendous loneliness. He was misunderstood and rejected by many Protestant friends who didn't want to talk to him.... He felt that former professors didn't think he was worth pursuing to convince him he was wrong [about Scripture]. And he couldn't understand the nonchalance of a number of [Roman] Catholics at Marquette [University, where Hahn was a student at the time] over his conversion, acting rather hohum over the whole thing, rather than welcoming him for all he had risked and left behind" (109). What good is being a martyr if no one notices you?
Two other men defected to Rome as a result of Hahn's influence: his seminary classmate Gerald Matatics, and Presbyterian Church in America minister William Bales. Other defections, such as that of author Thomas Howard, are apparently unrelated to Hahn's. Why were these men seduced by Rome? The answers to that question are complex. Each man's seduction is probably unique. But there are some features of Hahn's seduction that reveal fatal weaknesses in what passes for contemporary Protestant Christianity. Today Hahn teaches at the Franciscan Seminary of Steubenville (Ohio), a charismatic Roman Catholic institution. His wife, the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, is also a graduate of Gordon-Conwell: She wanted to be a pastor, she says.
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Liberalism and Arminianism
The first of the reasons for Hahn's conversion to Romanism is liberalism and Arminianism. Hahn tells us that he was "baptized a Presbyterian" and "raised in a nominal Protestant home. Church and religion played a small role in my life and for my family...." As a teenager, he was a drug-using criminal who lied his way out of jail: "Faced with a yearlong sentence to a detention center for a variety of charges, I barely lied my way out of the sentence and into six months of probation instead" (1). In high school Hahn became active in Young Life, an Arminian evangelistic group. There he read Paul Little and C. S. Lewis. He also had some religious experiences: "Before finishing my sophomore year, I experienced the transforming power of God's grace in conversion. Within the next year, I experienced a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a personal and life-changing way." Apparently Hahn had both a conversion experience and a charismatic experience in high school. In his senior year, he met the Presbyterian John Gerstner, "one of my favorite theologians" (31). While in high school, Hahn also became enamored of Luther and Calvin, apparently because they appealed to his need for heroes: "I decided the figures in Christian history who most appealed to me...were the great protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin" (5). But the theologies of Luther and Calvin seemed to play relatively small parts in Hahn's thinking; he was fascinated by other things. A guitarist, Hahn liked modern music: "The summer before going off to college, I toured the United States, Scotland, England and Holland, playing guitar in a Christian musical group, the Continentals" (13). Hahn attended the theologically liberal but economically conservative Grove City College, a college affiliated with the mainline Presbyterian church, where he concentrated in theology, philosophy, and economics, and continued his activity in Young Life. While in college, Hahn "discovered that the covenant was really the key for unlocking the whole Bible" (17). Beware the man who thinks he has discovered some sort of "key" for understanding the Bible, whether it is the idea of covenant, a scheme of dispensations (instituted by covenants), or a five-point covenantal model.
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Thomism and Evidentialism
The second major factor influencing Hahn's conversion to Rome seems to be the official Roman Catholic philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and evidentialism. While at nominally Protestant Grove City College, Hahn "had become enamored with and steeped in the philosophy of Saint Thomas. In spite of my anti-Catholic outlook, I had known a good thing when I found it, and in my mind, no one could compare to Aquinas.... I had devoured his philosophical writings, especially his metaphysics, eventually acquiring the odd and unlikely reputation for being an ‘evangelical Thomist' " (101).
During his first years in Gordon-Conwell Seminary, 1979-81, Hahn suffered from a confused mental state: "At this point I would describe my study as a detective story. I was searching Scripture to discover clues as to the whereabouts of real Christianity" (25). Although Hahn does not mention it in the book, his tuition at Gordon-Conwell was paid by a Calvinist Christian businessman who wanted to support a student who understood both free market economics and Christian theology, for the purpose of being able to teach economics to clergymen and Christian theology to economists. Hahn was highly recommended to the businessman by the Chairman of the Economics Department at Grove City. What Hahn learned at Grove City was Thomism, and his interest in economics – which he says he studied only to mollify his "practical" father, not because he was genuinely interested in the subject – has disappeared. Hahn's obsession is to convert Christians to Catholicism, not to educate clergymen about principles of economics or economists about Christian theology. He owes one Christian businessman many thousand dollars and his former economics professor an apology.
