"Handmaiden of the Lord"

Luke 1:38  “And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

Another title of Mary’s, founded in the Word of God, is “Handmaid of the Lord”. It’s a title that isn’t heard as often as the others I have mentioned in previous articles but it is one that has been used and (dare I say) abused throughout history. Throughout the dark times of the medieval church the idea that Mary was the person who had carried Christ, and spent more time with Him than anyone else meant one thing... that she was the next best thing to God Himself. By using the reasoning of Saint Anselm that “one should ascribe to Mary so much purity that more than that one cannot possibly imagine except for God” many people fell into the trap of elevating Mary more and more until she had assumed a grossly inflated significance. So grossly inflated was she that Mary, a side character in the Gospel, became Mary the “Queen of Mercy”, while Christ was left as King of truth and justice, the judge of the living and the dead.

The miracle of the lactation of 1119

It was this role as Queen of Mercy that Saint Bernard of Clairvaux famously styled her as “a mediator with the Mediator” which meant (as Saint Anselm put it), “She pleads with the Son on behalf of the sons.” This is where the idea of Mary as “co-redemptorix” came from, and though it has gained traction again amongst the modern Roman Catholics it was particularly prevalent amongst Christians in the 15th Century, thanks to a plethora of images of Mary breastfeeding the infant Christ... thus placating Him and calming Him down. Mary was viewed as the kind and loving mother, merciful and wise while Christ who gave His own life for us was viewed as the angry judge. People started to believe that Mary was the only one who could placate her Son, the only one who could plead on our behalf with any success.

Those of us who call ourselves “Reformed” or “Evangelical” are wise to listen to both the critiques of Marian extremes put forth during the Reformation and also the Reformer’s praise of Mary, the handmaiden of the Lord.  It is true that Luther, Zwingli, especially Calvin, and all the other Reformers strongly protested against the "abominable idolatry" of medieval Marianism.

It sounds pretty blunt... “abominable idolatry”...  and it is a damning phrase to use, yet it isn’t too strong when we think of some of the ideas and views about Mary that were common place during their time.

 Take the co-redemptorix idea I mentioned above, where Mary was often portrayed as placating her stern son with milk from her breasts, not only did this idea lead to a craze amongst churches, cities and citizens to have vials of “Mary’s milk” as relics, in order to protect themselves from her angry Son’s judgement but the view of Mary as Mediatrix left many viewing her as the only way to get good with Christ, she became their only hope because only she was the “mediator with the Mediator”.  It didn’t end there either, the view of Mary as Mediatrix led to a worship of Mary akin to something of the Pagan Mother Gods, with some even translating the Scriptures to fit a Maria-centric view:

1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."became, "as in Eve all die, so also in Mary shall all be made alive."

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  became, "Mary so loved the world, that she gave her only-begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

And, the Lord's Prayer began: "Our Mother who art in heaven, give us our daily bread."

This kind of exaggerated devotion – which continues to this day (amongst the extreme fringes), was rightly denounced by the Reformers, who correctly said that it doesn’t praise the Virgin Mary but in fact robs her of her true place and debases her by making her into nothing more than an idol. Nowhere is the Reformed view of Marian excesses more clearly put than in Melanchthon's "Apology of the Augsburg Confession":

“Some of us have seen a doctor of theology dying, for consoling whom a certain theologian, a monk, was employed. He pressed on the dying man nothing but this prayer: Mother of grace, protect us from the enemy; receive us in the hour of death. Granting that the blessed Mary prays for the Church, does she receive souls in death, does she conquer death [the great power of Satan], does she quicken? What does Christ do if the blessed Mary does these things? ...But the subject itself declares that in public opinion the blessed Virgin has succeeded altogether to the place of Christ. Men have invoked her, have trusted in her mercy, through her have desired to appease Christ, as though He were not a Propitiator, but, only a dreadful judge and avenger.”

She had become in the eyes of the faithful, as Hugh Latimer lamented, “a Saviouress”.

