Both formal dialogue between Christian communions and informal exchange between individual faithful/members of the varying confessions concerning the role of Mary and devotion to her were slow to develop in the early years of the Ecumenical Movement. In part, this was due to the relatively late official entry of the Roman Catholic Church into the movement. It was due to a widespread belief among Protestants and Catholics that it would prove an emotive and almost intractable problem. The American Protestant ecumenical pioneer Robert McAffee Brown believed that no subject, other than perhaps the role of the papacy, would prove so difficult.
The Orthodox churches with their strong Marian piety were involved in the Ecumenical Movement much earlier; nevertheless, an attempt by an Orthodox at the first World Faith and Order Conference at Lausanne in 1927 to raise the question of the role of Mary within the economy of salvation was ruled out of order.
There is no doubt that for the vast majority of Roman Catholics and Protestants in the first half of the twentieth century, the understanding of the role of Mary and the consequent rightness or otherwise of devotion, particularly public devotions, to her was a neuralgic issue. many Protestants, even learned leaders as far back as John Wesley, misunderstood the distinction between the latreia, or worship, due alone to Almighty God and the dulia, or reverence, paid to Mary and, indeed, other saints. [ see Butler 1995 ] They accused Roman Catholics of 'gross superstition' even idolatry, and demonstrations by extreme Protestants at the shrine of Walsingham have been a recurrent feature even in recent years. For both Catholics and Protestants, attitudes to Mary were a touchstone of their negative self-definition against each other.
At a time when Roman Catholics were fond of saying 'numquam satis de Maria' - 'one cannot say too much about Mary' - Protestants tended to ignore her, giving her only (as a recent Methodist writer has out it) a walk-on part in the Sunday school Nativity play. [ see his article 'Mary and Ecumenical Today' in McLoughlin and Pinnock (eds) 2002: 185-208 ]
Such attitudes were in contrast to those of several of the first generation of Protestant Reformers who retained a considerable devotion to the Virgin Mary even while decrying aspects of her cult and that of other saints and, in particularly, questioning the rightness of the concepts of merit and intercession involved in the late medieval pre-Reformation cults. [ see the essay 'Mary and 16th century Protestants' by Diarmid MacCulloch, in Swanson (ed.) 2004: 191-217 ] protestants antagonism to any veneration of Mary combined with an almost total ignoring even to Scripture's statements about her grew from the second generation of the Reformers onward. The advent of 'Liberal Protestantism' in the 19th century did not make for a markedly more irenic approach, since many liberal Protestants regarded the whole cult of the saints as a relic of medieval superstition not worthy of the rational and simplified form of faith in the fatherhood of God and brotherhood of humanity for which they stood.
Isolated exceptions to the general ignoring of Mary within their own tradition and antagonism to her role within the Roman Catholic one can be found among later Protestants. The famous Congregationalist pastor John Angell James wrote a glowing testimony to the courage and dignity of Mary at the foot of the cross, calling her a 'wondrous woman.' [ see his sermon 'Woman's Mission' (1852) reproduced in Wolffe (ed.) 1996 ] A key feature of the last decades of the previous century and first decade of this has been an increasing degree of interest taken by a minority of Protestant theologians and spiritual writers in Mary; how far their work, some of which will be described later, will be more generally 'received' within their churches remains to be seen. [ Gaventa and Rigby (eds) 2002; and Braaten and Jenson (eds) 2004 ]
Differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants concerning Mary are related to a whole range of theological factors. The most important ones relate to the authority of Scripture, the legitimacy of varying modes of interpretation of it, interpretation of particular passages within it, the authority of tradition and of the Magisterium or teaching office of the Church, the doctrines of grace and the incarnation.
Protestants, including Anglicans according to the authority of Article 6 of the Church Of England, believed in the perspicuity of Scripture, that is to say its clarity on all essential points, and in its sole sufficiency in matters immediately related to salvation. They do not believe that Christians should compelled to accept as binding in conscience and faith any doctrine that cannot be clearly evidenced from Scripture. Traditional and evangelical Protestants thus have no difficulty with the doctrine of the Virgin birth, since it is clearly taught in Scripture, but they do have difficulty with the doctrines of the perpetual virginity of Mary, which many of them would allege on a literal reading is directly contradicted by Scripture, and with those of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Many of them would say the former is contradicted by Paul's teaching that 'all have sinned' - Rom. 3:12, 5:12 - and the latter just cannot be proved since Scripture tells us nothing about Mary's life after her presence in the upper room awaiting Pentecost.
Following their insistence of the perspicuity of Scripture, Protestants are usually suspicious of allegorical interpretations of Scripture and thus contest attempts by Roman Catholics to show a biblical foundation for the disputed doctrines from such interpretations - for example, the assumption from the vision of the 'woman clothed with the sun' in Revelation 12 or the perpetual virginity from such a passage as Ezekiel 44:2.
