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An article from the Christian Century on the resurgence of interest in Mary and Marian devotions among Protestant theologians.

The most important contribution of these recent reflections is to give fresh attention to the incarnation. The Council of Ephesus insisted that what Christians hold true about God is that God is not unwilling to get involved in the flesh and blood of human life. The Christian God is enwombed. To say otherwise is to introduce some sort of split in the Son himself, to suggest that the man Jesus is born of Mary and the divinity is not (perhaps the divinity is added later or not at all). To call Mary theotokos is to safeguard the fleshiness of God, and so the entire saving work of God in Christ.

As the Catholic theologian Lawrence Cunningham puts it, there is an “almost outrageous particularity” about saying that God’s presence in the world is localized in the womb of an unmarried teenage girl from Nazareth. Anyone can claim God as “almighty” or “omnipotent” or “omniscient” or whatever philosophical word we wish to append to him. To claim that God is enfleshed, that God has a birth and death date, that God is Jewish, is the scandal of particularity to which Christian faith is committed. Claims about Mary are ways to keep from smoothing out the scandal. As Luther said, “Mary suckled God, rocked God to sleep, prepared broth and soup for God.” She also taught him the songs, stories and practices of the Jewish people whose messiah he would later claim to be. Similarly, Charles Wesley (as Methodist theologian Geoffrey Wainwright points out) praised God as one “who gave all things to be, what a wonder to see, him born of his creature and nursed on her knee.” In Mary the church ties a string around its finger to remember the particularity of its claims about God. (John Henry Newman argued more than a century ago that the churches that had maintained strong doctrines on Mary are those that had not abandoned strong christological ones.)

Also don’t miss this dissenting view from Latin American Protestant Enrique Gonzales.

On a related note, see this post from Get Religion on a Methodist church introducing a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe into its worship.

From the American Spectator:

Journalists in Washington have been buzzing for days over reports that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is backing former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer for Democratic National Committee chairman.

Why? Because Roemer is pro-life. Could the staunchly pro-choice San Francisco Democrat really be putting her support behind this guy?

Yes. While Pelosi hasn’t officially endorsed Roemer, she did urge him to run. “Brendan Daly, spokesman for Pelosi, said the congresswoman … would not oppose an antiabortion leader (for) the party,” reported to the Boston Globe.

That’s only the latest is a series of signals suggesting that the Democratic Party is starting to rethink abortion politics. After years of being implacably pro-choice and scornful of anyone who disagreed, Democrats are beginning to realize that their position may have been hurting them more than they realized. […]

A survey by Democrat Stan Greenberg found that only 17% of voters cited John Kerry’s stance on abortion as a reason to vote for him while 19% cited it as a reason to vote against him, for a net loss of 2%.

For President Bush, 20% cited his abortion stance as a reason to vote for him, while 12% cited it as a reason to vote against him, for a net gain of 8%.

Then there’s the fact that Bush beat Kerry among Catholics, 52%-47%, according to a CNN exit poll. That’s despite the fact that Kerry is Catholic and Bush isn’t! Pro-life politics may help explain Bush’s 4% uptick among Latinos, another highly religious group. …

More here.

From Fr. Jim Tucker at Dappled Things:

Xmas — Here is one of my pet peeves: people who take it upon themselves to oppose the supposedly un-Christian and secular use of “Xmas” as an alternative to “Christmas.”

The “X” in question is not, in fact, the usual Latin letter, but rather the Greek letter “chi.” This is the same chi that you see in church joined to a “P” — which is, of course, not a “P,” but rather the Greek letter “rho.” The chi, usually together with the rho, is an ancient monogram for Christ, inasmuch as these are the two letters that begin the word Christ — Messiah — in Greek. You find it in digs from Christian antiquity, you see it used in mediaeval religious manuscripts, and you find it in the modern “Xmas.”

By all means, withstand the secularization of Christian solemnities, but please be sure that you know what you’re talking about first.

In the passage I quoted below, Peter Leithart says:

Solus Christus answered the question, How can I have communion with God? Sola Scriptura answered the logically prior epistemological question, From what source do I learn how I can commune with God? Solus Christus means Jesus alone can bring sinners into true life, the life of fellowship with the Triune God. Sola Scriptura means the Scriptures are Christ’s unique revelation of the way to life; it means that Scripture alone, being the Word of God, identifies where the living and life-giving Christ can be found. The Reformers found in Scripture that Christ had promised to meet with His gathered people through His Spirit, His Word, and the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. To see Him elsewhere is to search in vain.

In this understanding, Scripture is important as a witness to Jesus Christ, who is the means by which we can have communion with God. But one obvious objection to the principle of sola Scriptura is forcefully brought home in this quote from Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson (via Among the Ruins):

It was the historical and already conflicted church that gathered and winnowed documentary relics of apostolic proclamation. The canon of Scripture, that is, a list of writings together with the instruction, “Take all these writings and none other as standard documents of the apostolic witness,” is thus a dogmatic decision of the church. If we allow no final authority to churchly dogma, or to the organs by which the church can enunciate dogma, there can be no canon of Scripture. The slogan sola scriptura, if by that is meant “apart from creed, teaching office, or authoritative liturgy,” is an oxymoron.