Yet the Reformers were not only critical of the veneration of Mary, no they also expressed a positive devotion to Mary. Both Zwingli and Bullinger defended the well known prayer of Marian devotion, the “Ave Maria” or “Hail Mary”. Though for them it was not a prayer to Mary but an expression of praise in her honour. (Though I should point out that in their time the Ave Maria did not include the phrase "pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." found repugnant by the Reformers).  Even Calvin referred to Mary as "the treasurer of grace", because he felt that it was through Mary that we have received the precious gift of Grace from God.

In 1521, the other great reformer Martin Luther, while in hiding, prepared to print his commentary on the Magnificat. For him, Mary was, and indeed is, the embodiment of God's unmerited grace, to be magnified above all creatures, yet Luther noticed quite quickly that it is her humility, and lowliness that shine through as her defining features, they are what set her apart.

You see Mary is entitled “blessed” not because of her virginity, heck it’s not even because of her humility or lowliness, but simply because she was chosen as “the person and place where God's glory would enter most deeply into the story of humanity”. In Luther’s commentary we see that in his mind, were he to ask her what her place in the Kingdom of God is, she would reply "I am only the workshop in which God operates".

Yet Mary was also praised by Luther for another reason, which is of particular importance to us on the Reformed side of the fence. I'm not even going to pretend I knew this but after reading about it on a Lutheran forum I must admit I have come to the same conclusion, that Mary is the personification of sola fide because upon hearing the Word of God (literally) she responds in faith and is justified. She was faithful before she became a Mother because if she hadn’t believed, she could never have conceived Christ, and of course she could never have had faith but God must have given her grace. Thus we see that it is because of God’s grace towards her and her faith in Him that she was both made “blessed” and pregnant with Jesus. It is this unique combination of grace and faith that (to Luther) made Mary the poster girl of sola fide and sola gratia, because only she truly embodied the two, and it is in her role as the embodiment of a perfect combination of grace and faith that we too can respect and laud Mary!

Is The Cross Alienating?

Yes it is! - according to a church organisation in Michigan in the dear old United States.

Yes this is "3C Exchange" (formerly Christ Community Church), which strives to be welcoming to all, regardless of belief. You see they want to "de-church" the "church", which looks suspiciously like attempting to get "Christ" out of "Christianity". They intend to do this through removing such "negatives" as the Cross because the Pastor informs us...

"at C3 over the last couple of years, we've had a number of people join our community. We've had Buddhist, Jewish people, Muslims, gay people, spiritual but not religious, everyone's come and joined, so we changed the name and moved the cross to kinda catch up with who we've become."

But is the Christian Church meant to move with the people... or their sinful desires? Or is it meant to be Christ centred, Bible based and constantly reforming to the Word of God?

Thankfully this video is generating a lot of heat over on that bastion of Evangelical Anglicanism that is "Stand Firm" with people bewildered as to how a Church can pretend to be Christian yet really be a mish-mash of competing philosophies and religions. I on the other hand am left wondering... with the Pastor talking much of the same nonsense I hear day in and day out in Christian circles here - about inclusiveness and ecumenism -  how long will it be before we too see the crosses brought down, or the names changed to accommodate society?

Some may wish to pretend this is an American problem, an excess that we here in the UK are immune to, yet the simple truth is that we are often (on many issues) far more liberal than our brethren and sisters stateside. Yes they may come up with the ideas but we are more than willing to implement them in hopes of gain and it is (even if you don't want to admit it) only a matter of time before someone closer to home does the same as 3C over in Michigan.

The question is... am I being pessimistic when I say they should be congratulated on their honesty in making it clear they have don't want the cross at the centre of their church organisation's life? Yet they should also be rebuked for their falling away from Christ, and for their shame at the cross?

Or... Is this a good move, a new part of the emergent church. Christianity coming out of its shell to focus on the message of Christ, rather than simply the death of Christ? Something that will help win converts and something that will put (what have been traditionally viewed) as outsiders at ease within the Church?

