Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

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ohio jones
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

Post by ohio jones »

Luke 1:48-49 (ESV) wrote: For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
I am not sure whether Mary intended the connection, perhaps it was the Holy Spirit guiding her words, but this echoes the promise to Abra[ha]m in Genesis 12:
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
As Paul explains in Galatians 3:
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." ... 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ.
Both Abraham and Mary are blessed because it was through them that Christ came to earth. But notice the contrast in how their names are honored: God promises to make Abraham's name great, but Mary exalts God's name rather than her own.
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

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I think silentreader summarizes my understanding well.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

Post by Bootstrap »

Let me add what Elizabeth said just before the Magnificat:
And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
I really do believe that Mary was "blessed among women", and that she was highly favored by God. And she is a big part of the story for both Christmas and the passion and resurrection.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

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I would like to relate that to what Catholics and Orthodox believe - I will open the thread now so that Catholics and Orthodox can clarify anything I misunderstood about their teachings.

I do not believe that the Bible says she was without sin - that was Jesus. I do not believe that the Bible uses terms like "Queen of Heaven" to describe her. I do not believe that the Bible describes her as "ever-virgin". I believe that the Bible tells us Jesus is our advocate and intercessor, and the Holy Spirit also intercedes, but nowhere does the Bible say anything like "Through the intercessions of the Theotokos, Savior, save us" - why would our intercessor save us through the intercessions of his mother?

I do not believe that the Bible gives her a status above the angels:
People: It is truly right to bless you, Theotokos, ever blessed, most pure, and Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, without corruption you gave birth to God the Logos. We magnify you, the true Theotokos.
I believe that Jesus washes our sins away, and that the intercession of Mary is not required for this:
Priest (in a low voice): Wash away, Lord, by Your Holy Blood, the sins of Your servants here remembered through the intercessions of the Theotokos and all Your saints. Amen.
I think that much of what is in the following prayer is more appropriately directed to Jesus:
All-holy Lady, Theotokos, the light of my darkened soul, my hope and protection, my refuge and consolation, and my joy, I thank you that you have made me worthy, though I am unworthy, to partake of the pure Body and precious Blood of your Son. But as the one who gave birth to the true Light: enlighten the noetic eyes of my heart. You who conceived the source of immortality, give life to me, dead in sin. You who are the compassionately loving Mother of the merciful God, have mercy on me and give my heart compunction and contrition, humility in my thoughts, and release from my captive thoughts. And make me worthy until my final breath to receive without condemnation the sanctification of the pure Mysteries for the healing of both soul and body. And grant me tears of repentance and confession, that I may praise and glorify you all the days of my life. For you are blessed and glorified unto the ages. Amen.
If you said that to the Mary in the Bible, I think she would respond a lot like Peter did in Acts 10:
When Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and worshiped him.

But Peter helped him up and said, “Stand up! I myself am also a man.”
And I think the language in the previous paragraph goes well beyond what I feel comfortable saying to a human being, it blurs the distinction between man and God. I also think that calling her "the Mother of the Church" blurs this distinction, as do claims like "The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship".

I do believe that Jesus is God, and that Mary is the mother of Jesus. Exactly how that works is beyond my theology, but she clearly is not the mother of God the Father. I think Mennonites and Protestants want to be clear about that, and avoid language that goes beyond the Bible. I think Orthodox and Catholics would agree with what I said in this paragraph, and that Theotokos properly means the same thing as "the one who gave birth to God the Logos", which is Jesus. But parts of this go beyond my theology.

If Jesus was fully God and fully man, was Mary the mother of both parts, or of only the human Jesus? Mennonites Simons had an elaborate theology about this that makes no sense to me. I prefer to say that it is a mystery - I am not willing to go as far as the Orthodox do in saying that Mary is the mother of the Logos, which was there in the beginning with God. After all, the Logos existed long before Mary did.

In general, I think the issue is that Mennonites and Anabaptists (1) do not want to go beyond what Scripture teaches, and (2) are extremely uncomfortable with anything that looks like putting human beings in the position of God. Sometimes our concern for this can be so great that we fail to appreciate Mary and appreciate her major role in the New Testament - that's an overreaction. But I also think that the role of Mary in the Catholic and Orthodox churches goes way beyond the simple teaching of Scripture, and runs into problems (1) and (2).
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Valerie
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

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Boot, you started your passage with Elizabeth was filled wkth the Holy Spirit" but if you back upb a bit it says "And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit" You invited Catholics and Orthodox, are there any on the forum besides Max:? i appreciate your recognition of more favor given to her by God than most are willing to see.
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

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People: It is truly right to bless you, Theotokos, ever blessed, most pure, and Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, without corruption you gave birth to God the Logos. We magnify you, the true Theotokos.
Compare this to:
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

Post by Soloist »

Bootstrap wrote: I do not believe that the Bible gives her a status above the angels:
I would respond to that with a question... Will we judge angels?
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Bootstrap
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

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Valerie wrote:Boot, you started your passage with Elizabeth was filled wkth the Holy Spirit" but if you back upb a bit it says "And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit".
True.
Valerie wrote:You invited Catholics and Orthodox, are there any on the forum besides Max:?
You are welcome to post now too, of course.
Valerie wrote:i appreciate your recognition of more favor given to her by God than most are willing to see.
I'm curious whether that is true or not. To the Mennonite / Anabaptist crowd, do you feel I go further with Mary than you would? If so, in what way?
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

Post by Bootstrap »

Soloist wrote:
Bootstrap wrote: I do not believe that the Bible gives her a status above the angels:
I would respond to that with a question... Will we judge angels?
Verily hast thou spoken, O Soloist, thou who art more honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim.

I mean, maybe that's true theologically at some level, but it's still something am not comfortable saying about human beings ... at least, not unless I point out that it is true of all human beings who are in Christ.
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Re: Mary - an Anabaptist / Mennonite understanding

Post by Valerie »

Bootstrap wrote:
Valerie wrote:Boot, you started your passage with Elizabeth was filled wkth the Holy Spirit" but if you back upb a bit it says "And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit".
True.
Valerie wrote:You invited Catholics and Orthodox, are there any on the forum besides Max:?
You are welcome to post now too, of course.
Valerie wrote:i appreciate your recognition of more favor given to her by God than most are willing to see.
I'm curious whether that is true or not. To the Mennonite / Anabaptist crowd, do you feel I go further with Mary than you would? If so, in what way?
You invited Orthodox, which I am not- and they are much better at explaining the understandings about these 'tough' topics than I am, I was like most people on this forum, uncomfortable with the amount of all things Mary, that the Catholics and Orthodox have- it is one of the things that made us unable to take the steps to become Orthodox, and caused us to go non- denominational for awhile- so no, I am not Orthodox- LJones, as we learned after leaving Mennonites & then Lutherans (for a short time) has been baptized into the Orthodox Church now- but how often he reads this forum I don't know-

SO-

Maybe I was getting the wrong impression by your posts.

Personally, I feel like I gave her more honor than the average Protestant even before learning Orthodox beliefs. Probably had something to do with the fact that during one of the Advent weeks at my Church before Christmas (long ago), I was asked to speak about Mary before the candle lighting so I had to study Scriptures about her and found myself appreciating her more than before. They picked 1 family 4 week & that week they picked me, a single parent- so now it wasn't a 'woman's pastor' step type of thing :D
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