Accordingly, the church is prior to Scripture both chronologically (i.e. there was a chuch before there was a NT canon) and in that it is the church that decides which books will count as canonical and how they are to be interpreted. Thus there is no Scripture in any meaningful sense without the believing community.

On the other hand, what the Protestant Reformers wanted to uphold, it seems to me, was the principle that Scripture stands over the Church as a standard by which the church could be criticized and reformed. This doesn’t mean they wanted to throw out tradition; both Luther and Calvin were fond of appealing to the Fathers to support their interpretations of Scripture. Our understanding of Scripture has always to be in conversation with those who’ve gone before us. But tradition, they thought, must ultimately be tested by its fidelity to the text of Scripture. Certain Protestants have emphasized that they only reject tradition when it is understood as a source of revelation independent from Scripture.

Moreover, it should be noted that pointing out the dependence of Scripture on the believing community doesn’t tell us which believing community is authoritative. More in the way of argument is required to show the identity of the church that forged the canon with any present-day ecclesiastical body.

Via Amy Welborn, Gerald O’Collins on Christmas carols:

OUR MUCH LOVED carols can trigger deep delight and even intense spiritual experience. They tell wonderful stories and introduce powerful symbols: the birth of a poor child who is the saviour of the world; exotic people from the Orient who travel in search of a new-born boy; a gleaming star which directs their journey; an angel who comes at the dead of night to send a family fleeing from mortal peril into exile, and the dreadful deeds of a cunning and murderous tyrant.

The carols also embody a rich treasury of Christian faith. Taken together, they express a full range of beliefs about the Christ child and the divine purposes revealed at his birth. While examining some of the more familiar carols can serve to show the wealth of faith that they embody, commenting might seem to get in the way of these beloved hymns and inhibit our direct experience of them. Yet awareness of their doctrinal worth will enhance their impact rather than restrict their life. …

More.

As someone who spent most of my life “unchurched” as they say, I find that Christmas carols are about the only worship songs I know by heart (I am gradually becoming more familiar with classic Protestant hymnody). For that reason, perhaps, they tend to one of the few ways in which I can easily express spontaneous praise. Maybe that’s part of why I love this time of year so much!

For Calvin, then, sola Scriptura was inseparable from solus Christus. Solus Christus and sola Scriptura were the Reformation’s answers to two fundamental religious questions. Solus Christus answered the question, How can I have communion with God? Sola Scriptura answered the logically prior epistemological question, From what source do I learn how I can commune with God? Solus Christus means Jesus alone can bring sinners into true life, the life of fellowship with the Triune God. Sola Scriptura means the Scriptures are Christ’s unique revelation of the way to life; it means that Scripture alone, being the Word of God, identifies where the living and life-giving Christ can be found. The Reformers found in Scripture that Christ had promised to meet with His gathered people through His Spirit, His Word, and the Sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism. To see Him elsewhere is to search in vain.

At this point, Calvin’s attack on relics and superfluous ceremonies strikes at the foundations of Roman Catholicism, both medieval and modern. While Jesus promised to offer Himself to His people through bread and wine, Calvin argued, He never promised to encounter them through icons or relics. While Jesus promised that sinners could gain access to the Father through Him, He nowhere promised access to the Father through the saints or Mary. While Jesus promised that Scripture gives wisdom leading to salvation, He never promised to communicate that wisdom through papal decrees. The Roman Catholic Church had, Calvin admitted, preserved the Word and Sacraments, so that one could come to know God truly in the Catholic Church. But the Word and Sacraments had been so shrouded by layers of tradition and distracting ceremony that Christ could be perceived only with difficulty. Calvin charged, in short, that Roman Catholicism taught people to look for God in all the wrong places.

–Peter J. Leithart, “Why Protestants Still Protest”

Hey – the end of the year is upon us, and that means it’s time for lists! Lists of the best … I dunno, how ’bout movies, music and books for starters?

Herewith, in my extremely subjective opinion, the best movies of 2004:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This story of a couple who resort to extreme measures to extricate each other from their lives is downright haunting. You could say it’s about personal identity: what makes us who we are? Are we atomistic selves existing in isolation from the other, or are we essentially persons-in-relation? Also: if we try to eliminate suffering and loss, do we lose our humanity itself?

Sideways. A road-trip movie for grownups. Any movie that can take characters this unsympathetic and make you care about them is aces in my book. And if this movie doesn’t make you want to go home and enjoy a fine glass of Pinot, nothing will!

Bonus feature: Movies that made a big splash which I didn’t even bother to see: Farenheit 9/11 and The Passion of the Christ. (Incidentally, I still think it’s hard to beat Zefirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, but for pure Hollywood cheese you can’t do better than The Greatest Story Ever Told. Charlton Heston as John the Baptist! John Wayne as the centurion at the foot of the Cross!! How are you going to beat that??)

