Speaker Pelosi's Daughter Joins the Culture War

Alexandra Pelosi is a filmmaker, set to debut her newest documentary on evangelical Christianity on HBO January 25th. She is also the daughter of the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. And she, halfway anyway, thinks conservative Christians are on the right side of the so-called "culture wars."

Pelosi, who previously made waves with her 2000 Bush campaign documentary "Journeys with George," describes herself, according to the New York Times, as a "lapsed Catholic who dislikes church." Nonetheless, the Times reports, she makes sure her new baby will be brought up in church so he will have "more than himself and capitalism to believe in."

According to the Times article, Pelosi fears that many evangelicals won't watch her documentary, simply because she's the Speaker's daughter. Nonetheless, she feels a strange pull toward some of the concerns of conservative Christians. "I believe in the culture war," Pelosi tells reporter Felicia R. Lee. "And you know what? If I have to take a side in the culture war, I'll take their side. Because if you give me the choice of Paris Hilton or Jesus, I'll take Jesus."

The Speaker's daughter has a point, perhaps a point many of us on this side of the "culture war" need to hear. How many in our own pews have not much more than themselves and capitalism to believe in? How many in our own churches have a hard time choosing between Jesus and Paris Hilton, or even understanding that there's a choice there to be made?

Comments

[John Hetman]

But Paris Hilton? Why not Barbara Streisand, Noah Chomsky, Richard Dawkins, Barney Frank? Her own mother for that matter?

Paris Hilton isn't much of a choice unless one is an introverted adolescent male squirreled away with his computer in a corner.

[Bob Gardner]

"How many in our own churches have a hard time choosing between Jesus and Paris Hilton, or even understanding that there's a choice there to be made?"

That is the struggle isn't it? That is what the parable of the sower and the seed is all about. I had always hopped that I would be the 'good soil,' while fearing I was the rocky soil, but the truth of the matter is if I look back over my life there were times when I was the shallow soil, times when I was the rocky soil, and all too few times I was the good soil. Sometimes we choose Parish Hilton, and sometimes we choose Jesus. The point of the whole struggle is to remove the tendencies toward the allure of the Parish Hilton types, as we grow into the 'likeness,' of God. The east calls this process deification.
It certainly sounds like Alexandra Pelosi has a good heart, and I hope that she herself will return to her Christian heritage, and truly join the fight!

[Bob Gardner]

"Paris Hilton isn't much of a choice unless one is an introverted adolescent male squirreled away with his computer in a corner."

Just a point of clarification, I know of Parish Hilton, but don't know that much about her. I used her name as a euphamism for the world, or "pop culture."

[coco]

I think a significant issue here is that Catholics (to get somewhat off-topic but for the sake of argument) are often identified with the "liberal" position on political issues.

A concern about Jesus is "orthogonal" to much of the culture wars, because it transcends much of the liberal/conservative debate.

If we were all great Christians it wouldn't be so important to have big or small government; high or low taxes; death penalty/gun control/immigration law/whatever...

I guess what I'm driving at is that the key elements of the culture war are exactly those which we may safely assert that Jesus has an opinion on ("Let the little children come to me and do not stop them"). The rest is just distraction.

Apologies is there's too much irrelevance in this comment!

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>A concern about Jesus is "orthogonal" to much of the culture wars, because it transcends much of the liberal/conservative debate.<<<

First time I've heard orthogonal used in a theological discussion. Ten bonus points to Coco.

[coco]

Oh my. I've accidentally revealed some kind of mathematical trining...:)

[Reid]

Orthogonal? That's the best mathematical metaphor I've heard in a spiritual discussion in a long time. And it is an excellent point besides. Our hearts are not to be on the liberal/conservative political axis nor even on the plane of worldly thought, but set on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Sometimes those things above cast shadows (projections, to continue the vector image) on the worldly plane, but we must beware mistaking those shadows for the realities.

On the original point (no pun intended), I agree that the real problem is simply seeing that there is a choice to be made. Surely the number of folks who have made a deliberate, thoughtful choice to support the murder of the unborn is miniscule compared to the number of folks who have never realized the issue calls for serious thought.

[Joe Long]

But Paris Hilton? Why not Barbara Streisand, Noah Chomsky, Richard Dawkins, Barney Frank? Her own mother for that matter?

Barbar Steisand isn't much of a choice unless one is an introverted middleaged female squirreled away with the easy-listening station in a corner.

Noam Chomsky isn't much of a choice unless one is an extoverted underperforming college sophomore desperately trying to convince a professor (or coed) of his intellection prowess.

Richard Dawkins can't choose "sides" in a war because no one will know who was actually fittest to survive, until it's over.

Her Mom...well, I cut folks a little slack for siding with their mothers...

But..poor Barney. Anything called a "war", no matter how metaphorically, is probably not something you want to be on Barney's side on.

[Ethan Cordray]

>>Oh my. I've accidentally revealed some kind of mathematical trining...:)<<

Roger Penrose??

[Bill R]

"How many in our own pews have not much more than themselves and capitalism to believe in? How many in our own churches have a hard time choosing between Jesus and Paris Hilton, or even understanding that there's a choice there to be made?"

The disease of worldliness is a near-fatal illness in today's church. The world, the flesh, and the devil continue to do what they do best. So many in the church ask, "Why must we choose? Why can't we have both?"

[Steve Nicoloso]

Coco suggests:

If we were all great Christians it wouldn't be so important to have big or small government; high or low taxes; death penalty/gun control/immigration law/whatever.

But to set one's heart on things above is nothing less than to order one's life in view of transcendant goods, i.e., to view man as fundamentally not reducible to material concerns, which is, in fact, reall to position onesself on a "liberal"/"conservative" axis. This is of course not to say that there is some sort of "God's Optimal Tax Table" (as Wallis seems to suggest), nor is it a failure to recognize Two Distinct Cities. But let us not forget that the recognition of the supremacy of the trancendant does have its consequences in the day-to-day grind... which is all to say, really, that ideas do have consequences. And most consequences are (ultimately) political... and decisions devolve into prudential judgements ultimately informed by faith.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>If we were all great Christians it wouldn't be so important to have big or small government; high or low taxes; death penalty/gun control/immigration law/whatever.<<<

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

[Nick]

I've heard that quote before, am totally unaware of where it comes from, but dispute its accuracy. The Celestial Court is a product of almost every major religion in existence. If a hierarchy exists, as it does in the Christian cosmology, doesn't a Divine Government also exist? If then, men were unfallen wouldn't a government still exist, albeit something we might not recognize as such?

And back to the subject since we tend to be wandering off these days...the film looks really interesting. I might have to pick it up.

[coco]

Ethan,

Would you believe I've no idea who Roger Penrose is?

