"We could say there were many actors who played a part in the way the life of Jesus played out. Or, we could say that God ordained and orchestrated the whole thing. That's why I don't see how Mary gets special credit for contributing to our salvation."
Of course there were many actors, of greater or lesser improtance, but I think perhaps you don't fully appreciate the importance of the Incarnation itself. It is completely bound up with our original created purpose, to be come like God. That is what the Church in the East has always believed and which belif the Church in the West proclaims only softly and not at all among the Reformed so far as I can see. You are correct that it is and always has been the theology of The Church that on account of the Sin of Adam, Man could not fulfill that purpose but rather was a slave to a distortion of his true nature. Because of the Virgin Birth, the True Man, Christ, came into the world to restore our potential for divinization. Innovative Western Protestant theology has quite clearly rejected this in favor of something unknown prior to about 600 years ago. +John Damascene explains it thusly:
"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 grant that I may be misinterpreting what you mean here, but statements like these still raise huge red flags for me. I'm not accusing you of thinking that you will become your own "gods", but the language that has been used on this thread by the Orthodox just has a certain tenor to it that I think might be a little confusing to some. For example, here is what the world renowned source of all truth, Wikipedia, says about the meaning of "divinization":
divinization - Divinization is the "making divine" of an earthly entity or activity.
The concept of divinization is present in many faiths including Buddhism, Hinduism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Christian mysticism. In some faiths it is a literal union with the divine, in others, it is a realization or experience so direct as to be called union, in others the building of a relationship with God. It is also described as anything from becoming "gods"/God to being holy. It is also refered to as theosis and deification, esp. in the Christian Faith.
I "think" I know you all well enough to know the basics of where you stand, but I am curious to know if the perception by others of the terminology is something that concerns you in the least.
+John Damascene explains it thusly:
I can see why Mary is so elevated, but it also says that it was God who purified her, and that it was God who overshadowed her. I still don't see why Mary deserves credit for contributing to our salvation. What did she do to deserve credit? Or, did Mary simply "contribute" by being an "empty" vessel to be used by God, with no credit going to her? I don't see any free will on Mary's part in this passage.