Rowan Williams on Prayer

Dr. Williams is actually someone I quite admire, though it is seemingly unfashionable to do so. He has managed to hold together the Anglican Communion (no easy task) reasonably well, better than I could anyway. He has also written a number of books and a plethora of poetry, and add into the mix an easygoing yet intellectual style of debate and conversation, a willingness to show a brand of Christianity that isn't foaming at the mouth, even in the face of what must not only be tremendous opposition from secularists but also other Christians (both within and without Anglicanism) and a simple sense of humanity which overpowers any grandeur of his role or titles and you get one fine Archbishop (in my opinion at least). But anyway this post isn't meant to be a rave review about Dr. Williams. Though I will no doubt write a review of Rowan's time as Archbishop once the series on Mary is finished, but for now I have something I want to share with you.

Late last night I was watching a couple of videos on YouTube and found this excellent (though short) clip of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan William, having a chat with Welsh Opera singer and BBC Radio 2 presenter Aled Jones about prayer during (what I presume to be) an episode of "Songs of Praise.

Here's my favourite bit:

Aled...

" I always feel that God is with me, in everything I do... So why do I need to pray?"

Archbishop...

"When you are on holiday with family, they're with you all day, you're aware of it. But it would be a very bad family holiday if you don't sometimes just sit down, across the table, with children or a spouse and say 'Here we are... let's enjoy the moment'. That's part of where prayer comes in, it's the sitting across the table and saying 'Well here we are let's enjoy the moment together."

Watch it and let me know what you think :)

http://a-wandering-pilgrim.blogspot.com/p/blog-and-i.html

Mary as Theotokos

This is the third article in my little series on Mary the Mother of God. In the last article we looked at her role in the Virgin Birth and at some of the beliefs (mostly extra-scriptural) that have grown up around that miraculous event. Now I want us to explore Mary’s motherhood of Christ a little deeper, particularly focusing on her role as “Theotokos” (“God bearer”).

Theotokos isn’t really a word that we use in the Western Churches, instead we often choose to use the title “Mother of God”. Yet the word Theotokos has a wonderfully rich history having been used by Christians to describe Mary since the Church Fathers, with Origen being the first to attribute the title to Mary in 254 AD and still to this day Theotokos is used as the title of choice for Mary by our Orthodox brethren and sisters in the East.  

Karl Barth

I have become fully convinced that the word Theotokos not only can but should be used and celebrated by Evangelicals and the reformed with as much zeal as any Roman or Eastern Catholic. During the Reformation, Calvin warily recoiled from the title of “Mother of God”, yet not at the doctrine that title conveyed, Luther and Zwingli on the other hand had no such aversion and called her “Mother of God” with gusto. There was a difference in opinion over the title but not the belief. The eminent theologian Karl Barth (whom I must study more) summed up the view of the reformation that has come to dominate reformed theology when he acknowledged that the title Mother of God is not some pious devotion or unfounded belief, but a belief that is “sensible, permissible, and necessary as an auxiliary Christological proposition.”

Although Origen is credited with coining the title “Theotokos” it is often agreed that Ignatius of Antioch created the concept of Mary as God-bearer when he spoke of how “Our God, Jesus Christ, was carried in Mary’s womb” in his letter to the Ephesians (18:2). Though that concept was created around the end of the first century and named early during the second, the debates that surrounded the title continued until the Council of Ephesus in the fifth century. What amazed me about these debates was their subject matter. You see they weren’t concerned with the status of Mary, though it was her title, but instead they were almost entirely focused on the unity of her son’s human and divine natures.

Nestorius

On one side there were those who said Mary was the Theotokos, the Mother of God, both of His divine and human natures. Yet others like Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople preferred another title... “Christokos”, Mother (Bearer) of Christ. The Church assembled at Ephesus ultimately rejected Nestorius’ view as an inadequate description of Mary’s role in Christ’s incarnation. They felt that Nestorius was creating two Christs, one human and one divine, which was at variance with true reality of his entire being.