He's what you might call "orthogonal to my lived experience". :)

I take the points made by several about prudential judgment, right ordering and the like. But there is also a hierarchy among the things worth debating!

[Reid]

Steve, thank you for emphasizing the other side of what I was saying. As you say, having our hearts set on things above does not mean indifference to the things of earth. The worldly plane is where we live, because that is where God has placed us, but we order our lives according to the solid realities of heaven as they project their shadows on that plane (hmmm, that metaphor is backwards -- the plane is dark, so heaven casts, umm, anti-shadows?). Those anti-shadows do not align well with any of the usual categories in the worldly plane, being cast from a higher dimension. Thus I have the impression that many serious Christians, while they call themselves conservative in some casual sense, do not wear that label comfortably, knowing that the teaching of Christ does not really fit with any of the political agendas or parties commonly called conservative (and some have the same problem with the label "liberal"). One can, to use a stereotypical example, decry the murder of the unborn and simultaneously decry the oppression inherent in unbridled capitalism.

[GL]

The disease of worldliness is a near-fatal illness in today's church. The world, the flesh, and the devil continue to do what they do best. So many in the church ask, "Why must we choose? Why can't we have both?"

As a "conservative" (i.e., orthodox) Protestant, I must agree. While we condemn the sins of liberal churches, we often ignore our own or even refuse to recognize them. Indeed, we sometimes even justify them as signs of God's blessings, which, at best, borders on blasphemy. Perhaps we would have more success in addressing the sins our our liberal brothers and sisters if we first dealt with our own glaring sinfulness.

[Gene Godbold]

Stuart,
I think government is required as a result of our finitude, not (just) our depravity. Prelapsarian Adam and Eve needed government. Post-resurrection humanity is also going to need good government. Fortunately for us, we have it on good authority that we're going to receive not just good, but perfect government.

[Robert Walker]

"Alexandra Pelosi...a lapsed Catholic who dislikes the church." Ms. Pelosi is quoted as saying she "dislikes" the Bride of Christ who is in nuptial, sacramental communion with her Bridegroom, presenting herself as a "living sacrifice," at every Eucharist, to the crucified, resurrected, ruling and reigning "King of Kings and Lord of Lords", Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church is His new creation, "the wife, the Bride of the Lamb" and His sacramental presence in the world. Those "communicated" into this family and Kingdom of God can only be described as faithful/unfaithful, holy/unholy, moral/immoral, transformed/deformed, obedient/rebellious, sanctified/unsanctified, orthodox/unorthodox, or spiritual/unspiritual. If the Catholic Church were a "polity" the terms "conservative" and "liberal" might have relevence. If you are in a church that can be described as "liberal or conservative" you are in a church that is a polity, with a representative government of one kind or another. In the "culture wars" the power play between the political liberals and conservatives become nothing more than the conflict between Pharisees and Saducees, who both conspired against Christ. The problem is that both the "good" and the "evil" parties are eating from the wrong tree, the "tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil." There will never be real solutions until those in power eat from the "tree of life" and walk in the Truth, which is Christ. Here is an example. One of our political parties exploits a positive emphasis on such issues as the environment, preferential option for the poor, social justice, embryonic stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia etc. and a negative emphasis on capital punishment, military defense etc. to its political advantage, while denying the consistent teaching of Christ on morality and respect for the dignity of human life from the moment of conception. The other party takes the opposite positions but falls prey to the opposite errors. The "third option," the Truth, demands that we support a consistent moral ethic, pay off the national debt and stop selling America out to its enemies. This will not happen until we each get out of debt, go through the narrow gate, get on the narrow path that leads up to life by "denying ourselves, taking up our crosses, and following Jesus Christ." That is the real definition of the "culture war."

[dirk van glabeke]

Robert,

the problem seems that, the christians among themselves, don't agree what is the 'tree of life'.

[Judy Warner]

Robert,
I think you are confusing personal morality with national policy in some instances. Issues like abortion and stem cell research are public policies but based on the morality we receive from Scripture, or natural law. But Scripture does not prescribe economic policies or foreign policy. And we've just had a lively discussion on capital punishment.

I am always irritated by those who think that our duty to help the poor must mean that the government should reach into our pockets and take out money to give to the poor, money which somehow leaks into the pockets of thousands of bureaucrats and contractors on its way to the nominal recipients. We have enough data on this stuff that if we really think the Bible tells us to help the poor through our government, at least we could do it effectively. Instead, anything that could be described as "for the poor" must be automatically supported or we are sinners.

A recent book by Arthur Brooks, Who Really Cares, reported on a study that shows that conservatives who are for smaller government and less government help to the poor give far more to charity in both money and time. Who is really helping the poor -- those who lobby for more government money, or those who personally give to the poor?

[charles]

Paris Hilton is not exactly what I think of when pondering capitalism.

[Robert Walker]

Dirk,
I agree totally with your second two paragraphs and you reaffirm my point in paragraph one. In the big picture, The Truth, the resurrected Christ, looks upon us as "a people," with no allowance for separation between "private" practice and "public" policy. Read the prophets and the gospels; a people is judged on the criterion of righteous obedience to God without reference to "private belief." This is because what we do IS what we believe. This idea of separation between "believing" and "doing" grows from the presupposition that there is an allowable separation between belief and behavior, between profession and practice. This is the definition of hypocrisy and is evidence of the separation (read "death") that occured at the fall of man into slavery to sin. This deception encourages the hypocrites in government, from JFK, to John Kerry, to Ed Kennedy, to Nancy Pelosi, to separate their "private beliefs" from their "public actions" in denial of the Catholic faith they claim. You make the connection between God's revealed moral standards and public policy on the issues of abortion and (embryonic)stem cell research. The Catholic Church and the Scriptures DO speak to economic and foreign policy. The removal of the gold standard and specie coinage, the national debt and inflation, usury, and the estate tax are the prophetic equivalent of the oppression of widows and orphans. There is also a firm scriptural and Magisterial basis for a righteous national foreign policy (read "just war," and "not enslaving indigenous peoples by colonizing nations," etc).
If we allow the ungodly to continue to represent us, they put the whole nation in danger of judgement. The problem is they do accurately represent us, and we who have refused the good government of God deserve the unholy government we have received as evidence of God's judgment against us. This nation is bankrupt now and dependent on the inflow of foreign cash to continue to feed our pride and lust. This is why I advocate the "third option" of chosing the Truth of the "Tree of Life" over deceptive political agendas. Only the Truth will free us from slavery to sin and our enemies.

[Judy Warner]

First of all, my name isn't Dirk.

Second of all,
The removal of the gold standard and specie coinage, the national debt and inflation, usury, and the estate tax are the prophetic equivalent of the oppression of widows and orphans.

