Marking the season of Advent, Mark Shea and Simcha Fisher take apart "Mary, Did You Know?" It's about time. One thing I wish Shea and Fisher would've mentioned: effectively bad Marian theology leads to Nestorianism, a heretical splitting of Jesus' human and divine natures. This amounts to a sloppy gnosticism wherein the divine exists alongside yet apart and thus unsullied by the human. No. "We believe in One Lord, Jesus Christ..." (And a good ecclesiology student would continue here: that same one Lord founded _one_ church...) Our salvation doesn't work with Nestorianism.
Another approach: "Mary, Did you know?" captures one of Thomas Day's criticisms in his (now two decade old) seminal study Why Catholics Can't Sing: contemporary Catholic music presumes a divine perspective wherein the singer (cantor, choir leader, or congregation) conveys a perspective only God would know. Of course, though, there's no way--apart from revelation in Scripture--for us to know anything like that. Thus Day's point: apart from the aesthetics (which Day hammers), contemporary Catholic worship music is bad theology. Mark Shea, having once been an Evangelical, knows the broader point: contemporary Christian music makes bad theology. Thus his point. They're both right.
Want to hear/appreciate the fuel for this fire: Go here (sung by a popular singer, too!) but do not blame me. Do not let this meme happen to you.
H/T Catholic Memes on Reddit
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