Protestants reconsider how they think about Mary

It’s Christmas – and for Protestants, that means it’s time for the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, to make her annual cameo appearance in creches and carols.

But for some Protestant theologians and activists, the season also presents a time to take a fresh look at the role of Mary in the life of the church and to recover her presence for a more vital faith and spirituality.

At the time of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation – and again in the middle of the 19th century, when the Roman Catholic Church promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (the notion that Mary was born without original sin) – there was a strong Protestant reaction against Marian piety and devotion.

“It was seen to be competitive with Christ, and in some ways, even idolatrous,” says Southern Baptist Timothy George, dean of the evangelical Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala.

“Mary was exalted so high that she displaced Christ,” he says. “And so, Protestants have generally reacted against that. Perhaps we have gone to the other extreme.”

Beverly Roberts Gaventa of Princeton (N.J.) Theological Seminary sees the new focus on Mary connected to several recent trends, including a renewed interest in biblical characters who are women and a new interest by people in traditions other than their own.

According to Gaventa, Mary is deeply connected with some of the major themes in the Gospels.

Mary first appears in the Gospel of Luke, when the angel Gabriel appears to her and tells her that through the power of the Holy Spirit she will give birth to the Son of God.

“Really, Luke tells us nothing about her,” Gaventa says. “He doesn’t give us any credentials to make us think Mary is worthy of being chosen by God. What happens in the story is that Mary is chosen entirely by God’s own initiative.”

George says that when Mary responds to the angel, “Let it be according to your will,” she is responding with an “act of submission” and with “an act of humility.”

“It’s an act of surrender to the will of God. And that’s a wonderful line of discipleship for any Christian that wants to take seriously the call of God on our lives,” he says.