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Justitication by Works and Norman Shepherd
While he was at Gordon-Conwell being supported by a Calvinist Christian businessman, Hahn adopted the Roman Catholic view of justification: "When Christ formed the New Covenant with us, then, it was much more than a simple contract or legal exchange, where he took our sin and gave us his righteousness, as Luther and Calvin explained it.... In fact, I discovered that nowhere did Saint Paul ever teach that we were justified by faith alone! Sola fide was unscriptural! "I was so excited about this discovery. I shared it with some friends, who were amazed at how much sense it made. Then one friend stopped me and asked if I knew who else was teaching this way on justification. When I responded that I didn't, he told me that Dr. Norman Shepherd, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary (the strictest Presbyterian Calvinist seminary in America) was about to undergo a heresy trial for teaching the same view of justification that I was expounding. "So I called Professor Shepherd and talked with him. He said he was accused of teaching something contrary to the teachings of Scripture, Luther and Calvin. As I heard him describe what he was teaching, I thought, Hey, that is what I'm saying" (30-31).
As for Kimberly, "At this point [more than halfway through seminary] I was not steeped in Reformation theology, so the change in how I viewed justification did not seem momentous" (42). Please consider the import of that statement. Here are two graduates of a Presbyterian College, two students nearing completion of their studies at reputedly one of the best evangelical Protestant seminaries in the country, two professing Christians – and the meaning of justification is not all that important to them. As we shall soon see, despite – or rather because of – their education, the Hahns – especially Scott – could not defend the Reformation principles of the Bible alone, faith alone, and Christ alone.
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Reconstructionism and Theonomy
The fourth major influence on Hahn's conversion to Romanism was the Reconstructionist movement. After attending seminary, Hahn had intended to study theology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where he had been acc.epted, but he changed his mind because of Margaret Thatcher: "Margaret Thatcher made it almost impossible for Americans to have babies at British taxpayers' expense; so we took this as sign for us to look elsewhere for work, delaying doctoral studies for a while" (32). Not having paid for his own education, Hahn apparently did not intend to pay for his children either. The principles of economics seem to have been quite forgotten.
Instead, Hahn was hired as pastor and schoolteacher by a Reconstructionist church in Fairfax, Virginia: "When I candidated for the position at Trinity Presbyterian Church, I shared my views and concerns regarding justification – that I took Dr. Shepherd's position. They understood and said they did, too. So shortly before graduation, I accepted the pastorate at Trinity, as well as a teaching position in their high school, Fairfax Christian School" (33). The Reconstuctionist church was not fooled: They knew quite well that Hahn had defected from the Biblical doctrine of justification by faith, and they wanted him for that reason.
While pastoring the Reconstructionist church, Hahn "began to see how important liturgy was for the covenant.... Liturgy represented the way God fathered the covenant family..." (43). "My parishioners grew excited. The elders even asked me to revise our liturgy." While teaching his ideas at the school, his Roman Catholicism was so obvious that several of his students told him he would join the Roman Catholic church. (Someone should write a book about Reconstructionist churches and their affinity for Roman Catholic and Orthodox liturgy and doctrine.) Hahn was also invited to teach at Dominion Theological Institute (which later merged with Chesapeake Theological Seminary). During this period he became convinced of the Roman doctrine that Jesus Christ was physically present in the bread and the wine. Thus, when one participates in mass, one is eating the physical body and drinking the physical blood of Christ. The proper name for the practice – if Catholics were actually doing what they dogmatically assert that they are doing – is ritual cannibalism.
Hahn was also teaching his seminary students – contrary to what the seminary itself believed, contrary to what he was being paid to teach, and without informing the leadership of the seminary – that justification by faith alone was false. The fact that he was denying the Christian doctrine of justification while being paid to teach it does not seem to bother him. Oddly, Hahn opens his book with this story designed to illustrate his lifelong honesty: "I recall the last time I ever attended our family's church. The minister was preaching all about his doubts regarding the Virgin Birth of Jesus and his bodily Resurrection. I just stood up in the middle of his sermon and walked out. I remember thinking, I'm not sure what I believe, but at least I'm honest enough not to stand up and attack the things I'm supposed to teach" (1). But that is exactly what Hahn did when he taught seminary classes, and that is exactly what he did when he accepted money for seminary tuition under false pretenses. After Hahn attacked sola fide in his seminary classes in Virginia, one of the students challenged him to defend sola scriptura. He could not (51-52). After seven years in "Protestant" educational institutions, and now a Presbyterian minister, Hahn, who by all accounts was an excellent student, could not defend the major principles of the Protestant Reformation.
