Our friend, L.L. Barkat, was inspired to reflect on Mary and it led to her thinking it would be good to give a copy of our Mary book (The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus
) away, and then she decided to open up comments on her blog to reflections on Mary ...Well, it almost got out of hand and folks were adding reflections from all over. There are links at the links following to all the posts from all over the blog world. L.L. Barkat posted once and then a second time herself.
I want to thanks those good folks, and L.L. Barkat especially, for drawing attention to the most neglected figure in the Gospels for most Protestants: Mary.
By the way, The Real Mary is now out in Portuguese.
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I've read the "Real Mary" and think it's a very balanced perspective on Jesus' mother. What most Protestants "neglect" about Mary is really a reaction against the Mary worship of the RC's. Or as my son Benny once said "why are those people praying to that lady's statue?" That's a decent reaction against worshiping a person instead of God; of putting one more "deity" between us and the Father; and of reinforcing the Neo-Platonic, non-biblical dualism that our souls fly off to heaven (or for homosexuals and pagans, to hell) on death to flit around FAther, Son, Holy Ghost, and Mother of God.
Thank God the book's now out in Portugese!
"Mary in the Blog World." That's a title which could inspire a whole new round of thought. :)
The giveaway was fantastic fun.
I haven't read the book yet, but I would like to chime in on this discussion.
One thing that hinders most Christians from grasping the beauty of Mary is what I call "Romophobia", a fear of all things that are (or even resemble anything) Roman Catholic. The two oldest branches of Christendom (Othodox Christianity and Roman Catholics) both give Mary a high place of respect, honor and veneration. (Veneration is not the same as worship.)
Even within Roman Catholicism, there are different schools of thought toward Mary. Some are pushing for her to be "dogmatized" as "co-redemptress' or "co-mediatress". This is going too far, but it's important to understand that this is not the view of all Roman Catholics.
I would encourage all of my brothers and sisters in Christ to not buy into all of the anti-Roman Catholic propaganda that's out there. Look into the rich common body of teaching that's out there and let the Holy Spirit tell you what to swallow and what to spit out. Just don't be driven by fear or you'll miss the beauty of Mary and what her life and her relationship to her Son can say to us.
A Protestant friend, when the name of Mary came up said to me, "Mary is a nobody." All I could think of at the time was to tell him to"tell that to Jesus"
We as Catholics honor Mary and we pray to her to ask that she intercede for us with her Son.
Jesus must honor Mary also, it's one of the commandments, remember?
Gary and Monk: it's not just a simple matter of being afraid of everything Roman Catholic. The differences entail a whole rethinking of our relationship with the Father and the role of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. No one comes to the Father except by Jesus. Nowhere in the bible does it say we have to pray to Mary to get to Jesus. And I'm pretty certain that the commandment to honor Jesus' mother applies to Jesus's duty and not to mine which is to honor my mother and father.
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