Says who? There are those who believe that our economy would have collapsed if we had not gone off the gold standard, leaving many widows and orphans destitute. What do you mean by usury, lending at interest? If we had a system in which money could not be lent at interest, widows and orphans would be a great deal worse off as we would have a primitive economy in which widows and orphans would be gleaning the fields for their meals. Or do you mean it's somehow more Biblical to have a primitive economy?

[Robert Walker]

Dear Judy,
First of all, I was writing to Dirk.
Second of all,the gold standard kept messianic government at bay and prevented them from spending more money, from widows and orphans, than they had to spend. "The economy" you speak of is the paper "Federal Reserve Note" (read: debt) based economy that allows the government to steal real value from our buying capacity, annuities and stock funds (which widows and orphans depend on) by simply inflating the currency. Government created the artificial crisis of "destitute widows and orphans" because for political (read: power)reasons they began to inflate the economy. Usury is an barnacle on this lecherous (read: theft) economy and does not return enough value to keep up with inflation. The objection to usury is really an objection to inflation, "the destroyer of nations." Dirk Van Glabeke has suggested that "scripture does not prescribe economic policies." Look in Scripture for the definition of "money" and the warnings against usury. The Scriptural economic admonitions make no sense if your definitions are wrong. If God does not have more wisdom that our political economists, we need to stop listening to Him altogether. If widows and orphans (and the rest of us) were willing to lead debt-free lives we would be prosperous enough not to have to glean fields to eat. We could then simply pay cash for everything with genuine money that had its original value that was not stolen from us by the estate tax and inflation. The "problem" this "primitive economy" would create for us is that we wouldn't be able to live in $3-500,00 homes at 28 years of age (unless it was inherited), buy all our "toys," adopt worldly values rather than Christian virtues, and feed our pride and lust. We would then have to learn to talk to one another, discipline and educate our (many) children in good behavior and the classics, and learn to love God and one another in a true interdependent community of faith (where widows and orphans are cared for). "Says who?" those of us who live debt-free, in a growing Christian community, which is a blessing to our many well mannered children and our widows and orphans, and who are seeking the classical education not made available to us in our govenment sponsored public school education.

[Judy Warner]

Robert,
I'd be more inclined to read through your arguments if you stopped insisting that I was Dirk. Please reread what you are arguing against and note the name at the end.

[YaknYeti]

Robert,

Have you run your gold-standard theories past the test of history? Seems that there were large numbers of poor & sinful people in older civilizations, while precious metals were the basis of currency. On the other hand, today, one of the more interesting ways to help poor people around the world dig themselves out of poverty is providing microloans to help them start small businesses themselves. It balances responsibility with generosity, which seems pretty in-line with the Levitical laws (let the poor come and work for themselves on the edges of your fields).

In general, I don't think I'd argue that some of the things you present can be good (no debt, individually or federally), but not always the best option. It's all part of the "prudential judgments" category that others have discussed and that are obscure enough in the Bible that I (at least) think reasonable Christians can disagree on them. Your equation of ursury with inflation puzzles me, for example, as I don't see a necessary connection there. A little inflation seems like it could be a good thing, encouraging rich people to invest their money (and create jobs) rather than hoard it. Usury, I thought, was more charging crippling interest, and would have its modern-day parallels in credit card companies.

Yaknyeti

[Dirk Van Glabeke]

Robert,

There must be some confusion here. I posted the following:

>>>Robert,

the problem seems that, the christians among themselves, don't agree what is the 'tree of life'.<<<

which I could still post as a reaction to your other posts.
Maybe I'd better add: and on how to draw conclusions from it to other aspects of life.

Sorry Judy, must be quite a shock to be mistaken for such a sinfull person : ).

[Judy Warner]

Actually, Dirk, I thought it was rather funny. Since I've been a sinful person, and still am, that part doesn't shock me in the least!

[GL]

For the Mark Steyn fans out there, see Pelosi a rare example of a woman who 'has it all' in yesterday's (Jan. 12, 2007) Chicago Sun-Times. His concluding sentence gives you an idea about the subject of the article: "Pelosi's fellow California liberals and those gushing feminist columnists ought to ponder why 'the most powerful woman in America' is quite so untypical: What does it say when it's the exception that proves the ruler?"

[Judy Warner]

Robert,
God certainly has more wisdom about political economy than mere humans, but I still don't see where he's written it down for us. However, since he loves us, wants us to thrive, and created us as free men and women, I'd think he'd prefer an economic system that makes us prosperous and allows us freedom. Given that, in any economic system there are temptations to sin. I'm not sure our free-market system is worse than other systems in that respect.

A communist relative of mine thinks the Soviet system had much to recommend it, and Cuba's system too, because under them people are not tempted to become materialistic. From what I've heard, the people in those systems can hardly think about anything beyond material things, since acquiring what is necessary to live is so time-consuming and difficult. (I'm not accusing you of believing what he does.) Greed is a universal sin, under any kind of economy, and the fight against it is a personal one, not one given to the government to conduct.

A modern economy is necessary for modern technology and science. Your simple Christian community (which sounds like quite a nice place) would not be possible without the surrounding economy. We generate so much wealth in this country that we are all benefiting from it whether we recognize it or not. You do have a computer and are on the internet, things that would hardly be possible in a cash-only economy. Ditto the ready availability of antibiotics to cure your infections, and advanced dentistry to prevent the kind of chronic pain that mankind lived with for thousands of years. And so on.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>For the Mark Steyn fans out there, see Pelosi a rare example of a woman who 'has it all' in yesterday's (Jan. 12, 2007) Chicago Sun-Times. His concluding sentence gives you an idea about the subject of the article: "Pelosi's fellow California liberals and those gushing feminist columnists ought to ponder why 'the most powerful woman in America' is quite so untypical: What does it say when it's the exception that proves the ruler?"<<<

It's easy to have it all when you have more than $20 million in the bank. It's not so easy for the poor, harassed woman trying to make sense of her life on $50,000 a year.

[James Redden Jr.]

"Government created the artificial crisis of "destitute widows and orphans" because for political (read: power)reasons they began to inflate the economy."

This reminds of that saying of Jesus, "The poor you will always have with you..."