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Messages from God and Mary
The Hahns left Virginia and moved back to Grove City, where Scott took a job as assistant to the college president and instructor in theology, of all things. Liberalism, Arminianism, Thomism, evidentialism, and Reconstructionism had persuaded Hahn of the truth of Catholicism, and now Mary clinched the argument: Hahn began feeling that God was "calling me into the [Roman] Catholic Church" (60). Scott and Kimberly got "feelings," "leadings," "nudges," "peace," "impressions," and "callings," – alleged messages from God and his mother, Mary. While teaching theology at Grove City College, Hahn drove down to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh for theology classes. There he was "the only student defending Pope John Paul II!" (66), and there he first became involved with Opus Dei (67). After someone mailed him a Rosary, Hahn decided to perform an experiment by praying to Mary about an "impossible situation." Hahn prayed, and the impossible situation resolved itself within three months. In Hahn's irrational mind, praying the Rosary obviously worked. As a result, Hahn now prays to Mary daily.
That, of course, is how all superstitions begin: committing the logical fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Leaving Grove City, Hahn decided to continue his studies at Marquette University. While in Milwaukee he learned that his seminary classmate, Gerald Matatics, was going to be absorbed into the Roman Catholic church two weeks later at Easter, 1986. Hahn, who had talked Matatics into Roman Catholicism, could not stand to have him go first, yet Hahn had promised his wife that he would not become a Roman Catholic until 1990. He asked her to pray about releasing him from his promise, and she did so. Hahn and Matatics were both absorbed by the Roman Catholic Church in 1986. Hahn says that he "had fallen head over heels in love with our Lord in the Eucharist!" (88).
Kimberly was jealous of Scott's long walks and talks with Mary. During Christmas 1986 Kimberly, who was pregnant, got a "word from the Lord" concerning her baby (115). When the baby was baptized a Roman Catholic, Kimberly "was astounded at the beauty of the liturgy" (117). Kimberly "came to appreciate that [baby] Hannah had become a child of God through baptism, being born again by water and the Spirit. As I studied baptism, it connected with what I had already done on justification. As with Scott, my study in seminary had led me to reject as unscriptural the Protestant teaching of justification by faith alone" (137). Note well: "As with Scott, my study in seminary had led me to reject as unscriptural the Protestant teaching of justification by faith alone."
When Hahn was confirmed, he chose Francis de Sales as his "patron saint," because "de Sales happened to be the Bishop of Geneva, Switzerland, while John Calvin was leading the people farther away from the Catholic Faith.... [He] was such an effective preacher and apologist that, through his sermons and pamphlets, over forty thousand Calvinists were brought back into the Church" (133).
John Gerstner and Robert Knudsen
Before defecting to Rome, Hahn and Matatics had met with John Gerstner, the evidentialist Presbyterian theologian who was unable to persuade them of the errors of Roman Catholicism. After his conversion, Hahn debated with Robert Knudsen, the Dooyeweerdian and Van Tilian professor of apologetics at Westminster Seminary, about sola fide and sola scriptura. Hahn writes: "I never dreamed of such a positive outcome. Not only did the Westminster Seminary students in attendance express their surprise and excitement at the end," his wife was impressed too. I have listened to that debate on cassette tape, and Apologetics Professor Knudsen's performance is embarrassing and incompetent.
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Meeting the Pope
In January 1992, Dr. Jerry Kirk, Hahn's father-in-law, a Presbyterian minister in Cincinnati, invited Hahn to accompany him to Rome to meet the pope. There he met the "Holy Father" for a few seconds and the next day went to a chapel for mass with the pope. He embraced the pope, giving him a personal letter and a check. "As I left the presence of Pope John Paul II – the one anointed by my heavenly Father and eldest Brother to shepherd the covenant family of God on earth – I had a strong sense that God was saying, ‘Scott, the best is yet to come' " (172). Hahn does not explain this dark, oracular saying: Does it mean that he will be elected the first American pope? Appointed cardinal? Invited to Rome to join the Vatican lowerarchy? Named Grand Inquisitor? We are not told.
