When did Protestants stop honoring Mary?

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So the reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.) all had a higher respect for Mary than their successors.

I’m wondering when the traditional beliefs (let’s say perpetual virginity and the immaculate conception) about Mary were dropped.

Who/What is responsible for the modern Protestant views on Mary?
 
Mind if I add a question to your question?
It seems to me that Protestants almost (and I don’t like using the word), but it seems sometimes they almost “hate” the Blessed Virgin. Sorry, I know that sounds bad, but I have really seen some “Mary bashing” around here in their attempt to diminish her significance or participation in the life of Christ.
I guess I just don’t get it. After all, she’s Jesus’ momma.
(And around here, we defend our momma…).
 
ryanmac said:
Who/What is responsible for the modern Protestant views on Mary?
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It’s all part of the general trend. Once orthodoxy becomes optional, it doesn’t take long for it to become forbidden.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
It was sometime after the Reformation, for certain, including Zwingli and Calvin and Luther, who all had varying degrees of Marian devotion. It likely would have occurred as the belief in Sola Scriptura meant not only to reject Tradition, but to reject anything not “explicit” in Scripture. It also is a reflection on the expanse of interpreting Scripture for oneself (an anti-ecclesial attitude) and the loss of the hermeneutic of typology which is often lost in fundamentalist interpretation. So I’m thinking 17th - 20th century, you see less and less Marian devotion.
 
I respond as a Lutheran – I cannot answer for other non-Catholics.

I don’t think we have stopped honoring Mary. I do think that the ways in which we honor her do not include everything a Catholic considers to be ways of honoring her.

We certainly acknowledge Mary as being the Theotokos, the God-bearer and as the mother of our Lord. An important part of our Vespers service is Mary’s song, the Magnificat. We treasure those words of Mary as a statement of faith in God. So, we do acknowledge and honor her in those ways.

On the other hand, we do not seek her intercession with her son. I don’t think that shows a lack of honor – merely that we see no need for an intercessor between us and our Lord. We don’t pray the Hail Mary, although the first part of that prayer cannot be a problem since it comes straight from Holy Scripture.

Just a few thoughts.
 
Thanks MP. I figure around the same dates. I can trace beliefs in Sola Scriptura back to Martin Luther, and once-saved-always-saved to Calvin, Pre-Tribulation Rapture to Cotton Mather & the American Puritans, but can’t trace the origin to the fall of Marian devotion to any individual or sect.

Was there no “champion” of the “cause” away from the historical traditions?
 
edjco said:
Mind if I add a question to your question?
It seems to me that Protestants almost (and I don’t like using the word), but it seems sometimes they almost “hate” the Blessed Virgin. Sorry, I know that sounds bad, but I have really seen some “Mary bashing” around here in their attempt to diminish her significance or participation in the life of Christ.
I guess I just don’t get it. After all, she’s Jesus’ momma.
(And around here, we defend our momma…).
Click to expand...
Protestants don’t hate the Mary of the Bible. In fact, they love her but no more than they love the other great saints, such as Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, Martha, Lydia, Mary of Jerusalem, Paul, Barnabus, Timothy, etc. Many of them probably do hate the Mary of Catholicism, who lived a life without sin, remained perpetually virgin, was assumed into Heaven and who is the object of billions upon billions or prayers. They believe no such person exists, and therefore regard her as they would Demeter, Athena, Artemis or any of the other pagan gods. They don’t really hate these imaginary goddesses but they do hate the concept of worshiping them. Likewise, they perceive Catholics as worshiping Mary, committing idolotry if you will, and this is what they hate. The Mary of the Bible (Protestant that is) was the mother of several other children, was a very devout woman but certainly not free from sin, died and is buried somewhere in the Mediterranian area, is not capable of hearing prayers and is certanily not worthy of vereration. So, when you think about Mary, you come up with the image of a very different person than when Protestants think about Mary.
 
