Marian Musings, Part VI

There is no way to do a series about Mary without addressing the topic of praying to her, so we might as well do that now.

Based on my own experiences interacting with fellow Protestants and non-denominationals (and fyi, for the rest of today's post, the word "Protestant" will be used to include both groups) I think it is crucially important to clear the air of pre-conceived notions. A major one involves what is even meant by the word "pray."

Most of us from Protestant circles are conditioned to think that prayer automatically means asking a deity for something. But we are mistaken. Historically it merely means to ask. Even today, after eons of word evolution and devolution, Merriam-Webster gives two definitions for the intransitive verb "pray" and mentions God in the second one:

1:  to make a request in a humble manner
2: to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

It is a simple fact that Catholics and Orthodox have always used the word according to its original - and as I just pointed out, still existing - definition. Protestants use it differently, and act as if their approach should be the default even though they are: 1] the new Christians on the block, 2] a minority of Christians, and 3] a minuscule minority if you group us according to our specific denominations and churches rather than lumping us all together. 

In light of this, it seems that the main question is whether humans in Heaven are tuned in to what we do on Earth. Before wading into those waters, however, I need to stress that:

1] Both Catholics and Orthodox allow, but do not require, prayers to Mary - and always have.

2] Neither Catholics nor Orthodox believe Mary can provide salvation, or that she can act independently of God's perfect will.

3] Their petitions to her are intercessory, meaning they revolve around asking her to pray for them. It's notable that the only thing Catholics ask of Mary in the most famous Marian prayer of all, the Hail Mary, is that she "pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death."

4] Christianity is not a modern faith - like our Orthodox brothers and sisters are fond of saying, it's an ancient one - and therefore modern conceptions must meet an enormous burden of proof before they can be considered to trump ancient ones.

5] And finally: Since all Christians worth their salt believe God is unchanging, it stands to reason that the Christian faith should also be unchanging, or at least largely so, despite the inevitability of some superficial variations in how it is approached.

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So, now let's wade into the question of whether human souls in the supernatural world are able to see and hear what is happening here in the material world.

For the record, I instinctively believe they can, and I suspect most people's instincts align with mine where this is concerned. That doesn't prove the instinct is correct, of course, but instinct and intuition cannot be dismissed simply because they're not tangible.

Consider a corollary: Some Christians believe animals lack souls and thus pets don't go to Heaven, and they base their belief on the fact the Bible doesn't say animals have souls... Meanwhile, other Christians have a powerful intuition that animals do have souls and pets do go to Heaven, and they are entirely correct to point out that the Bible does not tell us animals don't have souls... And if we are being honest with ourselves, we should admit that we don't know which group is right. The Bible is silent about this subject, and silence about a subject does not make an argument either for it or against it.

But that corollary, while valid, barely holds a candle to the matter at hand because the Bible does serve up evidence that humans in the supernatural world can see and hear beyond it. It does this not least when the Book of Hebrews says "we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses" (12:1) who were previously martyred (11:37). That those witnesses are martyrs means they are humans who were killed while living on Earth, and are, thus, no longer on Earth.

In Luke 16, when Jesus tells of the rich man asking Abraham (deceased) to send Lazarus (also deceased) to warn his relatives what will happen if they don't change their ways, Jesus says Abraham declined not because Lazarus was unable to deliver the warning but because he knew the relatives wouldn't believe the warning.

Plus, we know it's possible to communicate with the deceased because Saul does precisely that when he goes to Endor (1 Samuel 28:7-20).

So the real question is not whether it can be done, but whether it should be done; and if it can, what are the guardrails?

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I have seen plenty of Catholics say that asking Mary (or anyone else in Heaven) to pray for you is, at worst, no different than asking your friends to pray for you... and at best, much better than having your friends pray for you, as the holiness of those up there exceeds that of anyone down here.

In response, I have seen many Protestants insist it's not that simple and accuse said Catholics of concocting an excuse to justify their priors.

In response to which, said Catholics retort that it is that simple and accuse said Protestants of ignoring Scripture as well as tradition in order to justify their priors.

