Reviewed Book: Macquarrie, John. Mary for All Christians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990

Erb, Peter C.

English

Scholars Commons

Mary for All Christians

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 19Issue 2 Liberation Theology Article 2011-1-1993Mary for All ChristiansPeter C. ErbFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationErb, Peter C. (1993) "Mary for All Christians," Consensus: Vol. 19 : Iss. 2 , Article 20.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol19/iss2/20Book Reviews 155literary theory and interpretation in the humanities as a whole. In thesecarefully translated essays (Jiingel was not so fortunate in the accuracy ofthe translation of his God’s Being) the English-speaking reader can gain amuch fuller appreciation of Jiingel’s insights into the function of metaphori and a novel, positive approach to anthropomorphic language, according towhich Jiingel refuses to accept the human speaker as a “fixed point”, butrather as “a subject of movement, a process of self-transcendence, not ‘fixedand set in. . . actuality, but. . . aligned to the possibility of the world’ ” (Ibid.,8). The remaining five essays develop the implications of the positions putforward for anthropology, natural theology and the Protestant doctrine ofthe sacraments.Those fascinated by Julia Kristeva’s critique of the transcendental egowill have in the first three essays in particular much to consider, but all ofthem have wide importance, not only for Christian theology and religiouspractice, but for many other dimensions of contemporary life. One mighthope, for example, that Webster, who makes some interesting comments oni: the relationships between Jiingel and Ricoeur, in both the Introduction andi the Theological Essays will expand his comments at some future point to1 include reflections on “later” French deconstructionist and Lacanian theo-^ ries. The latter, albeit for the most part in popular forms and sometimes in? popular caricatures of themselves, are peculiarly “modern” apologetics forthe tradition which Jiingel characterises in God as the Mystery of the WorldI'as responsible for the “linguistic displacement” of God, and for which hisIwork can almost certainly provide an antidote, taking seriously as it doesthe roots out of which such post-modernist doctrines have grown.Lutherans might make one additional request of Professor Webster:Jiingel’s refiections on Luther’s “Freedom of a Christian”, originally printedin 1977 has just appeared in its third German edition; an English translationof the work [Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen: Eine Erinnerung anLuthers Schrift [Miinchen: Ch. Kaiser, 1991]) would be appreciated notonly for those interested in Jiingel, but especially for all concerned with! the implications of traditional theological positions for our contemporaryV world.^ Peter C. ErbWilfrid Laurier Universityt Waterloo, OntarioiMary for All ChristiansJohn Mac^uarrieLondon: (Jollins, 1991One of the subjects which has raised continued discussion in Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue and which has serious implications for Anglican-Lutheran dialogue as a result, is the place of Marian theology and devo-tion in Christian faith. Contemporary interest in women’s issues has, in156 Consensusa sense, forced the topic upon us, but even a general review of literatureon the Virgin makes it immediately obvious that the Marian tradition hasmuch broader implications for Christian life than the gender question alone.Macquarrie’s book is especially helpful in establishing some primary pointsfor discussion and is intended for all Christians.The six chapters are written in a broadly popular style. For the mostpart they were initially presented as lectures or seminars of the EcumenicalSociety of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The first, entitled “God and the Fem-inine”, takes up several matters directly related to women’s concerns: theJudaeo-Christian rejection of goddess worship, Freud and Jung on women’spsychological make-up, inclusive language, and the Genesis account of maleand female. In this chapter the author separates Marian devotion from pre-Christian goddess worship, develops a modified Jungian theory of female-male balance in society and the individual, and attempts in a somewhatout- fashioned way to explain, yet once again, that Christian theology andthe English language do not engender God in their use of the referent “he”.On the latter point Macquarrie’s philology may be right, but unfortu-nately he does not deal with the central question: that of the psychologicalimplications of exclusive language for women and men in our present situ-ation. Ruth Page once suggested that feminists made God male; whethershe is correct of not, the fact remains that, although certain English termsmay have functioned inclusively throughout earlier ages, they clearly nolonger do so, even among persons enclosed by the protective walls of TomQuad in Macquarrie’s Oxford and certainly not on the New York streetsoutside Union Theological Seminary where he taught for eight years.In his discussion of Mary in the New Testament, Macquarrie treats thetensions which must have existed between Jesus and his mother and whichare specified in a highly realistic way in Mark, applying the implications ofhis analysis there in his treatment of the conception and birth narrativesin Matthew and Luke and in the Gospel of John.The third, fourth and fifth chapters are devoted to those central Mariandoctrines, critical for any ecumenical discussions: the Immaculate Concep-tion, the Glorious Assumption, and Mary as Coredemptrix. On all thesetopics Macquarrie, as might be expected, is concerned with “explaining”the point at issue for a late twentieth-century audience, enunciating as hedoes so, Mary’s role as demonstrative of the positiveness of human nature.Mary’s immaculate conception is first treated in the context of her elec-tion within the mind of God, then as her manifestation as the fulfillmentof God’s chosen people, Israel, and, finally, as her physical conception byher parents “without sin”, that is, in full union with God’s will, not sin-fully estranged or separated from God (Macquarrie rejects any notion ofsin as “stain”). The treatment of the assumption follows somewhat similarlines: As the Church, Mary is “taken up” by the divine, body and soul intoheavenly glory.The chapter on Mary as Mediatrix will be of most interest to Protes-tants, particularly to Lutherans, dealing as it does with the vexed questionBook Reviews 157of nature and grace. Mary represents the human element in the Incarna-tion and, thus, the “natural” assent to grace. Does not a strong Mariantheology, then, result in Pelagianism? Macquarrie thinks not (He supportshis teaching in the final chapter “Mary and Modernity” by a fascinatingcommentary on Goethe’s Gretchen). He notes Sander’s emphasis on the im-portance of grace in the Judaism of the pre- and post-Christian eras, and, ingood Via Media style, upholds a position on the nature-grace relationshipclose to that which McSorley in his Luther: Right or Wrong? suggestedas Luther’s, that is, that the Christian tradition has upheld, from the NewTestament era to our own, a doctrine of human salvation as “resulting”fully from both God’s grace and human free will. But whether the conclu-sions of a Roman Catholic Luther scholar and a Canon of Christ ChurchCathedral, Oxford, can be made to fit a pure Protestant teaching remainsan open question, a question which may perhaps only be answered aftersuch Protestant piety risks its own nature by using the excellent liturgicalmodels for ecumenical Marian devotions printed as the second part of theMacquarrie book.Peter C. ErbWilfrid Laurier UniversityWaterloo, OntarioThe Achievement of John Henry NewmanIan KerNotre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990X + 209 pagesThe year 1990 marked the centenary of the death of John Henry New-man (b.1801) whose life and work distinguished him as first among English-speaking theologians. Entering Trinity College, Oxford as a teenager, hewas awarded a fellowship at Oriel following his graduation, was appointedVicar of the University Church of St. Mary’s, and stood from the begin-ning among the leading figures of the Oxford Movement until his eventualreception into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845.From then until his death, he lived, for the most part, as an Oratorianpriest at Birmingham continuing his theological and apologetic work. Heis perhaps best remembered today, as he was in his own time, for his anal-ysis of the nature of Christian tradition. An Essay on the Development ofChristian Doctrine (1845, 1878), his autobiography Apologia pro vita sua(1864), his treatise on education, the Idea of a University (1873), and hisphilosophical study of faith and reason, the Grammar of Assent (1871).Newman’s writing, as Ker points out at several places, was “occasional”,and because of this it is difficult for the beginner to gain a sense of theauthor’s work and thought as a whole. Ker’s volume serves as a good

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