Talking about Mary

Meditations on the Theotokos from a cradle Protestant

By anonymous - en:wiki , https://bigenc.ru/religious_studies/text/2032547, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2369798

I don’t talk often enough about the time my very protestant, very reformed OP¹ church held a youth rally that was all about the Virgin Mary. Specifically, the entire rally was centered around one question: can we, as reformed protestants, call Mary the Theotokos (literally, the Mother of God, or God-bearer)? The presenting pastor’s answer: yes we can, and we should.

At the time I, like many other dutifully reformed teens at the rally, was incensed. How was this even a question? Why devote an entire rally to this useless quibble when there were much more important and practical issues we could be discussing? Why offend people this way? I remember one girl actually broke down crying because she felt like everything she’d known and believed on the subject had been torn down by the pastor’s argument.

People (mostly the youth) were genuinely distraught over the choice of subject matter. A group of teens, including myself, took it upon ourselves to accost the pastor at Sunday luncheon after the rally, and try and convince him that he was wrong. And I should say that this was not some fringe pastor, but a well respected and beloved man many of us knew from our yearly Presbytery summer camp! From what I remember, our little posse didn’t accomplish much of anything.

And there was another question hanging over our heads, unspoken but absolutely present: why was he being so… Catholic? Catholics were the Mary people, not us. Within the plain beige walls of our beloved OP church, Mary barely got a mention at Christmas, and none even on Mother’s Day.² Mary was someone best not thought about. She wasn’t really that important after all. And you didn’t want to think too hard about her and end up seeming… Catholic.³

Fast forward a few years, and I met a very nice young man at my workplace, who happened to be interested in me. I told him I only dated Christians, but it turned out that he was one. The only problem was, he was Eastern Orthodox, not Orthodox Presbyterian. And his family was… Catholic. I agonized over this for a while until I decided that a) he clearly loved the Lord, and really that was more important to me than denominational differences, and b) Eastern Orthodoxy was, in fact, not enough like Catholicism to cause me too much trouble. The Saints stuff I could understand: we’re asking them to pray for us, not praying to them as gods. The soteriology didn’t rub me the wrong way like it did some of my more Calvinist friends.⁴

But Mary was still a sticking point, still too Catholic for me. I cringed every time they mentioned or sung songs about her at Liturgy. More honorable than the Cherubim? Really…? I couldn’t stomach it, couldn’t get my mind around her. What made them all so devoted to her? She was just Jesus’s earthly mother. God could have chosen anyone! She’s not special. She’s certainly not Immaculate like the Catholics say (the Orthodox do not teach this, by the way). Why do they keep saying that she’s “Ever Virgin?” You mean she never had sex with poor Joseph even after Jesus was born? Why would you believe that? Why would you care about that anyways? Seems a little weird… Do you really have to mention her and sing a hymn about her before every Holy Communion? Really…? Shouldn’t Jesus get the spotlight here?

As I’ve wrestled with these things, and continue to wrestle with them, some ideas have arisen in my mind that have helped me understand a little more, I think, why everyone seems so devoted to Mary as an important figure in the Sacramental Churches.⁵ Here’s my theory: Mary is important because she sanctifies, through Christ and her connection with him, the human experiences unique to being female.

To understand what I mean, we need to talk about the Incarnation for a second. Christ, through becoming fully Man while remaining fully God, sanctifies all our bodily human experiences. My wise, beloved aunt and I have talked about this idea on several occasions. She once asked me, was Jesus brought low by having to eat and drink and even go to the bathroom while He was here on earth? No, of course not! Rather, He redeemed those things, common to every human experience, and sanctifies them because He was also fully God. So we do not need to be ashamed of our human bodies and their needs; they have been sanctified, all of them! We are not Gnostics. Christ is not embarrassed by the human body.

The vast majority of these types of functions and experiences are common to both genders. But there are experiences that are had only by women. Our bodies are different. We carry and bear children, breastfeed, menstruate. Jesus was biologically male. Yes, the man is the head of the woman⁶ and could perhaps be regarded in some way as the “default” human experience⁷ but… what about women? What are we to do with their specific female bodily experiences? Do they remain unsanctified, perhaps? Unredeemed? Irredeemable?