They also contest the authority of later tradition except where (as, for example, in their opinion, in Trinitarian theology) it can be held to make explicit something already implicit in the whole general tenor of Scripture. Thus, the argument that later tradition clearly came to establish that the brothers and sisters of Jesus referred to in Scripture were either cousins of Jesus or children of Joseph by an earlier marriage carries no compelling weight for Protestant exegetes, even though some of them are prepared to accept that the term 'brothers' could have referred to more distant relatives. - Mark 3:5-31 - Roman Catholics believe that Scripture must be read in the light of the tradition of the Church, whereas Protestants believe that Scripture is judge over all later tradition. There has been some softening and nuancing of this opposition in more recent ecumenical dialogue, but by and large the principles remain as stated.
One can easily demonstrate how differently Catholic and Protestant exegetes have approached individual texts. In the case of the famous episode of the marriage feast at Cana, some Protestants have constructed Christ's addressing of his mother as 'woman' as a form of distancing himself from her, of showing that he was not going to let his ministry be determined by anyone, even his mother. [ see W. Bridcut, 'Our Lord's relation with his mother' in Stacpoole (ed.) 1987:13-107; John 2 ] Catholics by contrast, have seen it as a sign of her intercessory power that Christ responded to her concern and request; they have also seen it as a sign of her wisdom and her ability to point people to him - 'do whatever he tells you.' - John 2:5 -
Likewise, the episode of Christ being sought out, in the middle of his ministry, has been constructed differently. Again, Protestant scholars have regarded his 'Whoever does the will of my Father is my mother, my sister and my brother' as being a sitting light on the part of Christ to all earthly relationships, including that with his mother, whereas, Catholics have argued that Mary was nevertheless commended since she was his mother both physically and through the doing of the Father's will, already proved by her obedience at the incarnation.
Some Protestants have argued that the Church should make relatively little of Mary because Scripture has little, cumulatively, to say about her. However, a prominent Methodist ecumenist, David Butler, has pointed out that Scripture says more about Mary than it does about the Eucharist and that has not prevented Protestants from insisting on the importance of the sacrament. [ D. Butler calculates that 129 verses in the N.T. relate to Mary, but only 29 to the Eucharist ] It can be argued that the biblical texts referring to Mary, though few, occur at particularly significant points of the gospel story; even those Protestants who insist most strongly on the extent to which Mark 3:5-31 and parallels seem to distance Jesus from his earthly family accept that the Luke birth narrative both emphasizes Mary's obedience and attests her statement as to the future memory throughout history of her 'blessedness.'
Perhaps the biggest difference lies in the understanding of grace and the possibility of creature cooperation with grace. Both Catholics and Protestants agree that salvation is the gift of God and that human beings cannot be saved by their own unaided efforts. For the classical Protestantism of the Reformation, both Lutheran and 'Reformed' salvation was the totally unmerited gift of God. the latter Protestant hymn couplet sums up Protestant conviction about the atoning death of Christ: Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy Cross i cling. [ Methodist Hymn Book (1933) 498,v.3 ]
The Protestant motto is soli Deo gloria. All human beings are simply 'unprofitable' servants and there is a reluctance to honor anyone but God. By contrast, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions emphasize that though salvation is entirely dependent upon the divine initiative, it also involves a necessary human response. God respects human freedom and will not save us against our will.
Within this framework of understanding, Mary is seen as the one who, supremely, obeyed God. The contrast between classical Reformed Protestantism and the Catholic tradition is well put in an article by Edward Ball, a Methodist, citing the glosses of Karl Barth and von Balthasar on Mary's fiat. In this context, Barth talks of faith as 'not an act of reciprocity, but the act of renouncing all reciprocity, the act of acknowledging the one Mediator beside whom there is no other.' Ball comments, 'Mary's response then is the acceptance of the miracle of grace, not the acceptance of a cooperative role.' His quotation of von Balthasar shows a diametrically opposed understanding. 'In Christ human nature is given the chance to cooperate and to serve.
It should also be noted that, within Protestant world, the Wesleyan theological tradition also affirms this understanding of responsible grace and, in its doctrine of holiness, stands nearer to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions than to some other Protestant traditions. [ Maddox 1997 ] This point was strongly affirmed in the British Roman Catholic-Methodist dialogue on Mary.
Finally, we should mention that, though Catholics and Protestants both affirm the Christ as the Mediator - 1 Tim. 2:5 - Catholics also stress the work of co-mediators in the transmission of grace, even while stressing that their mediation is subordinate to and dependent upon that of Christ. Protestant theology and spirituality stress the immediate relationship of the soul with God in Christ and there is a tendency to be suspicious of any priesthood or mediator being seen as an essential 'go-between' in the relationship with Christ. this deeply rooted experience of a direct relationship with the Father through Christ explains the fact that while most Protestants will revere and learn from the example of the saints, many find direct invocation of them problematic and, in a very real sense, redundant in terms of their own spirituality.
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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