The State of Contemporary "Protestantism"
Hahn's defection is one of several similar defections. They are occurring, not because Rome is a true church, but because of the apostasy of "Protestantism." The largest American Protestant denominations are either unbelieving or unknowing, priding themselves on their rejection of Scripture, their vacuous faith, or their limited knowledge. Many smaller denominations and independent churches are in little better condition. They are largely Arminian – which is semi-Romanist already, believing in man's free will; revivalist – which is informed by Roman Catholic experientialism; or charismatic – which continues Rome's theology of miracles and gifts. American "Protestantism" is mostly Roman Catholic already. Some of the more conservative churches have been led astray by Reconstructionism, by religiously cooperative efforts in the anti-abortion movement, by programs of social and political reform. Just when the preaching of the Gospel is most urgently needed, it is rarely heard in "Protestant" pulpits. It is doubtful that most graduates of theological schools could give a clear and accurate summary of the Gospel. The Roman Catholic church is by far the largest ecclesiastical organization in America with about 58 million subjects; it operates tens of thousands of churches, thousands of schools, and hundreds of colleges. Worldwide, it claims more than 950 million subjects. Its loyal American subjects are becoming more and more militant in every area. Hahn's own zeal for the pope is reflected not only in this book, but in the scores of tapes he and his wife have produced and which have been distributed by the hundreds of thousands. Only the grace of God can save us from another Dark Age and the church that Luther recognized as the slaughterhouse of souls.
May God send forth his light and his truth.
Scripture says that there is no other name by which men are to be saved except that of Christ Jesus.
Ergo, all sons and daughters of Adam, without exception, need a Savior.
What a little piece of envy and vitriol. Obviously written by a dejected soul, desperate clinging to ineffectual beliefs he insists are the core of Christianity, but aren't.
Hip hip hooray for Scott Hahn, his move to Rome, and for his "familism." May the Lord continue blessing and increasing his ministry.
-Theo
Completely incorrect. "No where does it say that men are saved through the church,
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her," (Ephesians 5:25)
That says He gave his life for the church not that the church saves anyone . Please read what it says, not what you want it to say.
Christ also speaks of the role in the Church as having authority in disputes:
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. (Matt 18:17)
That does not speak to the men being saved through the church
"And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongue (1Co 12:28)
Out of curiosity do you see the roll of priest or pope listed in the new church?
Where does the Nt teach a continuing unbloody sacrifice?
Hbr 10:12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
The NT church has no priesthood and no popes and no sacrifices as that typology has been fulfilled.
Back at'cha.
Out of curiosity do you see the roll of priest or pope listed in the new church?
The English word "priest" comes from the Greek presbyter, which translates directly as "elder". Go ahead and tell me there are no "elders" described in your Bible.
The English word "bishop" comes from the Greek episcopos, or "overseer". You might look that up also.
Where does the Nt teach a continuing unbloody sacrifice?
Try Hebrews 9.
"The Coptics and Orthodox (if I understand correctly), don't believe the Mary was taken to heaven before death."
You understand correctly and her assumption after death is not dogma but rather a theologoumennon, though virtually all Orthodox, so far as I am aware, do believe it.
Basically what you're demonstrating is that, for you, "scripturally ignorant" is a synonym for "don't accept manmade Protestant fundamentalist doctrines and interpretations".
I'll gladly sign up to be that kind of "scripturally ignorant," then. I seek to know Christ and him crucified, not your manmade doctrines.
"Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you." (Luke 1:28)
Thank you for making my point with that scripture .
The recognized definition for grace is "Gods UNMERITED Favor "
Mary did not merit the" favor" of God, because like all men she was a sinner in need of a Savior. She knew that and said that . She would be saved by His mercy as are all sinners .
Mary did not contribute one ounce of the Divinity of Christ. Christ divine nature had existed for all time. Mary contributed only the human nature of Christ. God did not need a goddess as a mother, He needed a flesh and blood woman .