And any Orthodox who happen to be watching usually just shake their heads at how much energy is being wasted by quarreling. Occasionally, however, they do weigh in and make it clear that they think said Protestants are wrong.

As is usually the case, and as you can tell from my earlier remark about what I "instinctively believe," I strongly suspect Catholics and Orthodox are correct about this topic. I think it is as simple as said Catholics make it out to be: If people in Heaven are able to hear us pray to them (remember, it simply means ask) and are able to in turn appeal to God on our behalf, then we may say such prayers if we choose.

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I understand the frequently voiced Protestant concern that some individuals might take Marian prayer too far and start treating her as being on par with or even higher than God. That concern is valid. However, any individual who does such a thing would be in clear violation of church teaching, so I do not share the frequently voiced Protestant opinion that Marian prayer is wrong.

The Protestant impulse to defer to what Scripture affirms is admirable in most respects but flawed in others - and becomes critically flawed when people cross the line by citing it as a reason to reject anything they don't see unambiguously affirmed in Scripture.

Many of my fellow Protestants correctly observe that the Bible does not show people on Earth praying to Mary, then they incorrectly assume that this in and of itself stands as a testament against the practice. Mary was by all appearances still living when the New Testament was written, so of course its authors didn't talk about sending heavenward prayers to her.

The same holds true for prayers to other believers who were martyred for their faith or died after experiencing persecution. Those people (whom Catholics and Orthodox refer to as the communion of saints) would all need to die before they could be prayed to, and a large number of them would need to have been dead for a long time before we could expect prayers to them to become widely attested in print.

Yet even still, the New Testament does touch on the topic:

In several places Revelation refers to "elders" in Heaven and it is widely accepted that this refers to humans, not angels, since the Greek word translated as elders (presbuteroi) is never known to have been applied to non-humans. Revelation 5:8 says these elders "fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" - which certainly seems to show heavenly humans bringing petitions to God on behalf of others, especially when you consider that in the New Testament "saints" generally refers to all believers.

Further, Revelation 6:9-11 depicts humans in Heaven being acutely aware of what is happening on Earth and appealing to God about it.

Part of me feels like I should continue, but a bigger part of me knows I have already gone on long enough for today. Until next time, take care. 

Note #1: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
    Part I: Introduction
    Part II: The New Eve
    Part III: Genesis to Revelation
    Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
    Part IV: Historical Perspective
    Part V: Perpetual Virginity            

Note #2: The photo at the beginning of this post was taken at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in Land O Lakes, Florida.

Mankind's Greatest Hour

Today, as we fire up our grills and crack open our beverages, let us remember why we even have a July 4th holiday: To commemorate the greatest act of shared, selfless courage the world has ever seen.

Everybody should know that Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence. Most people know the names of a handful of the 56 men who signed it, such as John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, and of course Jefferson himself. But few people seem to realize that when those men signed their names, they were committing what was considered an act of treason against the British crown, punishable by death.

Those men were property owners who were successful in their lives and businesses. Their lives were comfortable and they stood to lose everything they had on Earth, incuding their lives, by signing the Declaration. Yet they chose to sign it anyway, because they knew that casting off the crown and forming a new government based on individual liberty was the correct course of action to take at their moment in time. They knew it was the correct course of action not only for themselves and their own descendants, but for all of humanity. And here is what happened to some of those men after they signed the Declaration:

Five of them became prisoners of war.

Nearly one-sixth of them died before the war ended.

British forces burned, and/or looted, the homes and properties of nearly one-third of them.

When the British did that to the property of William Floyd, he and his family fled and spent the next seven years living as refugees without income. His wife died two years before the war ended.

After being forced into the wilderness by British forces, John Hart struggled to make his way home. When he finally got there, he found that his wife was dead and his 13 children were missing. He died without ever seeing them again.

Richard Stockton was dragged from his bed and sent to prison while his property was ravaged. From the day of his release from prison until the day he died, he had to rely on charity from others to feed his family.

Francis Lewis’s wife was imprisoned and beaten. Meanwhile, his wealth was plundered. His last years were spent as a widower living in poverty.

