Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . Timothy George . December 17, 2004

Read more of Kim Lawton's interview about Mary with Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School:

Photo of Timothy George

Coming out of the Protestant Reformation, 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 Protestants have generally reacted against that. Perhaps we have gone to the other extreme. But in recent years I think there's the beginning of a renewed interest in Mary, from a biblical point of view.

I grew up as a Southern Baptist. I'm an evangelical Christian, and about the only place that Mary made any special appearance in our tradition was at the Christmas pageant. We always remember Jesus' birth and, of course, Mary had a big role in that. Usually there was a young woman in the church who portrayed Mary, sometimes carrying a live infant in her arms. We always acknowledged Mary's role in the Incarnation, briefly, at Christmas. She made an appearance on stage at the Christmas pageant, and then she exited just as quickly and we never heard from her again, unless it was to say some kind of disparaging thing about how, you know, the Catholics and other people give too much praise to Mary, and we shouldn't do that. That's really how Mary functioned. It was more of a negative reaction than it was a positive engagement.

I think the main objection would be the idea that it's necessary to go through Mary in order to get to Jesus, that somehow Mary is a mediatrix with the mediator. We believe that there's only one mediator between God and human beings, and that's Jesus Christ. It isn't Mary; it isn't the saints. That would be probably the most serious objection to Mary -- giving Mary a kind of salvific role in human life that displaces the unique sufficiency of Jesus Christ. But there are other things, too. There are two Marian dogmas that were declared by the Roman Catholic Church in the 19th and 20th centuries, both of which would be objected to not only by Protestant Christians, but by Eastern Orthodox Christians as well. The bodily assumption of Mary into heaven was declared dogma by Pope Pius XII in 1950, and earlier than that, the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Both of those are problematic for Protestants, for evangelicals, primarily because there's no warrant in Scripture for them. There's nothing in the Bible that would give any indication that this is the case, or that this is something we should believe. Therefore, we're very skeptical about these things that are extrabiblical, that aren't to be found in Scripture.

I believe the saints are in heaven. They may even be aware of what we're doing. We don't know. The Bible doesn't say. There's nothing in the Bible that indicates that we are to pray to the saints or to pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary or to ask Mary to intercede for us. This is very much a part of Catholic Marian piety. And it's a real stretch, even for Protestants who are friendly to looking at Mary in a new way, to make that break. 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.

Let me mention three things about Mary that I think all Christians can agree upon and celebrate. Evangelicals and Protestants are really big in emphasizing the virginal birth of Jesus, the fact that Jesus was born without the aid of a human father. In fact, if you look back at Church history, that's one of the five fundamentals of the faith. What's really important about it in the early Church was that it emphasized the humanity of Jesus, that he had a real human mother who happened to be a virgin. That's why I think it was included in the Apostles' Creed so early. So we all agree on the virgin birth of Jesus. Also, at the Council of Ephesus in 431, the Church declared Mary to be "theotokos," this Greek word which we sometimes translate into English as "the Mother of God," from the Latin "Mater Dei," which probably ought to be better translated "the one who is the bearer of God." That's what the word really means. And that's, again, a very important affirmation that we can all agree on, that Mary was chosen by God to be the one who bore into this world the divine son of God. That's really more an affirmation about Jesus than it is about Mary, if you think about it. I think we can all agree with that, and give her that title, and refer to her that way, along with the early fathers of the Church.

The other thing where the Protestant Reformation makes a special emphasis about Mary is that she was the handmaiden of the word of God. Often when you look at Mary in Renaissance paintings, you find Mary reading the Bible, reading the scriptures. Now, probably the young Jewish Palestinian peasant of Mary's day wouldn't have had access to a scroll of Isaiah, but the theology behind the paintings is right, that Mary was open and responsive to the word of God. Luther puts it this way, "Had Mary not believed, she would not have conceived." It was the hearing and the receiving of the word of God, and the believing of the word of God by faith, even by faith alone, that the Protestants celebrated so much when they thought about Mary and the special role that she had in the Incarnation. Those are wonderful things that all Christians -- Protestants, Catholics, and evangelicals -- can celebrate together about the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We really associate the birth narratives with Mary, especially in Matthew and Luke, that talk about the Annunciation and the visitation and Elizabeth's words to her: "Blessed are you among women." That's what we really associate with Mary, particularly at the Advent and Christmas season. But Mary accompanies Jesus all the way. Remember that text in Luke that's so poignant: "She kept all of these things and pondered them in her heart." All the way through his life, not only at his birth, she pondered these things in her heart. When the little children were executed by Herod, and Mary must have heard about that as they were fleeing into Egypt, she must have pondered that in her heart -- the fact there were some little babies who were dying already in place of Jesus, the one who came to die for others. What does that mean about the Incarnation, about the Atonement? Then we meet Mary again when Jesus is a young boy, at his bar mitzvah, at age 12 or so in the Temple as he's sitting among the teachers of the church, and Mary's wondering, like any mom would of a 12-year-old boy who can't be found, where is he? A very human Mary there. And then again Mary appears in Jesus' earthly life at the wedding of Cana in Galilee, the first miracle Jesus did that is recorded in Scripture. And there is that wonderful statement of Mary, "Whatever Jesus says unto you, do it." What a great line that is for the Christian life, for discipleship. Whatever Christ says to you, you should do it. That's from the lips of Mary.