[Robert Walker]

Dirk, you are right; I was confused about who I was answering. I agree that there may be some "Christians" who do not agree on who the "Tree of Life" is, but a candid reading of Christ's own words about being "Life," recorded by John in his gospel, and the "Tree of Life" in the Apocalypse should end the confusion. Those steeped in Jewish Kingdom-Temple Mysticism, as was John, would not have a problem in this interpretation.
Judy, sorry for my confusion about who posted what on the Blog. I would only like to comment to you and to Yaknyeti that using a traditional store of value for the basis of our currency rather than a "promise to pay" is not exclusive to the progress of science and technology, the accumulation of wealth, and "micro-gifts," and it helps preserve, rather than compromise, freedom. In no way would I suggest that any govenment or economic system should assume responsibility to solve the problem of greed and lust for power. In any system the rich will "hoard," lust for more, and seek control over others. Fallen men have the capacity to undermine any system, including a free market economy and the Constitution of the US. That is how we got where we are. Still, a free market economy, rather than a controlled economy (where a socialist govenment or a capitalistic big-business monopoly), seems to be the best choice in controlling greed and producing prosperity. This is at least one interpretation of the economic definitions and admonitions of Scripture. A counter-part example on the political side: there is no overt "best" form of government declared in Scripture, either. But through the application of the scriptural principles of the Hebrew republic contained in the Mosaic and Davidic Covenants, fulfilled in Christ, the writing of the Constitution of the US by Christians appears as the world's first and best Constitution, and source of continued freedom, unity, and properity. A free market economy, real value money, and the Constitution have stood the test of time in providing freedom and prosperity to this nation, especially when we more consistently applied these principles in our early years. This is why I advocate continued freedom from government theft by inflation and ungodly estate taxes that prevent the passing of accumulated wealth from one generation to the next. This brings us back to the original point. Until our executive, legislative, and judicial branches choose the "third option" and act according to revealed moral and religious Truth, pay off the national debt, stop selling us out to our enemies, give us back our public religious freedom and our real prosperity, etc. then the spectre of economic slavery to our enemies and govenment by unholy and unwise people will continue to haunt us. I do continue to understand that we get the government we deserve. God has always judged an ungodly people by giving them an ungodly government. The real question of the "culture war" is, "Who do we really want to be as a people?" The fulfilled Davidic Kingdom of Christ, represented in the world by the Catholic Church, has Magisterial teaching that can give the world wisdom, freedom, and peace if we will listen and then act rather than being "lapsed Catholics who dislike the Church."

[Kevin]

I'm probably getting into this way too late but I'll give it a shot anyway...

Those who may have been confused by Roberts words concerning usury should read the definition (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/usury) and then read the article at the following link: http://www.heretical.com/miscellx/usury.html

I too had thought of usury as an exorbitant rate or amount of interest, but found that it can mean ‘interest’ period.

Robert:

You sound like a very intelligent and knowledgeable person, but some of your references to the Catholic Church concern me. I hope that you don't think of the "Catholic Church" as the LDS & Jehovah’s Witnesses do their churches (i.e. - as the only group which comprises the "Bride of Christ"). Each of these groups have there own unique beliefs & practices which are NOT biblical (praying to and deifying Mary at the top of the Catholic list). You don't have to be a bible scholar to see the holes in any of these churches doctrine/practices. But, because each of them uses the Holy Bible for a major portion of their basis for truth, I would never say that there are not 'born again' believers in each. However, truth is, when the rapture comes -- there will probably be members of every church left on this earth to face the Tribulation (Matthew 7:21-23). I hope you can see that the body and bride of Christ is comprised of those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, follow his teachings by becoming disciples (or disciplined learners) of Christ and continually do so with all that is within them (I like to call them the "Christian" church). This does not limit true Christians to a particular church, denomination or political line of thinking.

Though I more closely align myself politically with conservatives, I believe that there are ‘biblical’ problems within the overall stance of both conservatives and liberals. Part of the problem is that most people feel they must stand on one side or the other, when neither side is perfect. With all the political correctness, many are more concerned with pleasing people than with pleasing God. Of course, the biggest problem is that ‘people’ (fallen, sinful humans - who have trouble agreeing on most anything) are running this whole circus.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> Magisterial<<<

Properly, "magisterial". There is no institution named "The Magisterium", and I defy anyone to visit the Vatican to find its offices. Magisterium is nothing more nor less than the teaching authority of the Church with which every member of the Church is endowed according to his gifts and status. All bishops being equal in grace and dignity, all bishops are endowed with the same teaching authority, and thus no one bishop may, a priori, make any statement concerning the faith that is not, at some point, received and accepted by all of them.

And, while bishops have a particular charism to teach the true faith, neither adding, deleting nor changing that which has been handed down, the rest of us have a duty to teach that faith to all who are open to it, and to defend that faith against those who would change or reject it. When presented with a new doctrine, it is our responsibility to weigh it in regards to the totality of Holy Tradition and determine whether or not it is consistent with the unchanging truth. No doctrine may thus be considered an infallible element of Tradition that has not been received by the entire Body of Christ.

[Bill Brennan]

Kevin, if you are going to attack the beliefs of a church, please make an effort to get it right! Catholics do NOT deify Mary! We do VENERATE her as Christ's first disciple and His mother. Of all female humanity, from all time, she was chosen by God to be the mother of God made Man. That is in itself worthy of respect. As a biblical christian, I am sure that you are familiar with the Magnificat in which she states, "For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth ALL GENERATIONS SHALL CALL ME BLESSED (KJV 1-48)." [Caps are mine] Catholics do call her blessed and we ask her to intercede for us just as she interceded for the bride and groom at Cana.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Kevin, if you are going to attack the beliefs of a church, please make an effort to get it right! Catholics do NOT deify Mary! We do VENERATE her as Christ's first disciple and His mother. Of all female humanity, from all time, she was chosen by God to be the mother of God made Man. That is in itself worthy of respect. As a biblical christian, I am sure that you are familiar with the Magnificat in which she states, "For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth ALL GENERATIONS SHALL CALL ME BLESSED (KJV 1-48)." [Caps are mine] Catholics do call her blessed and we ask her to intercede for us just as she interceded for the bride and groom at Cana.<<<

I recommend Timothy George's "Evangelicals and the Mother of God", in the February issue of First Things:

Evangelicals and the Mother of God
by Timothy George

It is time for evangelicals to recover a fully biblical appreciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the history of salvation-and to do so precisely as evangelicals. The question, of course, is how to do that. Can the evangelical reengagement with the wider Christian tradition include a place for Mary? Can we, without forsaking any of the evangelical essentials, including the great solas of the Reformation, echo Elizabeth’s acclamation, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42), or resonate with the Spirit-filled maid of the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:46-48)?

Certainly, there is growing evidence of fascination with Mary among evangelical Protestants. Many evangelicals, including a number of Southern Baptists, have begun to observe the liturgical season of Advent, which has led them to ponder more deeply the role of Mary in the history of salvation. In December 2004, I wrote for Christianity Today on “The Blessed Evangelical Mary,” which drew a strong, mostly positive response. Evangelical scholars have begun to write books about Mary, with two volumes, Tim Perry’s Mary for Evangelicals and Scot McKnight’s The Real Mary, appearing just this past year.