Thomas Nelson Jr.’s home was captured and occupied by British General Cornwallis, who used it as what we would now call an operations center. Therefore, Nelson ordered his troops to destroy his own home with cannon fire during the Battle of Yorktown. To assist in funding the war, he used his own credit to borrow two million dollars, which would equal nearly 74 million in today's dollars. Repaying that debt bankrupted him, and when he died he was buried in an unmarked grave.

It is a safe bet that fewer than one percent of our citizens have ever heard of these people, much less know anything about the devastating sacrifices they made so that future generations could have the freedom necessary to build the kind of upward, progressing, opportunity-rich society we would come to take for granted.

It is also a safe bet that most people today fail to see what should be obvious: That nobody takes the kind of peril-fraught step America's Founders took unless they know they are serving something much greater than themselves by taking it. The Founding Fathers saw liberty as being necessary not so that people could act with libertine abandon, but so that people could be free to do what is right. This is abundantly clear to anybody who has taken the time to study their words and actions in context.

Some people overstate the case that the Founders were uniformly Christian, seeing as how only one (John Witherspoon) was a clergyman and at least one (Thomas Paine) was openly Deist and some (Benjamin Franklin comes immediately to mind) expressed uncertainty about the divinity of Jesus. What is not an overstatement, however, is that none of them were atheist, all of them affirmed the existence of a single God, and it was through this lens --  and this lens alone -- that they viewed freedom as being an "inalienable" right belonging to all human beings. This is a lesson which people in the twenty-first century must relearn in order for freedom to survive.

The Founding Fathers bequeathed to us a wonderful gift called America, and we owe it to our children to make sure we don’t allow that gift to be destroyed. We should never hear the words “Fourth of July” without feeling a skip in our heart and a tear in our eye.

Much thanks to Jeff Jacoby, the late Paul Harvey, and all the others who have written and spoken about the fates of the signers, to keep their story alive. 

Marian Musings, Part V

Some people are caught off guard to learn that not only does devotion to Mary go back to before there was any separation in the Christian Church, but so too does belief that she remained virgin throughout her life.

In his 2007 book The Real Mary, Scot McKnight (a Protestant) observes that "with very few exceptions, all Christians from the second or third century onward believed that Mary was perpetually virginal...This surprises many of us. What may surprise us even more is that three of the most significant Protestant leaders - Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley - who in their own way were also very critical of what Catholics believed about Mary, each believed in Mary's perpetual virginity."

It's noteworthy that we don't see opposition to that until recent centuries.

When it comes to the early Church, we know which beliefs were contested and what heresies arose precisely because they generated debate. That was documented through letters and councils as the Church hammered them out and ultimately took a position on what was true, versus what was false, versus what was unknowable. When it comes to the perpetual virginity of Christ's mother, we see none of that.

People back then were far from prude, expected husbands and wives to have lots of kids, and knew Mary was married... so it seems worthwhile to ask why the belief in her remaining forever virgin became so ubiquitous, does it not?

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When the angel Gabriel visited Mary to inform her of God's plan for virginal conception, she and Joseph were already betrothed. Many today take that to mean they were engaged, but it actually means more: Betrothal effectively meant a couple was married, albeit with the woman still residing in her father's house while the man finished building/establishing their own.

There was no ending a betrothal the way we might break off an engagement if we get cold feet. Ending a betrothal required a divorce, which was scandalous and hard to come by. This explains why, upon hearing Mary was "with child," Joseph "resolved to divorce her" and needed his own visit from an angel to change his mind by assuring him "that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:18-20).

Mary's reaction is even more telling than Joseph's. When a young woman who is already essentially married is told "you have found favor with God" and "will conceive in your womb and bear a son," it seems odd for her to respond by asking "how" rather than "when," yet that is exactly what Mary did. According to Luke 1:34 she "said to the angel, 'How will this be, since I am a virgin?'" That statement makes no sense unless she was planning to always be one.

