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COVER STORY:
Protestant Mary
December 17, 2004 Episode no. 816
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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: From Christmas cards to carols and crèches, this is the season when the Virgin Mary seems to be everywhere. Traditionally, Protestants haven't paid much attention to Mary beyond Christmas celebrations. But that seems to be changing. More and more Protestants are urging a fresh look at the role of Mary in the life of the church and the formation of faith. Kim Lawton has our special report.
KIM LAWTON: It's the time of year when the Virgin Mary gets the spotlight in the annual retelling of the Christmas story.
PAGEANT NARRATOR: And Mary brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. ...
LAWTON: It's often been the only time when Protestants devote attention to Mary.

Professor TIMOTHY GEORGE (Beeson Divinity School): About the only place that Mary made any special appearance in our tradition was at the Christmas pageant. She made an appearance on stage at the Christmas pageant, and then she exited just as quickly, and we never heard from her again.
LAWTON: Timothy George is a Southern Baptist and dean of the evangelical Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. He says Protestants haven't traditionally focused on Mary largely because of their concern about the level of reverence that many Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians give to her.

Prof. GEORGE: There was a strong reaction against Marian piety and Marian devotion, because it was seen to be very excessive. It was seen to be competitive with Christ and, in some ways, even idolatrous. Mary was exalted so high[ly] that she displaced Christ. And so Protestants have generally reacted against that. Perhaps we have gone to the other extreme.
LAWTON: George is one of a growing number of theologians and writers urging evangelicals and other Protestants to stop ignoring Mary.
Prof. GEORGE: Martin Luther had a very high view of Mary and a loving devotion to Mary, in a way. He refers to her as the place where God did his handiwork on earth. I would like Protestants today, evangelicals today, to go back to the reformers. I don't think we have to become Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox believers to recover a truly Protestant, reformational, scriptural understanding of Mary.
LAWTON: And, indeed, Mary is getting new Protestant attention. There are several new books about her written by Protestant authors. George wrote a Mary cover story for the evangelical CHRISTIANITY TODAY magazine. Another evangelical publication, CHRISTIAN HISTORY, devoted an entire issue to her. Mary is also on the cover of the mainline Protestant CHRISTIAN CENTURY.
Princeton Theological Seminary professor Beverly Roberts Gaventa believes there are several reasons for the new focus.
Professor BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA (Princeton Theological Seminary): We are a lot more interested now in biblical characters who are women, and we've talked about all the others; it might be time to talk about Mary as well. I also think that because we are much more inclined these days to know about other traditions and be interested in them, a number of Protestants have begun to ask questions about Mary.
LAWTON: Gaventa has written widely, calling for a new Protestant examination of Mary.

Prof. GAVENTA: Even if some of the language that some other Christian traditions use to talk about Mary is uncomfortable for us, we can still do what Protestants like to think we do well, which is stay with biblical stories. There's a lot there that we've neglected, I think, to our own detriment.
LAWTON: Gaventa says while Mary is not mentioned a lot in the Bible, she is deeply connected with the major themes of the Gospels.
Prof. GAVENTA: So even in order to understand fully what those Gospels are about, which is so much what Protestants prize, we have to pay more attention to her. We can't just bring her out for Christmas Eve and put her back away on the 26th.
LAWTON: Mary's story begins in the Book of Luke, with the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel appears to the young virgin and tells her that through the power of the Holy Spirit, she will give birth to the Son of God.

Prof. GAVENTA: What happens in the story is that Mary is chosen entirely by God's own initiative. This is a primary example of what Protestants emphasize as God's divine grace, God's initiative.
LAWTON: Some Renaissance artists portray Mary as reading the Scripture as a sign of her openness to the word of God. Mary tells the angel, "Let it be unto me according to your will."
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Prof. GEORGE: It's an act of submission; it's an act of humility; it's an act of surrender to the will of God. And that's a wonderful line of discipleship for any Christian that wants to take seriously the call of God on our lives.
LAWTON: The gospel also records a hymn of praise attributed to Mary called, in Latin, the Magnificat -- "My soul magnifies," or glorifies, "the Lord."
At this year's Christmas festival, the choir at the Presbyterian-affiliated Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, performed a program of Mary-themed works, including a rendition of the Magnificat.
Prof. GAVENTA: The Magnificat really is an example of biblical prophecy. Mary takes on a very strong role there of declaring God's favor upon the poor and oppressed, and God's warning about the downfall of the mighty and the powerful and the wealthy. And we have not given due regard to Mary as the one who utters those words.
LAWTON: In the Nativity, George says, Mary plays a special role in the Incarnation, the Christian teaching that in Jesus, God took on human flesh.

Prof. GEORGE: It's a very humble, homely event -- a human event. But the angels are listening in, and the angels are singing and celebrating as well. So it brings together the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the human, which is what the Incarnation is about: the Word became flesh.
LAWTON: Mary is also present at other key events in Jesus' life. At the wedding of Cana, when Jesus performs the first miracle the Gospels record, it is Mary who tells the workers to do whatever Jesus tells them. And at the Crucifixion, when others have fled, Mary is still at the foot of the cross.

