Apologetics: Happy (Belated) Mother’s Day! Please Stop Venerating Mary.

As most of us know, yesterday was Mother’s Day. For the small number of us who didn’t know that, there’s your reminder. You might want to start making up for your bad memory as quickly as possible. But PSA announcement aside, because yesterday was Mother’s Day, I thought it fitting that we take a moment to talk about our Catholic and Orthodox Christian friends and their veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now, I am not a Catholic or Orthodox Christian (when I say Orthodox here, I’m referring specifically to Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians), nor do I claim to be an expert on everything they believe. However, like many Protestants, it concerns me how much Mary is venerated by these two groups. Are they right in doing this? Or is there something that they’re not recognizing here?

The answer is the latter. Though Mary is one of the best characters in the Bible, being an exemplar of what living your faith in God and what obedience to God looks like, she was human, just like all of us. Though she may have been the mother of Jesus, she still was a sinner. She wasn’t perfect. In fact, in Matthew 12:46-48, it’s even implied that she herself did not fully grasp Jesus’ importance as the Son of God.

However, though this is a basic understanding of Mary that makes sense, the Catholics and Orthodox Churches for reasons that I’m not entirely sure about, hold Mary in a higher esteem than the Bible warrants. To be fair to the Catholics, they don’t outright worship Mary (I can’t really say the same for some sects of Orthodox Christianity), but they venerate her as an intercessor between them and God. Furthermore, it seems from my research that they even believe spiritual insights can be taken from her. One Catholic website says about Mary:

And we believe that their prayers are just as powerful now that they are in heaven—even more powerful—than they were when they were here on earth. We are essentially saying to them, “We have problems down here. You know what it’s like, because you’ve been here. Please, pray for us!”

Add to that Mary’s unique perspective on the life of Jesus. Imagine the incredible insights we can gain by praying to her! Too often we squeeze the humanity out of our spiritual perspectives and exercises. Mary was a woman, a wife, a mother, a human—and the mother of Jesus. She laughed and cried, made dinner, changed diapers, and suffered anguish we will never know.

While this sounds sweet and all, was Jesus not human, too? Did He not have the same struggles and temptations as we, while remaining sinless? Did He not come to be the ultimate mediator between us and God by coming as a man? If Mary could do that too all by virtue of having given birth to Jesus, then why did Jesus come to Earth at all other than to sacrifice himself? This is the theology of Mary as not just the mediatrix (which would be bad enough), but also a co-redemptrix, which in some ways is even worse. She was not God in any way. She cannot atone for our sin and cannot serve as a mediator. Only Jesus could be a divine mediator. Though we can honor her, we should not pray to her.

Another theological issue with the veneration of Mary was the belief that she was born without original sin and remained a perpetual virgin throughout her life. Nowhere in the Bible is this belief supported in any way. In fact, it’s actually refuted by the Bible. As I mentioned earlier, there was some confusion between Mary and Jesus’ early ministry, despite her knowledge that He was the Son of God. As for the belief that she was a perpetual virgin, we know she wasn’t as the Gospels tell us that Jesus actually had four brothers, and he also had sisters (though they’re never named or numbered), which other New Testament books, such as some of Paul’s letters, corroborate. Thus, Mary could not have stayed a perpetual virgin.

The last theological issue in the veneration of Mary debate is the idea that she – alongside Jesus – is the only person in Heaven with a body and soul. Not only does this totally seem to ignore the stories from the Old Testament of people being physically taken up to Heaven by God, but once again, this has no support for it in the Bible. Though Catholics try to defend this by using Revelations 12:1, it simply doesn’t work. The woman described has been taken to either describe Mary or Israel, and either way, this is not meant to be taken as a literal reading, but rather a metaphorical, symbolic passage that refers to history playing out in light of prophetic fulfillment.

Because of these things, though Mary should be honored as an example of living your faith, she should not be venerated in the way that the Catholics and Orthodox Christians venerate her, as much of what they believe seems to be based on misreadings of Scripture. If you want to know more, I suggest reading this post by Stephanie Potts that she wrote for Midwest Christian Outreach Inc., in which she does a deep dive into why we shouldn’t be venerating Mary.

Until next time,

M.J.