M and W night I was at Reclaiming the Mind for a lecture and discussion about The Real Mary. I suspect I’ll be talking about Mary for years because of this research I’ve done, but I’m beginning to hear some pretty common questions — like this one: Are you afraid that if we begin to talk about Mary we will stop talking about Jesus? Or, does discussion of Mary lead inevitably to too much devotion to Mary?
Beside the fact that I don’t buy into very many “slippery slope” arguments (if you look at Mary you will eventually be praying to her), I think Protestants both have to learn to embrace the real Mary of the Gospels and we need to get over our “reaction formation.” (That is, our total rejection of everything about Mary because we have reacted so much to the Catholic and Orthodox teachings about Mary.)
But, having said that, every true teaching about Mary shows her leading us to Jesus.
I’m wondering for those of you who are reading The Real Mary or who have participated in Street Teams, what kind of hesitations about talking about Mary you are hearing? How have you responded?