 I have found a brilliant quote by Cardinal Ratzinger (as he was then) which really drives home this point of how Nestorius had, by limiting the role of Mary to Christokos, created an inadequate view of Christ which had to be removed by further developing doctrine:

“The Christological affirmation of God's Incarnation in Christ becomes necessarily a Marian affirmation, as de facto it was from the beginning. Conversely: only when it touches Mary and becomes Mariology is Christology itself as radical as the faith of the Church requires. The appearance of a truly Marian awareness serves as the touchstone indicating whether or not the Christological substance is fully present. Nestorianism involves the fabrication of a Christology from which the nativity and the mother are removed, a Christology without Mariological consequences. Precisely this operation, which surgically removes God so far from man that nativity and maternity-all of corporeality-remain in a different sphere, indicated unambiguously to the Christian consciousness that the discussion no longer concerned incarnation (becoming flesh), that the centre of Christ's mystery was endangered, if not already destroyed. Thus in Mariology Christology was defended.”

– J. Ratzinger: Daughter Zion – meditations on the Church’s Marian Belief, Ignatius Press

There are those who say that Nestorius was opposing the heretical notion of Mary as Mother of not only God’s human nature but also His Divine nature, in the same way as many Pagan religions understood their gods to have mothers. Thus he was opposing what he viewed as Mary’s raising from the position of human being to the role of a Mother God, and in opposing this heresy of exaggerated Mariology he fell into a Christological one. I can’t comment on that though because I really need to look deeper into such ideas and propositions before I can make a judgement, but it does sound at least sound plausible. After all is it not a reasonably common concern even now amongst the reformed? Granted we can look at the development of the doctrine over time, and indeed we can look at the findings of the ecumenical council of Ephesus and Chalcedon which provide a limit on how low our view of Mary’s role in the incarnation can go, but where are the checks and controls against exalting Mary too High, when do we start to venerate and laud Mary to the detriment and exclusion of Christ?

Breaking News!

Well I have some news...

As of 7:30pm my trusty laptop's screen was declared dead after being involved in an accident involving my girlfriend.  I am now using her laptop just to let you all know that things like getting articles up may take a little longer than usual, and that replying to comments may take a day or two but hopefully things will be back to normal soon!

In the meantime as a special treat to chaplain.cz I include the following:

"fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs lvaee a commnet!"

Natus ex Maria Virgine

I believe in Jesus Christ who was “conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary” ("qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine").  

The idea of Mary pregnant with child, carrying her Saviour in her womb whilst still virgin, is (to put it simply) a mystery of our faith. It is also a test of orthodoxy even amongst the most fundamentalist of evangelicals, for in denying this doctrine, one is denying not only Mary but an aspect of Christ's life.  

I am yet to meet anyone who denied the virginity of Mary during her pregnancy, indeed the term “Virgin Mary” is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that it is simply not even discussed any more, rather it is accepted almost unquestionably, yet in accepting and advocating this doctrine without really acquainting ourselves with it we have missed two important aspects of it’s meaning.

Firstly, the more Reformed amongst us, and especially those who call themselves "evangelical", have often defended the miracle that was the virgin birth, not because they wish to defend Mary, but because they see it as being part of the foundation for the divinity of Jesus Christ. Yet the teachings that we know today as the "virgin birth" arose in the early church for a very different reason: namely, as a way to affirm that the Son of God was truly human. 

Marcion, a Bishop of Sinope in the 2nd Century when hearing the narrative of Christ's birth had bitterly wailed "Away with that lowly manger, those dirty swaddling clothes", because Marcion denied that Jesus had ever been born (in a human way) at all. It was really an example of pious belief taken to an extreme, a pious belief that led to sin, because for Marcion the idea that God, the perfect, all knowing, all powerful God would ever lower himself to take on something as filthy as a human body was a step to far, demeaning almost to the divine. After all how could one so Heavenly and Divine as God ever be associated with dirty nappies (diapers for my american friends), lying in an filthy animal's manger or even afterbirth?

While I am certainly not defending a heretic I do understand where Marcion was coming from. Truthfully, how many of us if we hadn't read so in the Scriptures would have believed that God chose to be born human? That He would choose to put Himself through a human life with all its frailties and hardships? Not only all that, but that He would also choose not to be born in a fancy Hospital to rich parents, but in a lowly, filthy manger to a young girl and a Carpenter? - I suppose it is hard for us to imagine the story of Christ's beginnings being any different than the Scriptural narrative, because most of us will have known the Gospel accounts of the Nativity since we were children, but remember in Marcion's time there was no Canon of Scripture, there were no Bibles and everything was up for debate.