To believe that Christ demanded a sinless womb because he was God mocks the fact that God became a man, walked the dirty streets and had to wash his feet, he ate and drank with sinners and drunks. Christ did not hide from the sin of His creation, He embraced the sinners He came to save.
ears_to_hear, how do suppose it is that original sin is transmitted from parent to off-spring? Do you believe that Christ inherited original sin?
It is generally taught that original sin comes by the father not the mother. .just as sin came by Adam
But even given that is a generally held "theory" why would God have to produce a sinless woman so she could have a sinless son. Obviously if He could make Mary sinless He could have made Christ sinless.
"Most Catholics could not find a book in the bible without an index. Most consider the readings at church on Sunday a kind of Bible study"
Really, such a silly petulant statement. How is again you know what over a billion people can and can't find in their Bibles? And how is it you know what over a billion people do and do not consider bible study?
and here I thought I was a mindnumbed robot of Rush Limbaugh. But instead I am a mindnumbed robot of Scott Hahn's.
Can you be a mindnumbed robot of more than one person?
"Sinners" aren't "full of grace," sorry.
The Greek word is even worse for your case, it's kecharitomene, which is a perfect passive participle of charitoo ("to grace"). The use of the perfect passive participle makes kecharitomene mean "already fully graced as a result of a past action".
And to believe the Christ, who, alone among all men, created His own mother, could fulfill the commandment "Honor thy father and thy mother" by creating her in a state of sin means either that sin constitutes honor (which means the scriptures lie when they say that everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin) or that Christ failed to fulfill the Law perfectly (which means the scriptures lie when they say He was without sin).
And that's how ALL Christians "learned the Bible" until Gutenberg invented printing. Seems to have worked pretty well for centuries.
"Go to a protestant service. People take off their coats as an indication they intend to stay and pay some attention . See them sit with the bibles open to the passages to see if they are being taught in context and quoted correctly. To study means to concentrate on, investigate, discuss and look at other scriptures to see if it is correctly being applied."
Only possible "post Gutenberg".
The title Priest is VERY SPECIFIC it is the one that preformed the sacrifices in the temple
Priest... hiereus {hee-er-yooce'}
1) a priest, one who offers sacrifices and in general in busied with sacred rites
a) referring to priests of Gentiles or the Jews,
2) metaph. of Christians, because, purified by the blood of Christ and brought into close intercourse with God, they devote their life to him alone and to Christ
Elder
presbuteros
1) elder, of age,
a) the elder of two people
b) advanced in life, an elder, a senior
1) forefathers
2) a term of rank or office
a) among the Jews
1) members of the great council or Sanhedrin (because in early times the rulers of the people, judges, etc., were selected from elderly men)
2) of those who in separate cities managed public affairs and administered justice
b) among the Christians, those who presided over the assemblies (or churches) The NT uses the term bishop, elders, and presbyters interchangeably
c) the twenty four members of the heavenly Sanhedrin or court seated on thrones around the throne of God
God chose to have the NT written in Greek, because it is a precise language. While English may lump together the two words the greek is precise (much as we see in the word love)
They are not the same in meaning or function to the writers of the NT . The Priesthood was a type, Jesus fulfilled that type. He was both the High Priest and the Lamb.
There was no longer a need for sacrifices Jesus fulfilled the OT, so there was no longer a role for Priest
God destroyed the Priesthood in 70 Ad as it was no longer needed.
The English word "bishop" comes from the Greek episcopos, or "overseer". You might look that up also.
I am aware of the term Bishop, but no pope in that , no cardinals, no magistrum
Where does the Nt teach a continuing unbloody sacrifice?
Try Hebrews 9.
You might want to keep reading
Hbr 10:1
| For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. | |
| For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. | |
| But in those [sacrifices there is] a remembrance again [made] of sins every year. | |
| For [it is] not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. | |
| Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: | |
| In burnt offerings and [sacrifices] for sin thou hast had no pleasure. | |
| Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. | |
| Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and [offering] for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure [therein]; which are offered by the law; | |
| Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. | |
| By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once [for all]. | |
| And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: | |
| But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; | |
| From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. | |
| For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. | |
| There is no scripture teaching that there is any such thing as a "bloodless" sacrifice " or that it would be pleasing to God |
Cool.
"The recognized definition for grace is "Gods UNMERITED Favor "
Mary did not merit the" favor" of God, because like all men she was a sinner in need of a Savior. She knew that and said that . She would be saved by His mercy as are all sinners .
