Do any Protestants believe in the Assumption?

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It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it.
For many of us, Mother Mary is like our own mom. She’s just that important. Anything said that puts her aside or reduces her is like you said it about our mom. So it’s like you said my mother is not that important. It causes me to feel a bit like Michael Corleone when someone speaks ill of his mother, or his family.
Just be careful in your wording.
 
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AlmaRedemptorisMater said:
The wording is intentionally avoiding the claim that She did not die. That is still undetermined.
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If Mary is also the Immaculate Conception, meaning she was conceived without original sin, and death is the punishment for original sin, then Mary did not die. I’m not sure why the Church always needs to be so timid and ambiguous in these matters. What’s the point of essentially proclaiming a dogma in unclear terms?

Furthermore, one of the other “proof texts” to support the Assumption is the taking of Enoch into heaven. Hebrews 11:5 states, “5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was attested as having pleased God.”

Who is greater, Mary or Enoch? If Enoch did not see death, then logically Mary did not see death either.
 
That would put it at odds with the Dormition, which it doesn’t have to be. Many Catholics believe that She could’ve been assumed without death, but that She chose to die, as Her Son did. Declaring dogma should be a timid and ambiguous process, we are dealing with matters of Heaven and Earth.
 
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Tolle_Lege said:
I’m not sure why the Church always needs to be so timid and ambiguous in these matters. What’s the point of essentially proclaiming a dogma in unclear terms?
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The Orthodox believe that she did die. The Latin Church would take that into consideration as it does not want to burn bridges with them. I believe at least some of the Eastern Catholics also believe that she did die; again, the Latin Church wants to maintain communion with these fellow Catholics.

Furthermore, many Catholic theologians also believe that Mary did die. They often reason that Jesus himself experienced bodily death, and Mary would share in his experience by also experiencing it.
 
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Wannano said:
Maybe someone can explain why it matters so much to the CC?
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I’m not (yet) a Catholic, but it does not mean it doesn’t matter to me as a Protestant as well.

You have already had an answer from the point of view of the Catholic dogma ; maybe I can share why it matters to me, from a spiritual angle. In Mary’s Assumption, I see the realizing of Christ’s promise to us, the promise of eternal life. Christ ascended into heaven, but Christ is God incarnate ; Mary is a creature like us (albeit a very special one), but when she was assumed into heaven, she became the living face of God’s promise, the living sign that it is true for us also.

More generally, the Blessed Mother is also a living presence in my life, loving, caring, merciful, and an indefatigable intercessor. She patiently keeps covering me in her mantle and turning me to Christ when I’m cold inside and struggle.

So yes, it matters to me too.
 
Tolle_Lege said:
If Mary is also the Immaculate Conception, meaning she was conceived without original sin, and death is the punishment for original sin, then Mary did not die. I’m not sure why the Church always needs to be so timid and ambiguous in these matters.
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My experience in the Anglican Church suggests that:

a) there is a belief that RC’s wrongly elevate Mary to a position of sanctification equal to her son
b) that RC prayers to Mary are simply wrong and are a form of idolatry
c) that the plethora of statutes devoted to Mary in churches. shrines, etc. are problematic because they move our focus away from Jesus
d) while Mary’s virginity at the birth of Christ is acknowledged, he perpetual virginity is not and to have remained so is illogical, unnatural and nonsensical
e) much of the story about Mary is made up and cannot be substantiated by scripture. While there may be a significant oral tradition, it is not based on fact
f) it is normative to expect that Mary and Joseph had a conjugal relationship as is would have been expected that a woman bear children for her own sake and survival
g) that the bible expressly states that Jesus had brothers

So don’t shoot the messenger, I’m simply reporting what I usually hear on the matter. I should say, that for most Anglicans, the dogma around Mary is not that important - her perpetual virginity is irrelevant and whether she was assumed body and soul into heaven is inconsequential to individual salvation.
 