Marcion’s idea was that one day Jesus came down, not in dirty human flesh but a spirit in human form (this was known as doceticism). It was against such Gnostic “antimaterialism” that the brave Ignatius of Antioch proclaimed that Jesus was "truly born, truly lived, truly died" in what was to be one of the earliest creedal expressions of the Christian Church. It is a very well known proverb, one which I have often heard repeated as something "Billy Graham" said, yet in truth it was a 1st Century Christian who first uttered them in Greek. What is maybe even less well known is the rallying call that these words proved to be amongst the Church Fathers against the docetics (such as Marcion) of their day.

I think it fair to say that though we often fight long and hard in defence of the virgin birth, in spite of science and reason, we are often so preoccupied with Mary’s Virginity that we forget to reflect upon her maternity. Mary wasn’t simply some entrance for Christ to get into the world, some door which He stepped through, or that He "passed through like water in a pipe" (As Tertullian refutes in Chp.4 of "Against All Heresies"). No, she was His Mother, raising Him and caring for Him. It was on her knee our Saviour was rocked gently to sleep, it was from her breast He was nursed and it was she who nurtured Him. I don’t think one needs to be a High Churchman, or have Rome-ward leanings to believe that it was her who helped Him memorize the Psalms or helped Him to learn how to pray, after all isn’t that what mothers do?

She was a woman, a loving mother, a simple human being who it can be assumed spent more time in the presence of our Saviour than any one else. From Christ's birth to death she was there, fully human yet in the company of the fully divine. That emphasis that we (on this side of the Tiber) often place  on Mary’s full humanity, though admitting her place as Mother of God, is part of keeping away from the debate over her perpetual virginity. It is a shifting of the focus, a sort of theological “look over here and don’t worry about over there” manoeuvre. Though Mary’s Virginity matters to the story of the Birth of Christ it doesn’t really matter after that event  has occurred. Yet this praiseworthy tradition was given sanction at the fifth ecumenical council in 553 AD, and while it may be pious and based on tradition rather than Scripture I have come to accept the perpetual Virginity of Mary as true, and I stand in the great Reformed tradition of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli each of whom affirmed the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity during the difficult times of the Reformation.

It’s not hard to defend theologically (even to an extent Scripturally) a belief in Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, but what is hard to defend is the "inviolate virginity of Mary in partu" - the belief that she remained an “intact” virgin even during childbirth. The problems with this belief are that not only are they based on  an apocryphal book, namely the Gospel of James, but that it also seems to undermine the anti-gnostic and anti-docetic thrust of the doctrine of the virgin birth, which is where the real emphasis should lie, after all how can Christ have had a "real" human birth when his mother's virginity wasn't even lost during childbirth?  

 This shifting of focus, to the detriment of the anti docetism emphasis that the Virgin Birth once stood steadfastly against, is especially true when it is said that Mary gave birth to Jesus without feeling any sort of pain. If we are to say that the Virgin Mother of God is the link that bridges the gulf between Christ and humanity, it makes it difficult to see why the virginal conception of Christ Jesus, proved clearly by Scripture, should have to involve a painless delivery.  The old friend of Anglicans everywhere, Cardinal Newman, said that God could have spared the mother of the Messiah the pains of child-bearing and I agree 110%. In fact I think that we can all agree with him, but agreeing that God could have done something does not necessarily mean that He did, and to be blunt there is no sound biblical proof or indeed reason for assuming He did give Mary a painless birth. Indeed, if the woman of the apocalypse in Revelation 12 is indeed Mary (as we are often told as proof of her “Queenship” in Heaven), then the opposite seems to be the reality, for there we are told quite plainly that this woman “was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth” (Revelation 12:2) which leaves the notion that her birth was painless, in dire need of support if it is to be believed throughout all Christendom.