And then, I think, most powerfully of all, perhaps, at his death, under the cross, Mary is there. When the others disciples have fled away, she is there. When the other disciples have fled away, she remains faithful unto the end. And that very beautiful, touching scene in the Gospel of John, where Jesus commends his mother to the beloved disciple. He says, "Woman behold your son, son behold your mother." In some sense there I think you see Mary in the company of the Church, in the company of the apostles, just as you do on the day of Pentecost. She's also there. It's a very interesting analogy because, of course, Acts was written by Luke, who tells us more about Jesus' birth than any of the other evangelists. In Luke you have Mary there at the birth of Jesus; the Holy Spirit comes into the womb of Mary. He is conceived by the Holy Spirit. In Acts, you have the Holy Spirit coming at the birthday of the Church. And Mary, in some sense, is the midwife there at the birth of the Church. I don't think that's by accident. I mean, Luke was such a skillful artisan with his words and images.

So I think Mary has a continuing role, but it's not a kind of exalted Queen of Heaven role in the Gospels and in the New Testament. It's Mary amidst the disciples, Mary under the cross, Mary identifying with the suffering, persecuted Church. And that's perhaps the role we can most identify with Mary today among Christians around the world, especially Christians who are suffering and persecuted.

In Galatians 4:4 Paul says that in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem us who are under the law. And, of course, the reference there is to Mary. But he doesn't use Mary's name in making that statement. I think Paul surely must have known about the traditions of Jesus' virgin birth and assumed them. He doesn't refer to them at any great length, and some more skeptical scholars have used that to say, "Well, if Paul didn't believe in the virgin birth, why should we?" But how many times does it have to be mentioned in the Bible before we believe it? I think Paul probably assumed that, as he assumed many other things about Jesus' earthly life that he doesn't refer to. But he does talk about the fact that Mary played a pivotal role, in the fullness of time. At the right moment, God sent forth his son, made of woman, born as a human being of a human mother.

[The early church fathers] emphasized Mary's humanity -- that was really important -- over against certain views of Mary and certain views of Christ that would question his real humanity. That Jesus seemed to be a human being, he appeared on earth as an almost ghostlike figure, the fact that he was really born of a human mother in a human way. Later in the Church, you do get these stories about the birth of Jesus and questions about the ways in which Jesus was born, so as to preserve intact the virginity of Mary. That's an early tradition, but it's not a New Testament tradition.

I don't think there's any reason why we should think the birth of Jesus was any different than the birth of any other Palestinian peasant at that time, particularly someone who was traveling, who was on the road, who was ill-disposed. The manger was not a beautiful pageantry kind of place. It was messy place, filled with all of the things related to birth that we would associate with any poor person at that time. Jesus' birth was real; it was human. That's what the Church emphasizes most importantly about the virgin birth of Jesus.

Mary does assume a very important role early on in the piety of the Church, and this is where a lot of the Catholic traditions come from. For example, in a lot of the early catacombs that date perhaps from the third or fourth century and that we still can see in Rome, there's the picture of Mary with her hands folded out, and it says in Latin, "Maria, ora pro nobis": "Mary, pray for us." This is an early tradition in the Church, and it's often associated with the martyrs. Mary herself was not martyred, as far as we know. The tradition is that she went to live with John in the city of Ephesus, and there's a house that you can supposedly be shown there where supposedly Mary may have lived later in life. But early on she becomes associated with the martyrs, with those who give their lives for Christ. And it's believed that the martyrs and the saints and Mary have a special role in heaven: to intercede for the believers on earth. That's a postbiblical tradition. While it has some beautiful symbolism and art and iconography associated with it, for evangelicals that's a stretch for us to take that on board as an article of faith, simply because it's not found in the Bible.

