Until a few months ago, I was a Baptist for 30 years, and attended 6 different fundamentalist churches in Michigan and Texas (including one I helped start).
The others posters are right in that Mary is usually only mentioned in church on rare occasions, and in women’s Bible study groups. Whenever she is brought up they say they her in high regard as they would any other OT holy person. But they always have to temper it by using it as an excuse to bash the Catholic position.
I could never understand that if they were truly honoring her, then why do they use her as an anti-Catholic club?
In my years as a Baptist, the only time that I remember her really getting a fair shake was in the Bible studies that I, myself, led. Although I mistakenly believed in her pretty much the same way most Protestants do, it never made sense to me to reject her outright.
Even though at the time I did not believe that she was the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God, etc. She was an incredibly holy and faithful woman no matter what your denomination. As the mother of Jesus, would not he hold her in higher regard than other women as all people do? If Jesus held his mother in high regard, and we are to be like him, then should we not also honor and cherish her?
Here is this teenage Jewish girl who is chosen by God for the most remarkable role in human history. A role that could have cost her her life by a horribly painful death (by stoning). She had to have known that she would be reviled as a fornicator. Even as a child she had such faith in God! From the Protestant point-of-view, (rejecting her immaculate conception) she had to have been brought up in a family rich in devotion and love of God and to prayer.
And then the faith of Joseph! That he loved her so much that, by all rights, he did not have to divorce her quietly as was his plan. He could have publicly accused her and brought her up on charges. But he loved her so much that he decided to try to do the right thing, yet without shaming her. He must have shed tears all night long when the angel appeared and told him that God himself was behind it, and he had nothing to fear!
How Protestants cannot use this couple as role models for parents everywhere is beyond me, even when I was a Baptist myself.
