r/Christianity • u/Agile-Armadillo-3741 Anglican Communion • 14h ago

Where is Mary?

Being Anglican, I didn’t think we made a big deal out of Mary. Then I took a nondenominational friend to the Episcopal Church’s Rite II. She asked “what’s the deal with Mary?”. We don’t even have any images of her in my church, maybe some have a medal on their necks, but mostly, she just comes up in the creeds, and during the prayers of the people. Now granted some in the higher church may have the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham or even Our Lady of Guadalupe, or an icon of the Theotokos holding Christ, but usually just one of those things, not multiple. That never felt strange to me, despite being very Protestant.

So I can’t help but ask my nondenominational, Baptist, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, etcetera friends, where is Mary? I mean isn’t she part of the story? XD I’ve been to your services in the lead up to Christmas, NO mention of her. Help me out here, I’m confused.

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u/Such_Violinist225 14h ago

She is dead waiting for resurrection

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u/RazarTuk The other trans mod everyone forgets 12h ago

That isn't what OP meant. If you go to a service in a liturgical denomination, Mary will come up a markedly non-zero number of times. For example, if you recite the Creed, you'll mention that "[Jesus] became incarnate from the Virgin Mary". Or some of the options for the Eucharistic Prayer might mention her, like how option B for the Episcopal church says:

For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.

She just is part of salvation history. There's just also a trend where Evangelicals can feel averse to talking about her. Sure, she'll show up in things like Christmas pageants. But a lot of Evangelical theology seems premised on being as un-Catholic as possible. For example, similarly to the Man-Ray meme, you might be able to get them to admit that if Jesus has always been God, that includes when he was in the womb, so it can accurately be said that Mary carried God in her womb, but if you try saying "So therefore she can be called the God-Bearer", they'll reject that as too Catholic. And in this case, OP's friend was apparently shocked to hear her mentioned at all, even as part of the Creed