Personally, I believe in the Virgin birth of Christ as foretold and recorded in Scripture, and indeed in the perpetual virginity of Mary (in the sense that she abstained from sexual relations before and after childbirth, rather than physically), but as for further innovation in doctrine and belief I must admit I have my doubts and worries. We may be able to say beautiful things about Mary but if there is no supporting truth in what we say then what is the point? Surely the Mother of God is worthy of our respect and admiration without us having to make up or stretch the truth to make her seem better?

Thanks for reading! In the next article on Mary, which will really be following on from this one, I want to look a little deeper into her role in Christ’s birth - I want to look into the idea of Mary as God-bearer, was she Theotokos? Or was she Christokos? And is it really acceptable for the reformed to call her "Mother of God"? 

Simul Iustus et peccator

Only two people, Mary and John the Baptist, stand at the unique crossroads where the Old and New Testaments converge. John looks forward to the promised Messiah, while Mary looks back. In the Gospels, she is the completion of a prophetic lineage of mothers, the culmination of a long line of Godly and righteous women which has included the obedient Sarah, the pure Rachel and the prayerful Hannah (and in the Apostle Matthew’s genealogy we also read of Tamar, Rahab and Ruth).

When we think about it any one of these women, as members of God’s people, Israel, could have made a great mother of the Messiah. When Mary cradles the infant Jesus in the temple, in the presence of Anna and Simeon we aren’t just looking upon any presentation in the Temple but instead we see the advent of the Lord’s Messiah being brought together with the long assured and long anticipated “consolation of Israel”

But Mary’s role also beckons us to look forward. As the “Daughter of Zion”, Mary represents the redeemed of God.  But it is not an easy redemption. In the Old Testament, the Daughter of Zion is illustrated as being in the pains in childbirth: “"Writhe and groan, O Daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail" (Micah 4:10). "For I heard a cry as of a woman in travail, anguish as of one bringing forth her first child, the cry of the Daughter of Zion gasping for breath" (Jer. 4:31).

When reading such texts typologically, early Christians depicted Mary as the new Eve, with Mary’s obedience counteracting and effectively cancelling out Eve’s disobedience (see here for quotes from Church Fathers).

Yet from an evangelical perspective, I feel one more thing must be pointed out. In the Old Testament, Israel isn’t depicted as just a virgin daughter... but also an unfaithful bride. The Lord laments "Like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel," in Jer. 3:20 and it is hard to relate this theme to Mary if we consider her immaculately conceived and sinless from birth.

But in the Gospels we often see little hints to another Mary... one who doesn’t really understand God's plans and purposes, one who interrupts when she should really be silent, one who interferes and even tries to hinder the plans of God pleading the bonds of motherly love when she should learn faith. (Mark 3:21, 31-35)

When we look at Mary in this light we see her as both faithful and faithless, obedient and interfering, perceptive and ignorant, simul justus et peccator, “at once a just person and a sinner”.

This Mary gives us a far more complete typology of Israel in the Old Testament, and points to her link with the New Testament Church, which is a community that is similarly the spotless bride of Christ by the generosity of God’s undeserved Grace and yet, at the very same moment, an assembly of wandering pilgrims who need to call upon God daily and ask as stated in the Lord’s prayer that He “forgive us our sins”.

Mary is symbolic of the body of believers who have placed their faith and trust in God. She is like all true believers when united as one, the Pure and Spotless Bride of God, yet she is more than that because she was also a sinner who needed the forgiveness and mercy of Christ, just as we do.... she is God’s People throughout time epitomised in one person... A Spotless Bride yet a Wandering Pilgrim.   

Majesty of Mary

I was reminded very recently of a little story I had read in John Knox’s “History of the Reformation in Scotland” in which a young Scottish man who had recently left the Roman Catholic Church was forced to row in a galley ship for nineteen months. One day when the ship arrived in Nantes, France, an image of the Virgin Mary was brought to the ship for the men to kiss. Of course our young hero of the story rejected this image and upon having it forced into his hands cast it off the side of the ship and into the waters below shouting out... "Let our Lady now save herself: she is light enough; let her learn to swim!"

