What does Mary lose if she relates intimately to Joseph? Her virginity,
to be sure, but does she then lose her purity, her worthiness, her dignity?
Something close to affirming these questions seems to lie behind some defenses
of Mary’s perpetual virginity. We are given the impression by some teaching
that should Mary have later become a wife to Joseph physically she would have
lost something spiritually. I believe that this persuasion is dangerous
doctrinally and morally and that it is allied to other errors in the field of
sexual ethics—from priestly celibacy and resisting women’s ordination to
scientific contraception and annulment. Today, Catholic sexual teaching is in a
veritable shambles. The rehabilitation of a fully married Mary will be a step
toward reconstruction. Matthew’s subsequent record of Jesus’ honoring but not
requiring single life (19:10–12) will be another step toward the wholeness of
NT sexual teaching.
The theological
intention of wanting Mary to be a perpetual virgin seems to damage the doctrine
of marriage as seriously as it seems sometimes to contribute to a near
deification of Mary. The most grave traditional Protestant argument against the
Roman dogma of the virgin Mary is that Mary became, not only in popular piety
but in formal definition, an invoked intercessor, an almost divine figure, and
so a near idol. The titles mediatrix,
auxiliarix, and the like, all place Mary dangerously close to the Godhead.
Devotions are addressed to her. Prayers are at least mediated through her. And
although Marian minimalists won the important contest at Vatican II, I do not
believe that the most recent definitions have been fortunate—though they do
seem somewhat less fulsome than earlier ones.
Mary has tended
to replace the tender, compassionate side of Jesus in some popular Catholic
piety: Jesus is judge, Mary is mediator. But Protestants have not found the
Roman elevation of Mary in the apostolic accounts. We believe the Marian honors
are dubious at best and pernicious at worst. We believe that a thorough
demythologizing of Mary is required if church teaching is to be wholesome, not
least in the ethical field. And we believe that this normalization is required
for three reasons: (1) textually, the
biblical records will not bear the weight of the Marian dogma; (2) morally, the dignity of sexual relations
can be undermined by a veneration of Mary’s perpetual virginity; and (3) theologically, the integrity of the sole
mediation of Jesus Christ is threatened by Marian devotion.
Christians should
give Mary her deserved respect. G. K. Chesterton justifiably lamented that some
Protestant “Christians hate her whom God kissed in Galilee.” Mary is, properly understood, “the mother of
God” in that she is the mother of Jesus Christ, who is not only a man with
us—he is that—but also God’s great personal act of condescension. (Frederick
Dale Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1–12 (vol.
1, rev ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007], 49-50)