Zenas said:
The Mary of the Bible (Protestant that is) was the mother of several other children, was a very devout woman but certainly not free from sin, died and is buried somewhere in the Mediterranian area, is not capable of hearing prayers and is certanily not worthy of vereration. So, when you think about Mary, you come up with the image of a very different person than when Protestants think about Mary.
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Using Scripture alone, name those other children, please. How do you know Mary sinned? Demonstrate that Mary cannot hear prayers.

Also, with or without Scripture: Where is Mary buried? Given her historical importance, surely her tomb would be known.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
That’s a good point Zenas. Coming from a Protestant background this lines up pretty closely with where I came from. I’m on the other side of the fence now and can also see why the Protestant view is so foreign and offensive to cradle Catholics.

MLC - I don’t think Zenas is trying to convince you of the Protestant perspective. I think he’s shedding light on why they think that way. The better Catholics understand why Protestants think the way they do, the better they’ll be able to converse and bring the Church together again, as Christ desired.
 
ryanmac said:
MLC - I don’t think Zenas is trying to convince you of the Protestant perspective. I think he’s shedding light on why they think that way. The better Catholics understand why Protestants think the way they do, the better they’ll be able to converse and bring the Church together again, as Christ desired.
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I get that. I was raised Southern Baptist and was once part of the “Mary’s just another godly woman” culture.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
mlchance said:
Using Scripture alone, name those other children, please. How do you know Mary sinned? Demonstrate that Mary cannot hear prayers.

Also, with or without Scripture: Where is Mary buried? Given her historical importance, surely her tomb would be known.

– Mark L. Chance.
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I didn’t say I accept the Protestant concept of Mary but I can give you the scripture that Protestants would most likely use to answer some of your questions:

  1. *]Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and of Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? Mark 6:3.
    *]And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour. Luke 1:47. (Also) For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23.
    *]The Bible doesn’t say that the saints can hear our prayers, so it is assumed that they cannot. To do so would require God like powers. Protestants do not regard saints in Heaven to have any keener senses of perception than we have here on earth. Forget Hebrews 12:1, they have don’t think it means the saints can see us.
    *]They don’t care where Mary is buried; they just know she is because the Bible says nothing about her being assumed.
 
Zenas said:
I didn’t say I accept the Protestant concept of Mary…
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If I spoke incorrectly, it’s only because my foot is in my mouth. 😃
Zenas said:
but I can give you the scripture that Protestants would most likely use to answer some of your questions:

  1. *]Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and of Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? Mark 6:3.
    *]And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour. Luke 1:47. (Also) For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23.
    *]The Bible doesn’t say that the saints can hear our prayers, so it is assumed that they cannot. To do so would require God like powers. Protestants do not regard saints in Heaven to have any keener senses of perception than we have here on earth. Forget Hebrews 12:1, they have don’t think it means the saints can see us.
    *]They don’t care where Mary is buried; they just know she is because the Bible says nothing about her being assumed.
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  1. And has been explained ad infinitum, none of those actually bear up to scrutiny. James, Joses, Juda, and Simon have other parents, named in Scripture. No one other Jesus is named in Scripture as Mary’s child. The Church doesn’t teach Mary didn’t need a savior, and Paul in Romans obviously isn’t being all-inclusive since he’d also have to include Jesus as well as children who’ve not reached the age of reason. Points 3 and 4 are arguments from silence; it are fallacious.

    So, then, given the flimsy basis of some Protestant reflection on Mary, why does anyone hang on to it except due to some other animus against the Church? I could be wrong, but what I see isn’t so much a reasoned rejection of Marian doctrine as a rejection of the Church and those things perceived as definitively Catholic.

    – Mark L. Chance.
 
ryanmac said:
So the reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.) all had a higher respect for Mary than their successors.

I’m wondering when the traditional beliefs (let’s say perpetual virginity and the immaculate conception) about Mary were dropped.

Who/What is responsible for the modern Protestant views on Mary?
Click to expand...
If I am not mistaken (and if I am then I apologize) I think the Immaculate Conception became dogma in the 1850’s, well after these men were deceased.

If someone could shed some light on when Mary’s perpetual virginity became official Church teaching I would be grateful.
 