At a popular level, The Nativity Story, a movie that premiered at the Vatican, was strongly promoted among evangelicals. Over the holidays, many Christian radio stations played the beautiful “Breath of Heaven,” in which Mary sings, “I have traveled many moonless nights, cold and weary with a babe inside, and I wonder what I’ve done. Holy Father you have come, and chosen me now to carry your Son.” At the theological level, the study group known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together, having produced an earlier document on the communion of saints, has now taken up the theme of the Virgin Mary, with special attention to how she is portrayed in the Bible.

For all this positive interest in Mary among evangelicals, however, both Marian dogma and Marian devotion remain contentious, church-dividing issues. In a recent dialogue with a Catholic friend, one evangelical remarked, “If you were to ask me to give my three best reasons why I’m not a Catholic, I’d simply say ?Mary, Mary, and Mary.’” It seems to many evangelicals that Catholic preoccupation with Mary obscures the preeminence and sole salvific sufficiency of Jesus Christ and thus leads many people away from rather than to the Savior himself. Good Catholics know, of course, that Mary is not the object of worship or the kind of adoration given only to God (latria), but rather of veneration (doulia), albeit of a special kind (hyperdoulia). But this distinction often seems to get lost at the local level.
Such concerns are not alleviated by the campaign of some Catholics a few years ago to have Mary officially recognized, perhaps even with another infallible dogma, as mediatrix of grace and co-redemptrix with Christ himself. Orthodox Catholics interpret such Marian titles in a way that they believe leaves intact the unique role of Jesus Christ as the mediator between God and man. No Protestant theologian could make this point more clearly than Vatican II: “No creature could ever be counted along with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer . . . the Church does not hesitate to profess the subordinate role of Mary.” Still, the very fact of the campaign points to the difference between the ways Catholics and Protestants feel about the Blessed Virgin.

So why should evangelicals participate in and celebrate the Marian moment that seems to be upon us? The answer is: Precisely because they are evangelicals, that is, gospel people and Bible people. Mary has a pivotal and irreducible place in the Bible, and evangelicals must reclaim this aspect of biblical teaching if we are to be faithful to the whole counsel of God. When it comes to the gospel, Mary cannot be shunted aside or relegated to the affectionate obscurity of the annual Christmas pageant. In the New Testament, she is not only the mother of the redeemer but also the first one to whom the gospel was proclaimed and, in turn, the first one to proclaim it to others. Mary is named a “herald” of God’s good news. We cannot ignore the messenger, because the message she tells is about the salvation of the world.
Evangelical retrieval of a proper biblical theology of Mary will give attention to five explicit aspects of her calling and ministry: Mary as the daughter of Israel, as the virgin mother of Jesus, as Theotokos, as the ?handmaiden of the Word, and as the mother of the Church. Consider Mary’s first title, Daughter of Israel. Mary stands, along with John the Baptist, at a unique point of intersection in the biblical narrative between the Old and the New Covenants. When Mary cradles the baby Jesus in the Temple in the presence of Anna and Simeon, we see brought together the advent of the Lord’s messiah, and the long-promised and long-prepared-for “consolation of Israel.” The holy family is portrayed as part of a wider community, namely “all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).
Mary appears in the infancy narratives as the culmination of a prophetic lineage of pious mothers: Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah-together with Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, who appear in the Matthean genealogy. There is a sense in which any of them could have been the mother of the messiah. According to one interpretation of Genesis 4:1, when Eve exclaims at the birth of Cain, “I have gotten a man from the Lord,” she supposes that her first-born son was already the fulfillment of the prophecy of Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman who would bruise the head of the serpent.
But Mary as the handmaiden of the Lord, chosen to give birth to the messiah, is more than the culminating figure among the mothers of Israel. As the Daughter of Zion, she is the kairotic representative of the eschatological and redeemed people of God: Israel itself. George Knight and Max Thurian, as well as a number of Catholic exegetes, have pointed to numerous Old Testament texts in which Israel is personified as a woman: See Isaiah 62:11, for example, “Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your salvation comes” and Lamentations 2:13, “O daughter of Jerusalem . . . O virgin daughter of Zion.” Several verses depict the daughter of Zion in labor: “Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail” (Micah 4:10) and “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” (Jeremiah 4:31).

It is this kind of typological reading that allowed the early Church, from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus onward, to depict Mary as the new Eve, the one through whose obedience the disobedience of the first Eve was reversed. The image of Mary in the New Testament is inseparable from its Old Testament antecedents, without which we are left with not only a reductionist view of Mary but also of Christ.

And yet, in the Old Testament, Israel is portrayed as both a virgin daughter and an unfaithful bride. “Like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord. “Return, faithless people, for I am your husband. I will choose you . . . and bring you to Zion” (Jeremiah 2:20 and 3:14). It is hard to relate this theme to Mary, immaculately conceived and sinless from birth, but there are hints in the gospels of a Mary who, as David Steinmetz put it, “does not understand what God’s purposes are, who intervenes when she ought to keep silent, who interferes and tries to thwart the purpose of God, who pleads the ties of filial affection when she should learn faith.”

We hear echoes of this in the way the irritation passages are interpreted in the early Church. Hilary of Poitiers, for example, takes John 1:11, together with Mark 3:31-34 (and its parallel in Matthew 12), where Mary and Jesus’ brothers are portrayed as “standing outside” while they send someone else in to call for Jesus, and says, “But because he came to his own and his own did not receive him, in his mother and brothers the synagogue and the Jews are prefigured abstaining from going in to and approaching him.” If Hilary is right, Mary is shown here outside the messianic community, indeed as one who participates in deliberate rejection of Jesus. Tertullian offers a similar interpretation in both De Carne Christi and Adversus ?Marcionem.

Without pressing the image of Mary as the prototype of the synagogue, can we say that Mary is not only the obedient handmaiden of the Lord but also both faithful and faithless, obedient and interfering, perceptive and opaque, simul iustus et peccator, just and sinful alike? Interpreted in this light, Mary not only fulfills a more inclusive typology of Israel in the Old Testament, but she also prefigures the Church that is both the spotless Bride of Christ by virtue of God’s unmerited grace and, simul et semper, the company of pilgrim sinners that must pray everyday, “Forgive us our sins.”

The second common title of Mary is Virgin Mother. The doctrine of the virgin birth emerged in America as one of the badges of evangelical orthodoxy during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. J. Gresham Machen, professor at Princeton and later founding president of Westminster Theological Seminary, published in 1930 a major treatise on the virgin birth of Christ. Machen was concerned to support the ancient Christian conception against the anti-supernaturalistic views set forth at a popular level by Harry Emerson Fosdick and supported in academic circles by scholars at the University of Chicago and elsewhere.

