Dead Christians Society

In the Patron Saints class’s discussions, I ask students to hand in questions in advance. The “uber-question” most people asked–in some form–after reading Margery Kempe was this: How are we to deal with the influence of medieval Catholic theology and practice on Margery’s spirituality?

I jotted a few thoughts in response:

I sense behind this question, for some of you at least, some degree of fear: If we start messing with this Catholic stuff, will we end up taking in some theological poison? Can we really learn from people from whom we as evangelical Protestants have historically differed so much? I’m not going to try to answer those questions here—–we really can’t try to do that, or we’ll get too far afield.

I do want to point you to the best brief contemporary survey I have seen on Catholic-evangelical dialogue as it now stands. This is a recent Books & Culture cover article which is a concise condensation of a recent book.

—I have the book out of the library and really, really want to get to it. We can’t even read or skim this article together now, but I want to point it out to you before we continue. Please remember that it refers to modern Catholicism, which is in many ways a different animal than the Catholicism of Kempe’s time–—and that doesn’t bother RC’s at all, because despite that aberration of “papal infallibility” promulgated by a nervous pope in the 19^th century, Roman Catholics cherish the idea that tradition develops over the centuries, gaining a more and more helpful and accurate understanding of the Gospel.

The article, Is the Reformation Over? by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom, is in the July/August 2005 issue of Books & Culture. [I wish I could give an online reference for the whole article, but if you'll click on the title above, you'll get a preview.]

Now, on this matter of how we assess or test religious experience, and how our pre-set categories of thought affect the way we experienced God and the way we talk about those experiences, nobody is better than the VERY Protestant 18^th-century American theologian Jonathan Edwards. Here is what Edwards says about the way people tell their conversion experiences (this is a snippet of his Treatise on Religious Affections, as cited in a footnote of the early 20th-century author William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience):

“A rule received and established by common consent has a very great, though to many persons an insensible influence in forming their notions of the process of their own experience. I know very well how they proceed as to this matter, for I have had frequent opportunities of observing their conduct. Very often their experience at first appears like a confused chaos, but then those parts are selected which bear the nearest resemblance to such particular steps as are insisted on; and these are dwelt upon in their thoughts, and spoken of from time to time, till they grow more and more conspicuous in their view, and other parts which are neglected grow more and more obscure. Thus what they have experienced is insensibly strained, so as to bring it to an exact conformity to the scheme already established in their minds. And it becomes natural also for ministers, who have to deal with those who insist upon distinctness and clearness of method, to do so too.” Treatise on Religious Affections.

In other words, our experience is always conditioned by the social cues we pick up from other people—including doctrinal cues, but also all kinds of cultural cues.

Now, to go directly to your question: I don’t want to be accused of heresy here. But is it wrong or unbiblical to think of Jesus’ mother? How are we to interpret the words “all generations shall call you blessed?” In editing the issue of Christian History on Mary in the imagination of the church, I found that thinking about Mary helped medieval Christians understand more of who God and Jesus were. I would dare to say that many Protestants as well as Catholics who viewed Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ gained a new heart insight of who Jesus was by seeing him through Mary’s eyes.

Of course, I would not follow medieval or modern RC practice and pray to Mary or ask her to intercede for me.

But I would ask this: if we always jump to draw theological lines and use those to strictly judge what is and is not a “legitimate Christian experience,” then aren’t we telling God how he can and cannot speak to us? In other words, I agree that if a supposed communication from the Holy Spirit clearly contradicts Scripture, we should reject it. So if someone tells me that Jesus told them to pray to Mary, I would reject this. But does this mean I reject everything else that person says they experienced?

You ask whether the inconsistency between Catholic and Protestant experience should marginalize Kempe’s experience. I would ask, are we sure that Protestant experience is always biblical experience? And Catholic experience is always unbiblical experience? That, I think, is the real test. And it’s only fair to make it carefully and impartially.

A final note–the issue of Christian History & Biography magazine on “Mary in the imagination of the church” won an Evangelical Press Association award as one of the best theme issues of an evangelical magazine for its year (indeed, Eastern Orthodox priest Patrick Henry Reardon’s article on Mary at the cross won the EPA’s first prize for best expository article!) Check it out! Last time I checked, if you click on “Mary in the imagination of the church,” above, you’ll get to a page that links to the full text of all of that issue’s articles, free! But they shuffle these articles behind the “pay curtain” pretty quickly–so look now if you’re interested.