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. Mary is the working place of God in the midst of humanity. Luther has this wonderful Christmas sermon that he preaches about Mary, in which he talks about Mary going to see Elizabeth and greeting her so wonderfully: "Blessed are you among women, Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus." He has a great sermon on the Magnificat. The reformers loved Mary, but they saw in Mary not an object of devotion in her own right. They honored Mary because she was the vessel through whom the word of God was made flesh. She is the one who heard the word of God, who believed it, who received it, and because of that was chosen by God to be the vessel through whom God's son became a real human being. They felt Mary had a place in real Christian devotion.

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, Reformation, scriptural understanding of Mary. My concern is sometimes we evangelicals and Protestants, in reaction to the excesses of the Catholic tradition, have gone to such an extreme that we so neglect Mary we don't give her her full biblical due. That's a good place for us to go back to. What do the scriptures tell us about Mary? What was her role? The reformers picked up on it so much and emphasized it.

I've heard from a lot of Roman Catholics who say I haven't gone far enough. They want me to begin praying to Mary tomorrow. And then, of course, I've heard from some Protestants who say, "You've gone much too far. Don't say anything about Mary. Keep Mary down because that's going to be competitive with Jesus." It doesn't have to be that way. After all, 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 Jesus' mother Mary. Because God chose that way, it deserves our attention. We should look exactly at Mary as she is portrayed in the Scripture.

The two greatest lines for Christian discipleship in the Bible come from the lips of Mary. When it is announced unto her from the angel Gabriel that she is to be with child of the Holy Spirit, she says those famous words: "Let it be unto me according to your will." "Fiat mei": "Let it be unto me." It's an act of submission, it's an act of humility, it's an act of surrender to the will of God. That's a wonderful line of discipleship for any Christian who wants to take seriously the call of God on our lives. And the other one is at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, where Mary says to those who are helping with the feast, "Whatever Jesus says unto you, do it." Obey him, follow him. Those are the highest calls to Christian faith I think you'll find anywhere in the Bible, from the lips of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

There's a sense in which I think Mary is a model for the Church, and a model for Christian discipleship. In my own life, in my own devotion, in my own reading of these birth narratives of Jesus in the Gospels, and reading about Mary in the art and literature of the Church, I've seen something there very important: a woman who in some ways is not ostentatious. You wouldn't pick her out of a crowd as the most glamorous, the most beautiful, the wealthiest. In some ways what's interesting about Mary is that she's not extraordinary, and God chose to enter human life through such a humble vessel surrendered to him and his purposes. I think that's the greatest thing that we can learn from Mary -- how she received the word of God and believed it.

Protestants talk about justification by faith alone, and Mary is a good example of that. She believed in the word of God alone when there was no evidence to back it up. Everyone probably thought she was crazy, including Joseph for a while. But she accepted the word of God. She believed it, she received it, and because of that she became an instrument in the history of salvation. And that affects all of us Christians, whether we're Southern Baptists or Roman Catholics or Presbyterians or Greek Orthodox, or whatever we are.

I think I have had deeper insights into the meaning of the Incarnation [because of Mary], that's how I would put it. Not so much that I have a higher view of Mary than I did before, but I have a deeper understanding of the meaning of Mary and the mystery of the Incarnation that Mary actually represents -- and not just represents, but was very much a part of: the coming of God. "The word was made flesh and dwelt among us," John 1:14. If you could summarize the whole Christian faith in one verse, that's the verse I would choose. And you can't really understand that verse without understanding Mary and the role she played by God's will in the happening of the Incarnation.

"All generations shall call me blessed" -- this is from the lips of Mary in the Gospel of Luke, and I don't see why our generation should be left out. We can call Mary blessed; that's a biblical word to call her. It means one who is chosen by God on whom the favor of God has come to rest, who has been received by God's grace and love and embraced, and she's blessed because of that. We can say that in a special way, because Mary was the special instrument of the Incarnation. The Blessed Virgin Mary -- there's nothing wrong with that. I like to use that term. It's fine.

Some of the other terms, I think, are more problematic. Queen of Heaven? There is a verse in the Book of Revelation that's sometimes used to defend that biblically. A woman appears in heaven amidst the stars and so forth. There's great debate about whether that's referring to Mary or someone else. There are also theological issues involved when we start to talk about Mary as the mediatrix, or the one through whom all blessings come. There Protestants begin to get just a little bit nervous.

Elizabeth Johnson, a Roman Catholic theologian, has a book about Mary called TRULY OUR SISTER. I think that's a good term for Mary. Mary is our sister, in some ways, as well as the mother of Jesus. It emphasizes the humility and the humanity of Mary, and it reminds us of Mary as a human being, as a Jewish peasant girl God chose in a special way. We honor her, and we magnify the grace of God in her life and her obedience. But she was also our sister, a human being.