Though he was a straitlaced Presbyterian and could never be accused of “cozying up to Rome,” Machen rightly recognized that evangelicals had much more in common with Catholicism on this than they did with what he disdainfully called that “totally foreign religion-liberalism.” “Let it never be forgotten,” he wrote, “that the virgin birth is an integral part of the New Testament witness about Christ, and that that witness is strongest when it is taken as it stands. . . . The blessed story of the miracle in the virgin’s womb is intrinsic to the good news of the Gospel. Only one Jesus is presented in the Word of God; and that Jesus did not come into the world by ordinary generation, but was conceived in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Ghost.” Machen did not go so far as some in claiming that no one could be a Christian without believing in the virgin birth. He recognized that the biblical accounts may not have been known in some circles of earliest Christianity. But while one might conceivably be a Christian without affirming the virgin birth, there could be no true Christianity among those who denied it.

The virgin birth continued to be a celebrated point of difference between mainline Protestants and their more conservative counterparts during the neo-evangelical renaissance after World War II. In 1958, Christian Century published an editorial denying the historicity of the virgin birth: The virgin birth, the editorial said, presents Jesus as some kind of tertium quid, half God and half man. In reply, the Lutheran theologian Arthur Carl Piepkorn snapped: “To account so materially, so biologically, so cellularly for the uniqueness of Jesus is to land dead center on what is precisely not the point.” Such disdain for Jesus’ “miracle of entrance,” as Karl Barth called it, obviously belonged to the trajectory of theological liberalism, from Schleiermacher through D.F. Strauss to Paul Tillich, who wrote in the first volume of his Systematic Theology: “Apollo has no revelatory significance for Christians; the virgin mother Mary reveals nothing to Protestantism.”

For all their fervent advocacy of this doctrine, evangelicals may have missed two important aspects of this teaching. Modern evangelical preoccupation with the virgin birth arose in the context of post-Enlightenment skepticism and reductionism: Evangelicals were concerned to defend the miraculous character of the virgin birth because they saw it undergirding the deity of Jesus Christ. The prominence of the virgin birth teaching among the Apostolic Fathers, however, arose from a different Christological concern: as an affirmation of the true humanity and genuine historicity of the Son of God. “Away with that lowly manger, those dirty swaddling clothes,” Marcion had cried. Against all docetism and anti-materialism, Ignatius of Antioch declared in one of the early creedal expressions of the Christian faith that Jesus was “truly born, truly lived, truly died.” The adverb resounds like a gong through the writings of the second century.

It is also a fair criticism to note that, in their strong defense of the virgin birth, evangelicals have been more concerned with Mary’s virginity than with her maternity. Mary was not merely the point of Christ’s entrance into the world-the channel through which he passed as water flows through a pipe. She was ever the mother who cared for the physical needs of Jesus the boy. She was the one who nursed him at her breast and who nurtured and taught him the ways of the Lord. Doubtless she was the one who taught him to memorize the Psalms and to pray, even as he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and others (Luke 2:52).

This emphasis on the full humanity of the mother of Jesus is in keeping with the evangelical reticence about the debates over the parturition of Mary. To be sure, there is nothing theologically difficult about affirming Mary’s perpetual virginity. This venerable tradition, first given dogmatic sanction at the fifth ecumenical council in 553, was affirmed by Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin during the Reformation (though Calvin was more agnostic about this belief than the other two Reformers).

More difficult is the claim for the inviolate virginity of Mary in partu: the virgin birth in a precise sense. Not only does this belief stem from a post-canonical writing, the Protoevangelium of James, but it also seems to undermine the anti-docetic emphasis of the doctrine. This is especially true when it is said that Mary gave birth to Jesus without pain. If indeed the virgin mother of God is the link that unites Christ and humanity, it is hard to see why the virginal conception of Jesus, attested by Scripture, should entail an anesthetized delivery. While Cardinal Newman was surely right to say that God could have spared the mother of the messiah the pains of child-bearing, there is no sound biblical reason for assuming God did so. Indeed, if the woman of the apocalypse in Revelation 12 harks back to Mary, then the opposite seems to be the case, for there we are told that this woman “was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth” (Revelation 12:2).

The third title of Mary to consider is Theotokos, the “God-Bearer,” a title for Mary as the Mother of God. Evangelicals can and should join Catholics in celebrating the Virgin Mary this way. In the Reformation, Calvin (unlike Luther and Zwingli) balked at the title Mother of God but not at the doctrinal truth it was intended to convey. Barth, however, was faithful to the deepest intention of Reformed Christology when he acknowledged that Mother of God is “sensible, permissible, and necessary as an auxiliary Christological proposition.”

Although the conceptual genesis of Theotokos is very early-Ignatius of Antioch can say “Our God, Jesus Christ, was carried in Mary’s womb” (Ephesians 18:2), the debates leading up to the Council of Ephesus were not concerned in the first instance with the status of Mary but rather with the unity of divinity and humanity in her son. The Church was right to reject Nestorius’ preferred title for Mary, Christotokos, “mother of Christ,” as an inadequate description of Mary’s role in the mystery of the Incarnation. We are not at liberty to construct a merely human Christ, cut off from the reality of his entire person. Then-cardinal Ratzinger aptly sums up this important point in the development of 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 ?center of Christ’s mystery was endangered, if not already destroyed. Thus in Mariology Christology was defended.

There is another dimension of Theotokos, however, that touches evangelical sensibilities. Some forty years ago, Heiko A. Oberman published an important article, using the research of Bishop Paulus Rusch of Innsbruck, in which he argued that the negative Nestorian reaction to Theotokos was initially a response to heretical groups who claimed that Mary was the mother of God not only according to the humanity of Christ but also according to the divinity of Christ, in the same way as there are mothers of gods in pagan religions. Epiphanius of Salamis attested the existence of such heretical groups, one of which he located in Palestine: a community of women who made circular cakes and offered them to the Virgin Mary, whom they had come to look upon as a deity. (This group was called the Collyridians, after the shape of the cakes in their ritual.)

Thus, according to Oberman and Rusch, in rightly opposing an exaggerated, heretical Mariolotry, Nestorius himself unwittingly fell into Christological heresy. This may be a more charitable reading of Nestorius than the facts warrant, but it points to a continuing concern of Protestants: Granted the legitimacy of doctrinal development, including the Christological clarification that led to the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, where are the checks against exalting the Virgin so high that her son is obscured? Another biblical title for Mary is Handmaiden. Through the Middle Ages-by application of the Anselmian rule that “one should ascribe to Mary so much purity that more than that one cannot possibly imagine except for God”-Mary came more and more to assume an inflated soteriological significance. Thus, Mary, as mater misericordia, was sometimes claimed to rule the kingdom of mercy while Christ, in the famous pose of judge on the rainbow, reigned in the kingdom of truth and justice as iudex vivorum et mortuorum.