I’m not interested in piling on the “fisking” of this sermon by the Rev’d Canon Leslie Northup wherein she urges “real” (i.e. liberal) Christians to take their faith back from those who have hijacked it (the usual suspects: evangelicals, right-wingers, “fundamentalists” of all stripes). But I did find this passage curious:

In the book, Jesus never said a word about abortions. Some Christians oppose aborting a fetus that cannot even live on its own, but this deeply held conviction did not prevent millions of good life-respecting Christians from voting to continue an unprovoked and falsely justified war of aggression that has killed tens of thousandsof perfectly innocent people who were already living. I think Jesus probably would not have liked this.

As readers know, I am no fan of the war in Iraq, but what strikes me is the insinuation that it’s somehow absurd to oppose the killing of a human life “that cannot even live on its own.”

Why is it that touchy-feely communitarian liberals become hard-nosed Randian individualists as soon as talk turns to the unborn? Can’t make it on your own? Sorry, pal – it’s curtains for you! Is this how Jesus would want us to treat the “least of these”?

Over at Godspy John Zmirak interviews Wesley J. Smith on biotech, cloning and genetic engineering:

Godspy: What got a nice progressive like you involved in the crusade of the religious right to hobble the progress of modern science? More seriously—can you explain why the Left is so silent on what seems like a profound human rights abuse fueled by corporate capitalism, while it’s left to the Vatican (along with some concerned scientists and ethicists) to speak out?

Wesley Smith: I know the first question is facetious. But it is amazing how many people, particularly in the mainstream media, believe that opposing human cloning is the same thing as opposing science itself. Of course, that is nonsense. These aren’t science issues so much as they are ethical and moral issues in which everyone has a stake. This means that every one of us should participate and have an equal say.

It is amazing how many people, particularly in the mainstream media, believe that opposing human cloning is the same thing as opposing science itself. Actually, some in the Left are opposing these agendas, although you wouldn’t know it from the two-dimensional reportage in the mainstream media. Those who walk on the left side of the street who oppose human cloning do so primarily because they perceive it correctly as transforming human life into a mere instrumentality, and because it could lead to eugenics and the exploitation of women. For example, Judy Norsigian, one of the editors of the feminist manifesto Our Bodies, Ourselves, is a prominent opponent of human cloning. So too are leftists Jeremy Rifkin, Todd Gitlin, and Norman Mailer. Unfortunately, these folk do appear to represent the minority position on the Left, which seems to have bought the nonsense that to be modern, one must support embryonic stem cell research and human cloning.

You argue in your book that American biotech companies are piggy-backing on the “pro-choice” rhetoric of American feminism to prepare a nightmare for the women of the developing world. What do you fear will happen?

Here’s the very real danger to women that I discuss in Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World: Each attempt at human cloning requires three ingredients: A body cell from the DNA donor, an electrical charge, and a mature human egg. Getting the cells is no problem since each of us has trillions. The electrical charge isn’t an issue. But obtaining human eggs is another story altogether. […]

The National Academy of Sciences reported that it would probably take 100 eggs just to obtain one cloned stem cell line, per patient. This means that biotech companies would be likely to buy eggs from poor women in impoverished countries such as Kenya or Bangladesh, who could be paid a relatively small fee to have their eggs harvested. This would be the worst sort of exploitation. Moreover, since these women would not be likely to have ready access to medical treatment in the event of complications, some could die or become sterile. That is why I assert that therapeutic cloning would be rich men’s medicine facilitated with the body parts of poor women. This potential for the most crass form of exploitation is one reason some notable feminists oppose these technologies. […]

I noticed in your bio that you were a long-time associate of Ralph Nader. What is the common factor uniting your work with him in the past with your current efforts?

That’s an interesting question that I haven’t been asked before. I co-authored four books with Ralph and got to know him quite well. Ralph’s motivation, whether one agrees or disagrees with him on the particulars of policy, is to empower the individual to stand against exploitation by powerful institutions. I certainly see my work in opposing euthanasia, resisting the utilitarian agenda inherent in the modern bioethics movement that eschews the sanctity/equality of human life, and my expose about the almost unlimited agendas of Big Biotech, in the same light.

Moreover, Ralph understands that too often, our values follow our pocketbooks, and that sometimes, corporate agendas, unless countered with effective democratically-enacted checks and balances, can dehumanize society and oppress the defenseless. I perceive the same concern as being germane in all of my work, whether it is warning that euthanasia could become a profit making procedure for HMOs, since those to be killed usually be the most expensive patients to care and HMOs make their profits from cutting costs, or in my opposition to permitting the patenting of human life. Ralph is a humanitarian and a (small d) democrat. I like to think that I am, too.

There’s more. Also see the excerpt Godspy published from Smith’s latest book here.

Just what it sounds like – the blog of an Episcopalian vegan.