The old picture of Protestant hostility to Mary of Nazareth is changing. Some of the freshest, most creative contributions to our understanding of the mother of Jesus are now coming from Protestant women theologians and biblical scholars
When it comes to Mary of Nazareth, Christmas is the one time of the year that has brought Catholics and Protestants together – though only up to a point. “Mary stars briefly in annual Christmas pageants, if encountered at all,” says Protestant Bonnie Miller-McLemore, professor at Vanderbilt University. A similar tale is told by Presbyterian Beverly Roberts Gaventa: “She creeps into our consciousness along with the Advent wreath, making a brief appearance perhaps in sermon and song, and then she disappears along with the crèche, no later than Epiphany.” Nora Lozano-Díaz, a Mexican Baptist, recounts the absurd extremes to which anti-Catholic prejudice could go: “My siblings and I were not allowed to have a Christmas Nativity scene or to participate in the Posadas [pre-Christmas novena] because they were Catholic traditions. We did, however, set up a Christmas tree and wait for Santa to bring us our toys.”
The three women theologians were writing in a 2002 collection of a dozen essays (10 of them by women) called Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary, which includes some of the freshest, most creative contributions to Mariology this millennium – except that they do not call it Mariology, of course. Miller-McLemore calls it a “feminist maternal Protestant theology”.
As women enter increasingly into theology and ministry in all the Churches, the old picture of Protestant hostility to Mary of Nazareth is changing. Protestant women want to rediscover the female biblical figures that tradition has semi-suppressed, and do not want Jesus’ mother brushed aside as an embarrassment. Many theologians and ordinands nowadays are themselves mothers, and feel they already know a lot about her because of the universally valid emotions of motherhood. And they find ample further development of that in the gospel stories.