In this schema, Mary became, as Bernard of Clairvaux put it, “a mediator with the Mediator.” Or, as Anselm has it, “She pleads with the Son on behalf of the sons.” This led to a view of Mary as co-redemptrix, a term that became popular in the fifteenth century, through images of Mary as placating her stern son with milk from her breasts. (This was one reason why Mary’s milk, preserved in vials throughout the reliquaries of Europe, was so highly valued. Luther was shown some of Mary’s milk on his trip to Rome in 1510.)

The Protestant Reformers vehemently protested against the “abominable idolatry” of medieval Mariology. Exaggerated devotion, the Reformers held, does not praise the virgin mother of God but slanders her by making her into an idol. Perhaps nowhere is the Protestant reaction to Marian excess more cogently put than in Philip Melanchthon’s “Apology of the Augsburg Confession” of 1530: “Some of us have seen a certain monastic theologian . . . urge this prayer upon a dying man, ?Mother of grace, protect us from the enemy and receive us in the hour of death.’ Granted that blessed Mary prays for the church, does she receive souls in death, does she overcome death, does she give life? What does Christ do if Mary does all this? . . . The fact of the matter is that in popular estimation the blessed virgin has replaced Christ.” Mary, as Hugh Latimer was to put it, was not to be seen as “a Saviouress.” Yet there was also a positive devotion to Mary among the Reformers. Both Zwingli and Bullinger defended the Ave Maria not as a prayer to Mary but as an expression of praise in honor of her. Calvin too refers to Mary as “the treasurer of grace,” the one who kept faith as a deposit and through whom we have received this precious gift from God. In Luther’s 1521 commentary on the Magnificat, Mary is the embodiment of God’s unmerited grace. She is magnified above all creatures, and yet it is her humility, lowliness, and indeed nothingness (nichtigkeit) that is notable. However, Mary is called blessed not because of her virginity or even her humility “but for this one thing alone, that God regarded her. That is to give all the glory to God as completely as it can be done . . . not she is praised thereby, but God’s grace toward her.” “I am only the workshop (fabrica) in which God operates,” Luther has Mary say.

Mary’s significance for Luther is twofold. Mary is the person and place where God has chosen to enter most deeply into the human story. And Mary is also the one who hears the Word of God-fides ex auditu, the one who responds in faith and thus is justified by faith alone. Mary was a disciple before she was a mother, for had she not believed, she would not have conceived. Mary is the object of God’s gracious predestination, and this divine choice is the source of both her blessedness and her fertility. At this point Barth is fully in line with the Reformation message when he declares (against Rudolph Bultmann) that redemption is wrought by Christ “outside of us, without us, and even against us” and yet, because this is true, also for us and even in us. As the embodiment of sola gratia and sola fide, Mary should be highly extolled in evangelical theology and worship.

So why is this not the case? Why do evangelicals remember the Reformation critique of Marian excess but not the positive appraisal of Mary’s indispensable role in God’s salvific work? One element is the pruning effect of the scriptural principle. Luther closed his commentary on the Magnificat with a prayer of intercession addressed to the Virgin Mary. But already in Zwingli’s Sixty-Seven Articles of 1523, it was claimed that, because Christ is our only mediator, no mediators other than Christ are needed beyond this life. Luther too gave up Marian intercession when he could find no explicit scriptural warrant for it in the Bible.

Beyond the theological constraints of a biblical religion, however, there was also what might be called an ecclesiological hardening of the arteries within the Protestant and evangelical traditions. To be an evangelical meant not to be a Roman Catholic. To worship Jesus meant not to honor Mary, even if such honor were biblically grounded and liturgically chaste.

In some quarters of the evangelical world, the loss of catholicity was marked by a disdain for creedal Christianity. Thus, in 1742, when the Philadelphia Baptist Association published a confession of faith and asked the churches for their approval, those who rejected it could think of nothing nastier to say than to call it a new Virgin Mary: “We need no such virgin Mary to come between us and God.” In time, of course, some evangelicals not only abandoned the virgin Mary but the Holy Trinity as well. This was especially true in England, where nearly the entire denomination of General or Arminian Baptists converted to Unitarianism. In the context of this development, it is astounding to come across a remarkable book published in 1886 by A. Stewart Walsh and introduced by the popular evangelical preacher T. DeWitt Talmage. Called Mary: The Queen of the House of David and Mother of Jesus, it reads like a Harlequin romance of Mary’s life: a paeon of praise to motherhood, with a highly fictionalized account of Mary as the chief exemplar. Near the end of this fanciful tome, however, there is this plea for a proper evangelical recognition of Mary: “But this only, and surely, here I know, no friend of the divine Son can dethrone Him by honoring her, aright; indeed, as He Himself did. It was of Him she spoke when exclaiming: ?My soul doth rejoice in God my Savior!’ Can one truly honor Him and despise and ignore the woman who gave Him human birth? Can one have His mind and forget her for whom love was uppermost to Him in His supreme last hours? Can one honor her aright, and yet dethrone the Son whom she enthroned, she bore Him, then lived for Him. She ?honored herself in bearing Him, and was His mother, His teacher and His disciple. He revered her, she ?worshiped Him.”

Yet another title of Mary is Mother of the Church. At Vatican II there was heated debate on whether to prepare a separate document on Mary, but by a close vote the decision was made to treat Mary in the context of ecclesiology.
Is there a sense in which evangelicals, too, can speak of Mary as mater ecclesiae? The New Testament portrays Mary as among the last at the cross and the first in the upper room. She is thus a bridging figure between the close of his earthly ministry and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal birth of the Church. It is particularly Mary at the foot of the cross that speaks to the reality of the Church. When all the disciples had fled in fear, Mary remained true to Christ and his word. Her fidelity showed that the true faith could be preserved in one sole individual, and thus Mary became the mother of the true remnant Church.

The other scriptural text in which Mary emerges as the Mother of the Church is the apocalyptic vision of Revelation 12. Here the woman who gives birth to a son is harassed and pursued by the dragon. As Luther wrote, “If, then, a person desires to draw the Church as he sees her, he will picture her as a deformed and poor girl sitting in an unsafe forest in the midst of hungry lions, bears, wolves, and boars, nay, deadly serpents; in the midst of infuriated men who set sword, fire, and water in motion in order to kill her and wipe her from the face of the earth.” In God’s sight, the Church is pure, holy, unspotted-the Dove of God-but in the eyes of the world it bears the form of a servant. It is, like its bridegroom, Christ, “hacked to pieces, marked with scratches, despised, crucified, mocked” (Isa. 53:2-3). Mary speaks to the pilgrim Church, which today is also increasingly the persecuted Church.