I have always loved Knox and though I have come to disagree with a lot of his views I still love to read his writings. There is a sense of clarity and a witty bluntness to his writings that I don’t believe has ever been replicated.  He has had a tremendous influence on me and I’m sure that his little anecdote of the young man (which many consider to have been about Knox himself) has had a tremendous influence on Protestant thought, after all the tradition of piety that exists within Protestantism can really be traced back to Knox and his ilk. So too can the almost instinctive distrust of Mary and any devotion to her.

Why?

Well first of all, a lot of the devotion which flourishes among many of the Roman Catholic faithful has simply got no Biblical warrant.  Her perpetual virginity (the belief that she had no children after Jesus and remained a virgin throughout her life), immaculate conception (that she was born without the stain of original sin), and bodily assumption (that she was taken body and soul into heaven without seeing corruption) are extra-biblical beliefs, though pious.

Let’s look at the Assumption of Mary which is celebrated on this day (15^th August), when according to tradition Mary was taken body and soul into Heaven .If God had wanted to take Mary directly to Heaven without her death (or the general resurrection, depending on whether or not you believe she was assumed before or after dying) He undoubtedly could have. After all let’s not forget that He took Elijah into Heaven without death.  

So it could happen but we have no Scriptural evidence to support it and as such we cannot expect or force others to believe it. Look at Luther the great reformer, he believed in purgatory his entire life yet accepting there was no Scriptural evidence (indisputable evidence) accepted that he could not force anyone to agree with him for “no one is bound to believe more than what is based on Scripture, and those who do not believe in purgatory are not to be called heretics, if otherwise they accept Scripture in its entirety” Career of the Reformer II, Luther’s Works, Vol. 32

Yet Rome is different. It has not only taken on the Scripturally baseless “Assumption of Mary” as real but has even declared it as an infallible dogma, which has deepened the gulf between Roman Catholics and other Christians even further. This is why Brother Roger Shutz, who founded the Taize community, felt compelled to travel to Rome to beg the Pope to reconsider making such a belief dogma because Bro. Roger (correctly) predicted that such a move would further alienate Christians from one another.

Many Protestants feel that extolling Mary obscures the sole sufficiency of Jesus Christ as Saviour and mediator between God and men. We have all heard of the efforts to have Mary officially recognised as mediatrix of all graces, or even as co-redemptrix alongside Christ Himself, which though unsuccessful so far can only result in bringing down the Glorious Christ. Brightening Mary’s Glory yet dimming Christ’s.

Yet the question remains. Can there be a place for Mary outside of Rome? Can Protestantism come to accept and even honour the Blessed Virgin Mary or, like the young Knox are we to throw her overboard once and for all?

Can we, without compromising the Reformation’s cries of Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia and Sola Fide not only understand but honour Mary in way that are based in Scripture and motivated by an evangelical zeal? Can we too be included among those of every generation who call the Mother of Christ “blessed”?

We are right to have caution about the excesses in Marian devotion but in our reaction have we simply gone to the other extreme? Must we ignore her presence in Scripture, choosing to ignore her in sermons or worship services (with the only real exception being the Magnificat at Evening Prayer)? Is she to be consigned to the school play at Christmas and rejected the rest of the year?

Personally I think Mary; the Mother of God hasn’t been treated well by either Protestants or Roman Catholics. She is the chief mother of humanity, there’s never been a mother more important and no one can take that away from her and if we accuse Roman Catholics of making her a deity then we too must accept our failings in giving her the cold shoulder and neglecting her.

We have been scared to give her praise or esteem lest we be accused of “Romanism”, we give her no respect because we fear that others will view us as though we have sympathies with Rome. Am I right?

So in my next few articles I intend to reclaim the Blessed Virgin Mary for Reformed Christians everywhere, with a fully biblical appreciation of her, and her role in the history of our salvation.

Though I admit that when all is said and done we may not be able to recite the Loreto Litany, or kneel down before statues of Mary, but then again we certainly won’t need to throw her overboard either.

