R. Lucas Stamps is a professor of Christian theology at Anderson University in Anderson, S.C. He is also a founder and director of the Center for Baptist Renewal. He offers here a needed and balanced view of Mary from the Protestant perspective. Many Protestants unfortunately ignore Mary, afraid that any acknowledgment of her beyond the Scriptural affirmation that she was the mother of Jesus, is tantamount to an unhealthy perspective.

“Misplaced veneration by Catholics should not stop Protestants from holding the mother of the Lord in high esteem . . . Mary’s character is upright and pure, which is a consequent of the grace given to her . . . In his book, The Mother of Jesus: Her Problems and Her Glory, Robertson does not treat Mary as immaculately conceived or sinless; neither does he suggest any veneration of Mary or any prayers offered to her. Still, he speaks of Mary in reverent and even superlative ways. She is “the woman of destiny” who fulfills “the hopes of her people through the long years.” She receives a “hymn of praise” from her cousin Elizabeth. She is the “chief mother of the race” who “measures up to her high dignity” as the mother of the Lord . . . When Protestants speak about Mary, it is almost exclusively in polemical terms, rejecting Roman Catholic accretions. But Robertson’s work offers something more positive. As such, it provides an important example of how Protestants today might think more constructively and reverently about Mary’s role in God’s plan.“