Why I Study Mary
Recommended reading! Read on...
UPDATE as of April 30, 2018: The First Things link has expired. Here was my original text.
What has motivated you to study Mary as a scholar?
I grew up in the Presbyterian church, which has no tradition of devotion to the Virgin Mary. I first encountered the medieval devotion to Mary through a course I took in college on women in the Middle Ages. At the time, I was also reading a good deal of feminist theology, which seemed to me at odds with the image of the Virgin that I encountered in the medieval sources. My goal as a scholar has been to recover an appreciation for the way in which medieval Christians prayed to Mary in the liturgy and imagined her through their reading of Scripture. Without Mary, I have become convinced, there can be no Christianity. I want to help modern Christians appreciate why Mary is necessary both theologically and devotionally to our understanding and experience of God.
How do you teach college students about the Virgin Mary in…
UPDATE as of April 30, 2018: The First Things link has expired. Here was my original text.
What has motivated you to study Mary as a scholar?
I grew up in the Presbyterian church, which has no tradition of devotion to the Virgin Mary. I first encountered the medieval devotion to Mary through a course I took in college on women in the Middle Ages. At the time, I was also reading a good deal of feminist theology, which seemed to me at odds with the image of the Virgin that I encountered in the medieval sources. My goal as a scholar has been to recover an appreciation for the way in which medieval Christians prayed to Mary in the liturgy and imagined her through their reading of Scripture. Without Mary, I have become convinced, there can be no Christianity. I want to help modern Christians appreciate why Mary is necessary both theologically and devotionally to our understanding and experience of God.
How do you teach college students about the Virgin Mary in…