The Power and the Glory!

Recently while talking about the wonderful “Of God’s and Men” and it’s portrayal of martyrdom I was told about a little book called “The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene. I must shamefully admit I had never heard of Mr. Greene or any of his books, yet after a quick glance at Wikipedia my interest was ignited. Greene was a convert to Roman Catholicism, his book had been denounced by the Holy Office as damaging to the reputation of the priesthood, yet Pope Paul VI told him he shouldn’t take any notice of their criticism and even worked to defend the book from church censorship. Considering I was told about this book – which is entirely about a priest – by a Presbyterian Minister, of the very reformed kind, I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about.

It’s been a couple of days since I finished the novel and it is with some trepidation that I attempt to write a review of this famous novel about a Mexican priest. Set during the 1920’s and based partially on true events the story details the cat and mouse chase between the Priest and the authorities during a time when the authorities were trying to suppress the church by killing the clergy and destroying churches.

In real life in 1926, then President Calles began a persecution of the Roman Catholic Church by burning churches and killing priests and, in general, creating what he imagined to be a God free country. The persecution and slaughter was blamed on “the Church's greed and debauchery” and it is against this backdrop that Green imagines his depressed priest on the run.

 The priest is essentially the last survivor, all other priests having faced firing squads. Something that I found quite amazing was that not once is this priest named, which leads me to believe that he is much more than a character, to me he is a symbol, an idea made man.

Amazingly for a book by a Roman Catholic which I am sure he would have felt was sympathetic to Rome we are not given the usual story of Sainthood or indeed the priesthood, in fact these stories of famous Catholics are even parodied as simple children’s stories. No Greene’s hero of the piece may be a priest but he is certainly no Saint. Once a young go getter, he is now called a “whiskey priest” (though he prefers brandy) seemingly with a drinking problem, he has also fathered a child in the past. Prayers, fasts and observance of Holy days have all been consigned to the past for him. Plagued with a growing despair, religious doubts and a never ending struggle against acohol and pride he is as far away from the traditional priest one can imagine.
The thing is though the book is primarily about a chase, it is not a fast paced or action packed novel. Instead it is Greene’s brilliant use of description of the priest’s surroundings and indeed his compelling treatment of the priest’s faith that make this such a wonderful read.

Simply put, the priest wants to believe but the world around him doesn’t make it easy. Poverty pervades the slum like settlements, the people have been abandonded and no longer trust the church and the priest doesn’t even trust his own authority. He wonders how such a man as him, a drunken, prideful and sinful man as he can represent the true beauty of the Church to the people

His chase and his inevitable capture should be the stuff from which martyrs are made, but the priest knows that he doesn't measure up to the martyrs of the past. His soul is sullied by his own repeated sins, and he is afraid that in his final moments he will think not of God but of fear, and death. And in the priest's repeated avocations against becoming too proud, Greene powerfully showcases the conflicting pulls of a good religion on a bad man.

It's not easy to see, and I assure you it is even harder to describe, but there is a definite shape and flow to Greene's exploration of the priest's faith, one that is perfectly attuned both to the physical events of the story and to the development of Greene's ideas about religious faith and doubt. And Greene writes about these ideas with a practiced hand, never descending into clichés or mere exposition, but instead maintaining a fresh and interesting dialogue with the reader despite pages with nothing more than the priest's own monologues which consist of nothing more than internal ramblings.

But the book has more virtues than just its abstract ideas: Greene also fills the book with plenty of remarkable and memorable scenes, such as the sick comedy that takes place when the priest attempts to illegally purchase a bottle of wine, only to see it casually drained away by the men who are trying to capture him. The characters besides the priest are also wonderful: the faithless young lieutenant who pursues the priest, the near toothless mestizo who accompanies him, even the exiled foreign dentist Mr. Tench who waits desperately for the opportunity to go home.

The Power and the Glory is a wonderful read, from its dusty and bug-ridden introduction to its ultimately moving conclusion and though slow at the start by the end the book became a deep and surprisingly moving account of one man's struggle to maintain his faith. Really go out and read it!