So is it fair to say then that the push to define the immaculate conception was in response to a Catholic or Protestant push for the opposite? I propose this since most of what the Church defines is in response to confusion about a matter. That would put the move away from the traditionally held doctrine to the nineteenth century.

Note: I say “traditionally held”, because many of the early church fathers, and even Martin Luther, held the sinlessness of Mary in high regard.
 
The strange Protestant position on Mary seems to have developed in stages.
  1. The first protestants, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin etc, maintained a lot of Marian belief. In her sinlessness, in her perpetual virginity, and often in her Assumption. However they rejected direct prayer to the Saints, including Mary. The destruction of images carried out by the Calvinists and Anglicans (though not by Lutherans) came heavily down on Marian images allied devotions and processions. The shrines at Walsingham and elsewhere were destroyed early on.
  2. Once Protestantism had become established and people had been brought up without experiencing Marian devotion, we see the development of the common Protestant “blind-eye” turned to Mary. She starts to be an “unsafe” subject for Protestants to discuss, and the subject of Mary is rarely if ever raised except to condemn Catholic “excesses”.
That attitude persists in many moderate Protestant denominations today. Mary is a sort of guilty secret, hidden away, and rarely to be mentioned. I bought a 300 page book of very good clip-art from Scripture Union. All sorts of obscure biblical figures had sets of pages devoted to them, but not one page devoted to Mary. She was there in the Christmas scene, but a small insignificant image, meant to be placed in the background. Similarly I looked at one denomination’s detailed course of New Testament Bible Study. Fifty studiy sessions included several on Jesus, Peter, Paul, Andrew, Philip, even studies devoted to lesser figures like Jude, Silas, Ananias and Saphira. But not one devoted to Mary. That is fairly typical. There is a fear of getting started even on study of Mary.

Another good symbol of this is the position of Mary at Pentecost. When, after a long period involved in protestantism, I saw a Catholic picture of Pentecost with Mary in the middle, I thought: “this is wrong Mary wasn’t there. This is Catholics putting Mary everywhere again,” Then i realised that this wasn’t an innovation. The oldest pictures of Pentecost such as 6th century gospels have Mary prominent at Pentecost, and the bible passage mentions Mary. It was protestants who had excised Mary from all their images and discussions of Pentecost.
  1. The next stage is that of some fundamentalist groups who have, largely in the last 150 years or so, since Catholicism has impacted on the US and UK, become openly hostile to Mary. they claim not to, but they cannot resist attacking Mary, usually in order to attack Catholicism. These people you see a lot in certain books and on the intermet gleefully slandering Mary and trying to be as offensive as possible. These are the people who shout Mary wasn’t a virgin, was a sinner, is definitely dead, buried, and not even in heaven etc. etc. Some have genuinely convinced themselves, or been convinced that Catholics and others worship Mary as a goddess. Many have just become absorbed in sectarianism and don’t want to know the truth or to listen to explanations of why their ideas about Mary aren’t biblically based and are mistaken.
 
That’s very helpful Axion. Thank you. That seems like a plausible transition to modern times.

I’ll keep digging around for other historical references to the trend away from honoring Mary in the Protestant sects.

Any insight into what was going on in the mid-nineteenth century to provoke the Church to define the Immaculate Conception?
 
I found the following on Dave Armstrong’s site…

Catholic writer William J. Cole observes:
[Luther’s] custom of preaching Marian sermons on the Marian feasts continued in the Lutheran Church a hundred years after his death. Following the example of Luther other great songwriters of the Reformation glorified the greatness of Mary’s divine maternity. This lasting piety towards the Mother of God found an outlet in piety so that generally the celebrated pictures of the Madonna and her statues from the Middle Ages were retained in Lutheran churches. According to Heiler, it was only the spirit of the Enlightenment with its lack of understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation, which in the 18th century began the work of destruction.
(“Was Luther a Devotee of Mary?,” Marian Studies, 21, 1970, 101-102)
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Looks like Cole alludes to (at least in this snippet) a more substantial challenge to tradition occurring in the 18th century.

Anyone have any further insight?
 
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