Mary did not contribute one ounce of the Divinity of Christ. Christ divine nature had existed for all time. Mary contributed only the human nature of Christ. God did not need a goddess as a mother, He needed a flesh and blood woman ."
As an Orthodox Christian I have always wondered at Protestant conceptions of what The Church believes, and has always believed, about the Most Holy Theotokos. There seems to be confusion in the Protestant mind about the role which she played in the Incarnation and I suspect that much of this confusion stems from its acceptance of the Western notion of "Original Sin" on the one hand and rejection of its logical consequence, the notion of the Immaculate Conception.
The Christian East never accepted the Augustian construction of Original Sin and thus there was never a need for a doctrine like the Immaculate Conception; indeed Orthodoxy positively rejects the dogma. I think, eoh, the final sentence of your comment, quoted above, is in absolute accord with the consensus patrum and the pronouncements of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. To say otherwise is to deny the dual nature of Christ, which to my way of thinking, is heresy. If the Theotokos was not fully human, which is to say, that she was somehow preserved from the effects of either Original Sin, as the Latin Church would have it, or from the effects of the Sin of Adam, as the Pre-Schism Church had, and Orthodoxy still does have, it, then Christ, born of a "goddess" cannot be "True God and True Man". And we Christians all know this to be true, because The Church in the Third Ecumenical Council told us so.
To say seriously, however, that the Most Holy Theotokos was not purified at the moment of the Annuciation from whatever sins she may have had, and Orthodoxy by the way, says and always has, that she responded to God's unmerited grace in such a way that she indeed had no sin (though at least one Father believed that she had and did sin), would mean that God had not chosen a unique women (but a fully human one) to be the mother of His Son, an absurd proposition given the state of mankind after the Fall.
So how is it that Protestantism can rejct the Immaculate Conception while accepting +Augustine's notions of the depravity of man and Original Sin and at the same time say that Mary was no goddess and though the Most Holy Theotokos, was a sinner? With all due respect, and as an outsider (after all, the Reformation was in response to the Roman Church, which had broken away from Orthodoxy centuries before anyone heard of the Reformation) I have to say that Protestantism's position on the Most Holy Theotokos is born more of simply rejecting Rome than any well thought out theology.
EOH, the devotion which Eastern Christians have to the Theotokos is likely even more intense than that of the Latins, but it is not because she is ontologically different from us. Rather it is because she is the perfect example of human response to God's unmerited grace, the proof of which is her perpetual virginity and sinlessness. Here's a snip from +John Damacene which will perhaps explain what Eastern Christianity believes about her:
"After the assent of the holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit descended on her, according to the word of the Lord which the angel spoke, purifying her, and granting her power to receive the divinity of the Word, and likewise power to bring forth. And then was she overshadowed by the enhypostatic Wisdom and Power of the most high God, the Son of God Who is of like essence with the Father as of Divine seed, and from her holy and most pure blood He formed flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, the first-fruits of our compound nature: not by procreation but by creation through the Holy Spirit: not developing the fashion of the body by gradual additions but perfecting it at once, He Himself, the very Word of God, standing to the flesh in the relation of subsistence. For the divine Word was not made one with flesh that had an independent pre-existence, but taking up His abode in the womb of the holy Virgin, He unreservedly in His own subsistence took upon Himself through the pure blood of the eternal Virgin a body of flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, thus assuming to Himself the first-fruits of man's compound nature, Himself, the Word, having become a subsistence in the flesh. So that He is at once flesh, and at the same time flesh of God the Word, and likewise flesh animated, possessing both reason and thought. Wherefore we speak not of man as having become God, but of God as having become Man. For being by nature perfect God, He naturally became likewise perfect Man: and did not change His nature nor make the dispensation an empty show, but became, without confusion or change or division, one in subsistence with the flesh, which was conceived of the holy Virgin, and animated with reason and thought, and had found existence in Him, while He did not change the nature of His divinity into the essence of flesh, nor the essence of flesh into the nature of His divinity, and did not make one compound nature out of His divine nature and the human nature He had assumed."
I think Scott Hahn says something similar. Honest!
I'd try to explain it, but I'd probably get confused and say something totally bizarre. It's in his CD set called "Why the Hell?"
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