Perhaps we should ask what Catholics, without ceasing to be Catholics, can learn from evangelicals about Mary. Certainly we should ask what evangelicals, without ceasing to be evangelicals, can learn from Catholics about Mary. If Catholics need to be called away from the excesses of Marian devotion to a stricter fidelity to the biblical witness, evangelicals should reexamine their negative attitudes toward Mary, many of which derive from anti-Catholic bias rather than sound biblical theology. They need to ask themselves, as the Groupe des Dombes suggested, “whether their too frequent silences about Mary are not prejudicial to their relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Can there be a proper place for Mary in the prayer and devotional life of evangelicals? The early Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century thought so. Evangelicals do not pray to Mary, but we can learn to pray like Mary and with Mary-with Mary and all the saints. Evangelicals can join with all Christians in a prayer like this: “And now we give you thanks, Heavenly Father, because in choosing the Blessed Virgin Mary to be the mother of your Son, you exalted the little ones and the lowly. Your angel greeted her as highly favored; and with all generations we call her blessed and with her we rejoice and we magnify your holy name.”

Timothy George, an ordained minister in the Southern Baptist Convention, is the dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University and a member of the First Things editorial board.

[GL]

Stuart,

Thanks for posting Dr. George's essay. I am one of those Protestants who believes that we have been very remiss in our treatment of the Blessed Virgin. While I am not comfortable with all that Catholics and Orthodox believe about Mary and all of your practices that flow therefrom, I believe we Protestants have been far too dismissive in our treatment of the Mother of our Lord. Time or Newsweek did a story on a growing Protestant appreciation for Mary a few years ago and I am delighted to read Dr. George's treatment of her. I am printing it out.

[Ethan Cordray]

And I plan to read it as soon as I can in the dead tree edition.

Stuart, poor and harrassed, on $50,000 a year???

...oh yeah, that's not much out east, is it?

Robert, I think your vision of a stable, inflation-free modern gold economy is a fantasy world, though it may be my personal favorite fantasy world.

As to the Catholic Church being the exclusive bride of Christ...well, let's say my status among the Separated Brethren is unlikely to change any time soon, and Marianism is not at the top of my list of objections.

[Bill R]

"Thanks for posting Dr. George's essay. I am one of those Protestants who believes that we have been very remiss in our treatment of the Blessed Virgin."

I join GL in this sentiment. I'd actually go a bit further than he seems to have gone, for I would fully affirm "theotokos'--Mother of God--as Mary's true Scriptural title.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Robert, I think your vision of a stable, inflation-free modern gold economy is a fantasy world, though it may be my personal favorite fantasy world.<<<

Anyone who thinks the gold standard eliminates inflation obviously has not read his ancient history. There was inflation long before there was paper money. Though I do admit I like using the term "debasing the currency" instead of "loosening monetary policy".

[David Gray]

>Catholics do call her blessed

So do Bible believing Protestants.

>and we ask her to intercede for us

And there we part company.

But as others have noted above Protestants have often, particularly in later years, overreacted against Roman Catholic ideas with which they differed and have dishonoured themselves by not properly honouring Mary. Not entirely surprisingly I think Calvin got this one about right.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>And there we part company.<<<

So, I'm interested, David: Do you ever ask your friends to pray for you? Do you believe that those who have died still live? If we are surrounded by clouds of witnesses, and the Church is a communion of saints, and if our existence continues beyond the grave, then what's the big deal about asking our friends who have departed this life to pray for us in the next? And if Mary is indeed the Mother of God, and the most perfect of all disciples, who better to ask for prayers on our behalf?

In the Old Testament world, where polygamy was the norm, the most important woman in the world was not the king's wife (for he might have many wives, and his favorite wife might change at a moment's notice) but the king's mother. This is demonstrated in the Old Testament when Solomon receives his mother Bathsheba, and when she asks him for a favor, he tells her that, as his mother, he can deny her nothing. The early Christians understood a similar role for Mary as the Mother of the King of All, and thus they asked for her intercession with her Son.

As sons and daughters of God by adoption, becoming by grace what Christ is by nature, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and Mary is thus in some mystical manner OUR mother, too. Or, as the Orthodox call her, "our Champion Leader".

If you can ask your mother for a favor, if you ask your mother to pray for you, why balk at asking Christ's mother for aid in your time of need?

Just asking.

[GL]

Bill R.,

I heartily agree to the title Theotokos. It follows logically from orthodox Christology. I am an agnostic on her perpetual virginity (but believe the biblical evidence, while not conclusive, favors that conclusion), her sinlessness (though I am less comfortable with the Immaculate Conception), and her Assumption. I certainly see nothing unbiblical about these beliefs, though, in the words of the 39 Articles, I hold that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." Thus, I reject making these beliefs test of one's orthodoxy.

As to petitioning her for her intercession, I do not practice it, but, as with icons, am not troubled by my Catholic and Orthodox brothers who do engage in such practices.

[Kevin]

Bill, my intent was not to attack but simply to make a point. However, it seems that we are talking semantics here, I only pray to God. In my vocabulary, prayer is the way humans communicate with God. Therefore, I consider praying to anyone or anything else to be 'deifying' that person or object. I have no problem with calling Mary blessed -- because she is. Maybe I should have stopped at 'praying to Mary', forgive me for not being clear – I did not mean to ruffle any feathers but I don’t do ‘politically correct’. However, I also should apologize because after reading back over my post, it sounds as though I am grouping Catholicism in the same category as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. As if I thought the teachings of Catholicism were perverted like the latter two -– I assure all of you that I do not.

>>> So, I'm interested, David: Do you ever ask your friends to pray for you? Do you believe that those who have died still live? If we are surrounded by clouds of witnesses, and the Church is a communion of saints, and if our existence continues beyond the grave, then what's the big deal about asking our friends who have departed this life to pray for us in the next? And if Mary is indeed the Mother of God, and the most perfect of all disciples, who better to ask for prayers on our behalf? <<<

Stuart, I know you were asking David, but I'd like to give my own answers to your questions. First - yes, I do ask my ‘living’ friends to pray for me – that is one of the purposes of fellow believers and a large benefit of being connected to the body of Christ. But I do not ‘pray to them’ so that they will pray for me. Second - yes, I believe that those who have died in their flesh still live in spirit. Spiritual death is separation from God, not a ceasing of existence as some might think. Third, I don’t believe they can hear you since their spirits are in that final ‘sleep’ until Jesus returns (Daniel 12:1-3). Fourth - who better than Mary? How about Jesus, after all, he is our greatest intercessor.

Blessings to all...