Prof. GEORGE: Mary identified with the suffering Church, the persecuted Church, the harried Church. And I think that's a good way to think about Mary today in the devotion of the Church, as a symbol of one who is there with the disciples but always pointing to Christ, who is the focus of our life and of our hope.
LAWTON: Still, those calling for more attention to Mary stop well short of adopting some Catholic beliefs. For example, most Protestants would not pray to Mary or consider her an intermediary with God.
Prof. GEORGE: The question of Marian intercession is one that the Bible doesn't speak to, and we probably don't need to get into that, because we have direct access to God through Jesus Christ, without necessarily going through the Blessed Virgin Mary.
LAWTON: Protestants also reject the Catholic doctrine that Mary was born without original sin and that both her body and her soul were raised into heaven at the end of her life. Catholics call her the Queen of Heaven, but Protestants tend to emphasize a more human Mary.
SHANNON KUBIAK (Evangelical Youth Worker) (Speaking to Girls): Mary did not have all the answers, and she didn't pretend to have all the answers. She was not all-knowing. To me, Mary's imperfections are a reminder that you do not have to be perfect to come to God. You do not even have to be perfect to be used by God for great things.
LAWTON: Shannon Kubiak is an evangelical youth worker in California. She has a new book coming out this spring titled GOD CALLED A GIRL. She encourages teenage girls to identify with Mary as a spiritual role model.
Ms. KUBIAK: So many of us girls think, you know, "I'm no one." And that's the type of life Mary lived. She was a nobody from the middle of nowhere. And that's what I felt like in my own life, and it's what countless teenage girls across the nation feel like, and God chose to use her for the most incredible task of a lifetime.
LAWTON: Protestants may not consider Mary an object of devotion herself but, George says, they must not be afraid to esteem her for her full worth.

Prof. GEORGE: God chose Mary to be the human mother of Jesus. He didn't have to do that. He could have sent his son to earth in some other way. Why be born in a human form? It's simply the way God chose to enter the bloodstream of the human race, through his mother, Mary. And because God chose that way, it deserves our attention.
LAWTON: That attention may be focused on Mary at Christmas, but George says it should be sustained all year round. I'm Kim Lawton reporting.
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Related R&E Material:
Read more of Kim Lawton's interviews about Mary with Beverly Gaventa and Timothy George.
Watch and listen to more of the Whitworth College Choir's 2004 Christmas concert. (Requires RealPlayer)
Read an excerpt from University of Notre Dame theology professor Timothy Matovina's essay on Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Revisit "Hail Mary," an essay by Annie Callan.
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Related Links:
National Catholic Reporter: "Anglicans make room for Mary" by Charlene Spretnak, September 9, 2005
Time Magazine: "Hail, Mary" by David van Biema, March 21, 2005
National Catholic Reporter: "Reinterpreting Mary for today" by Sally Cunneen, May 23, 2003
Christian History: "Recovering a Protestant Mary: A Conversation with Timothy George," Summer 2004
Christianity Today: "The Blessed Evangelical Mary" by Timothy George, December 2003
Louisville Courier Journal: "Protestants paying more attention to Mary" by Peter Smith, Dec. 25, 2003
Good News: "Mary's devoted heart" by Dick McClain, Nov.-Dec. 2003
Christianity Today: "There's something about Mary": An interview with J. I. Packer and Tom Oden by Todd Hertz, December 23, 2002
Whitworth College Christmas Festival Concert
McNay Art Museum
Shannon Kubiak
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Related Reading:
MARY IN THE PLAN OF GOD AND IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS: TOWARD A COMMON CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING by Alain Blancy and Maurice Jourjon
PONDER THESE THINGS: PRAYING WITH ICONS OF THE VIRGIN by Rowan Williams
MARY THROUGH THE CENTURIES: HER PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF CULTURE by Jaroslav Pelikan
MARY: IMAGES OF THE MOTHER OF JESUS IN JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE by Jaroslav Pelikan, David Flusser, and Justin Lang, OFM
IN SEARCH OF MARY by Sally Cunneen
ALONE OF ALL HER SEX by Marina Warner
MARY, MOTHER OF GOD edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson
MARY: GLIMPSES OF THE MOTHER OF JESUS by Beverly Roberts Gaventa
BLESSED ONE: PROTESTANT PERSPECTIVES ON MARY edited by Beverly Roberts Gaventa and Cynthia L. Rigby
MARY: A CATHOLIC-EVANGELICAL DEBATE by Dwight Longenecker and David Gustafson
TRULY OUR SISTER: A THEOLOGY OF MARY IN THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS by Elizabeth A. Johnson
GOD CALLED A GIRL by Shannon Kubiak
CHAPTERS OF GOLD: THE LIFE OF MARY IN MOSAICS by Rachel Billington
GUADALUPE AND HER FAITHFUL by Timothy Matovina
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