Modern Westerners are inclined to wonder why two humans would marry while planning to forego sex, and men are particularly curious why Joseph would take a bride under circumstances that would, at least ostensibly, consign him to an entire lifetime without sex. But Mary and Joseph obviously weren't your normal couple - seeing as how they were both addressed by angels, and she was chosen to bear and nurture God in human form, and he was charged with protecting God in human form along with God's mother - so should we really be surprised by the thought of them looking at things from different perspectives than us?

In any event, chastity vows, including among spouses, were not unheard of. The Torah itself uses the phrases "afflict yourselves" (Leviticus 16:29) and "afflict herself" (Numbers 30:13) in ways that are widely acknowledged as referring to adults voluntarily vowing to abstain from sex. In On the Contemplative Life, Philo of Alexandria (circa 20 B.C. to 50 A.D.) wrote of a contemporaneous sect called the Therapeutae whose members swore themselves to celibacy. These kinds of arrangements were not normal, but neither were they absent.

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The argument given most often and most persuasively for rejecting the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity is the fact that the Bible makes reference to Jesus having brothers and sisters. Matthew 13:55 even names said brothers: James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas.

While that seems compelling at first glance, let's face it: If it actually was compelling, it would not have sat there for more than 15 centuries with nobody bothering to use it as an argument against the doctrine. Nevertheless, sit there it did. Unused. And that long, enduring silence ought to make today's critics think twice.

Though we automatically think of the words "brothers" and "sisters" as meaning biological siblings, ancient Hebrews did not, for they also used those words to identify relatives who were not siblings. This was especially true for relatives you and I would call cousins, as their language and culture had no word for cousin.

We know Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins not because the Bible calls them that, but because we connect the dots when Gabriel refers to Elizabeth (John's mother) as Mary's "relative." From that, we intuit that Jesus and John must have been cousins to one degree or another.

Likewise, we know Abram and Lot were uncle and nephew because Genesis 14:12 says Lot was "the son of Abram's brother." However, two verses later, when Abram gets news of Lot's capture in Genesis 14:14, the Hebrew word for brother (ach) is used to describe their relationship to one another. Many modern English translations tidy the verse up for us by substituting other words - e.g., the NLT uses "nephew" and the ESV "kinsman" - but it cannot be stressed enough that the translators made that decision not because of what 14:14 says, but because of the context clue provided in 14:12.

There are plenty other examples of this sort of thing in the Bible. Including some in which there is no blood whatsoever between between the people (e.g., David called Jonathan "my brother") and some in which the familial titles are something other than sibling (e.g., your grandfather, great-grandfather, etc. would each be called your "father," and collectively called your "fathers," since there was no designated word for paternal predecessors more than a generation removed).

But I digress, for what I alluded to five paragraphs above is strong enough on its own. Church leaders down through history were no fools, and many of them were intellectual and philosophical titans. They all saw the words "brothers" and "sisters" in print, describing peoples' linkage to Jesus, yet they all believed his mother was perpetually virgin and never bore another child. None of them cited the words "brothers" and "sisters" as a reason to second-guess her perpetual virginity. The only explanation for this is that they knew those words were not referring to biological siblings - just like you and I know the singers Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield weren't siblings even though everyone calls them the Righteous Brothers.

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The doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity has been around as far back as we can tell, whereas opposition to it did not begin until more than three-fourths of the way into Christian history.

The doctrine survived intact on both sides of a schism in the fifth century, and intact again on both sides of another schism in the eleventh, and, as I showed in Part IV of this series, it remained a core belief of some Protestant Reformers even into the eighteenth century - which, if you're counting, was eighty-five percent of the way into Christian history.

Her perpetual virginity is the official belief of all Catholics, all Orthodox, and some Protestants. If it was good enough for Wesley, it ought to be good enough for all non-Cartholic, non-Orthodox Christians to consider without rejecting it out of hand.

And frankly, when the full and combined weight of history, logic, and Scripture are taken into account, the arguments against it are genuinely weak.

Note #1: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
    Part I: Introduction
    Part II: The New Eve
    Part III: Genesis to Revelation
    Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
    Part IV: Historical Perspective              

Note #2: The photo at the beginning of this post was taken at Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseilles, France. Courtesy of Diane Kelly.