‘Sing of Mary’ isn’t in our hymnal and not a hymn that I’m familiar with either. I’ve just looked it up and found it can be sung to the same tune as `Sing we of the Blessed Mother.’ As church organist I’ll probably include it on a Marian feast day in future.

‘Ye who own the faith of Jesus’ with its Hail Mary refrain is in our hymnal but I haven’t been brave enough to include it at my middle of the road shack for fear of upsetting one or two of the more Reformed minded members. Got to be careful with them Anglicans, they’re so motley as a certain well known member here keeps pointing out!
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it.
For many of us, Mother Mary is like our own mom. She’s just that important. Anything said that puts her aside or reduces her is like you said it about our mom. So it’s like you said my mother is not that important. It causes me to feel a bit like Michael Corleone when someone speaks ill of his mother, or his family.
Just be careful in your wording.
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Thanks Tis. When we were in Venice we went into a Catholic Church to view the uncorrupted body of Zacharias. My thought at that time was “well, either it is or it isn’t and to me it does not matter.”
 
The “uncorrupted body of Zacharias” and other purported saint relics are not on the level of the Blessed Mother and the Marian Dogmas. I couldn’t care less if you believe in those or not as long as you respect that Catholics do, and don’t do something like ransack the saints’ tombs and burn the bones like Protestants were fond of doing in earlier eras.

The Blessed Mother is special. And dogmas of our faith are dogmas. You can choose to not believe them, but they matter very much to us, because they are not optional for us.
 
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It is my understanding, based largely on information from a Catholic historian friend of mine, that the early Church actually wrestled with the notion of whether Mary did or did not die before her Assumption, and that the official teaching is somewhat ambiguous on this point. What is your take on this?
 
Yes, but it’s my understanding that the near constant tradition of the Church prior to the 1700s was that Our Lady first died. If you go to St Mary’s Major in Rome, the most important Marian church in Latin Christendom, you’ll see a very prominent depiction of her Dormition (death). The tradition of her death is even discussed in the same apostolic constitution that defined the dogma of the Assumption. The idea that she did not die is a novelty with NO basis in the Fathers.
 
I noticed that the meter of Sing We of the Blessed Mary suggested that would be the case. Though the only audio version I checked on line was not the same tune as what I am familiar with for Sing of Mary.

Words of Sing of Mary came from an Anglican Church of Canada priest, later a member of the Anglican Continuum. It is likely my wife’s favorite hymn.
 
I mean, I’m utterly unconcerned with that question. I can’t think of a single important implication, so I’m not spending any bra(name removed by moderator)ower wondering about it.
 
Never heard of such a thing. Why, that might be the reason that my staunchly A-C parish (ab initio) had to forego the sung Angleus, when some of our incoming trickle of refugees from the creativity of the Episcopal Church got their knickers in a knot.

Moved to the Wed. night service, it was.
 
As the local Anglican monitor, I can affirm that some Anglicans would affirm some, all, or who knows what, on these points. And some Anglicans would take differing positions on them, with respect to the other aforementioned Anglicans.
 
I presume the early Church wrestled with it and that is how we end up with various theological opinions on whether she did or did not die before her Assumption today.

Since the doctrine of the Assumption is simply that she was taken up body and soul into Heaven when her life on earth ended, one is free to believe that she died first, or that she didn’t die first. There is no specific dogmatic reason why she would have needed to die, or not die. For example, her bodily death was not necessary in order to be a sacrifice and redeem the world, as that was Jesus’ role, not hers.
 
It suggests Our Lady was deprived her share in the resurrection. The Assumption is meant to be a foretaste of the ultimate destiny of the Church… which is a share in the resurrection.
 
twf said:
It suggests Our Lady was deprived her share in the resurrection. The Assumption is meant to be a foretaste of the ultimate destiny of the Church… which is a share in the resurrection.
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Ok, fine, it’s symbolically nice.

Still has no implications, as far as I’m concerned. I doubt Mary would feel left out if she got to go straight to Heaven without dying instead of after dying.
 
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