I must mention here the crushing weight I have felt beneath some of the gender teachings (or lack thereof) in the reformed, protestant, and evangelical circles I grew up in. The extreme of modern feminist womanhood, Christianized of course, with its deep disconnection from the female cycle and bodily experience, both attracted and repelled me even as I ran headlong away from “traditional womanhood” teachings. I was a tomboy growing up, and never felt much at home in my femininity. But as I became a wife, and especially a mother, I realized the emptiness of the egalitarian teachings as well. I was caught in the middle.

And then I started learning more about the female body and experience and, yes, *role* from people like

Emily Hancock

and the resources shared by

Haley Baumeister

, a few things began to click. My body worked better when I worked with my cycle instead of fighting against it. My choice to eschew hormonal birth control, despite pressures from my doctor and even protestant friends, felt vindicated. My great desire to work and be productive and make things, but perhaps within a home business or small business setting, rather than a traditional workplace, began to make sense. My longing to have more time at home to cook and clean and make my apartment actually nice, which had seemed completely at odds with my identity, suddenly seemed like a good thing. I began to finally take joy in my gender and role as a woman, for the first time in my life.

For a while, I forgot about Mary. Her mentions ceased to bother me much in Liturgy; I knew nobody was actually worshipping her, so we were all good. I though a bit about her off and on, trying to get my head around what seems to be this final contention between me and Orthodoxy, but I felt I was hitting a brick wall.

And then one day I was standing in my kitchen, doing dishes, and the thought clicked into place.

Maybe Mary is the one who sanctifies our female experiences, because she experienced them for Christ’s sake in her body, while He was within her body, and later as an infant and child being fed and cared for by her. Maybe Mary’s bleeding and birthing and breastfeeding sanctifies mine, the way Christ’s eating and drinking does for me also. Only through Christ of course, because she is not special in and of herself. But maybe, through Christ, she does.

Perhaps this was obvious all along. Or perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree. But this idea gives me a little more insight into why the Sacramental Churches would be so devoted to Mary, and why their theologies of gender seem so much more full-orbed than the protestant ones I grew up with. Certainly, I know I don’t understand everything yet; I am not even a catechumen at my husband’s EO church. I just attend there with him right now. But I feel like I am starting to unlock this thing that has hither to been so mysterious to me. I think I am beginning to understand Mary, just a little, and even beginning to appreciate her place in the great drama of salvation.

I no longer think that you have to be Catholic (or Orthodox) to appreciate Mary. As my husband quipped, the Magnificat doesn’t say “most generations shall call me blessed,” so why shouldn’t protestants appreciate her, even call her Theotokos? The least they could do would be to mention her on Mother’s Day. It might just make some woman out there feel a little less alone.

Thank you for reading my rambling thoughts. I am not a theologian, so please, please, take everything I say with ten heaping tablespoons of salt! If you have any feedback, pushback, thoughts, etc. I would love to discuss with you. Thank you again for reading. ~AEG

1. Orthodox Presbyterian. A theologically conservative offshoot of mainline Presbyterianism.

2. A fact which shocks my husband to his day. He was in a Baptist church as a kid (before becoming Catholic, and then Eastern Orthodox. It’s a long story) and even they talked about Mary on Mother’s Day!

3. I have changed my views on Roman Catholicism quite a lot since the time I am writing about. Growing up, I had a great distaste for Catholics and sometimes I did not believe they were real Christians. Now, my in-laws are Catholic, I attend church with them on occasion, have many Catholic friends I respect and admire, and have so much more respect for Catholicism in general, though I still strongly disagree with some of its teachings. My intent is not to offend Catholics with my discussion here, but rather to try and recapture some of the feelings and thoughts I had when I was younger.

4. I have never been fully Calvinist even though I grew up in the OP church, and that, along with other interesting occurrences in my life, seemed to set the stage for me to find Orthodoxy palatable. I may talk about this more at length some other time.

5. My own term for the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches taken together. This comes from my husband, who, when I was first dating him, described himself as a Noncommittal Sacramental, since he was going through some stuff at the time trying to decide whether to remain EO or go back to Catholicism with the rest of his family. He chose Orthodoxy not long after we started dating.

6. “But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.” 1 Corinthians 11:3

7. Please don’t shoot me, I am not saying anything about women’s rights here!