I’m the first to admit that I understand very little about Christianity, but one of the biggest puzzles that I wrestle with is the difference between the extreme attention paid to every moment of the bloody mess that ended Jesus’ life, and the almost complete inattention paid to the bloody mess that started his life.
In other words, why isn’t there a labor story for the world’s most famous teen mom, Mary? The poor woman pushed our Savior out in the crudest possible situation, in a time where death from childbirth was a regular occurrence. She was attended by a man whose only experience with mammalian childbirth was spring lambing. No one else accompanied her during her labor, and she was probably scared and in pain for hours.
Even so, her ordeal is a mere footnote in the magical story of Jesus’ birth. Unlike Jesus, who basically asked to be executed, Mary didn’t solicit the pain of bringing him into the world. God knocked her up without consultation or consent.
Every year millions of Catholics engage in a prayer ritual focused on every step Jesus took from the moment he was condemned to death to his consignment to a tomb. Yet the stations of Mary’s labor are lost to antiquity. Even nativity scenes, which are frank enough to show the act of defecation, portray her as a happy, radiant non-entity rather than the sweaty, exhausted mess she must have been at that point in her life.
This is all to say that, when I raise a glass later today, I’m going to toast Mary. She did it the hard way.
Here’s an open thread.
kindness
Merry Christmas all. Hope your day is sweet.
Betty
Perhaps Mary’s story is downplayed because the church is a male-dominated, paternalistic organization?
Sebastian Dangerfield
It’s very simple: Christianity — which at its outset looked to be a nice twist on fertility rites (the regenerative god business) — was turned by the early church fathers into a bizarre death cult, hence centuries of Western art devoted to the mortification (often gruesome) of the flesh, be it that of Jesus himself or of various martyred saints.
Brian R.
Clearly. Might have been polite to simply leave it at that.
Scott P.
Can’t speak for every sect, but in Catholicism the general understanding of the birth of Christ is that the labor was easy and completely without pain. It is the Son of God after all. In fact, the birth did not even break her hymen.
http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/virginityinpartu.htm
arguingwithsignposts
who was Jesus’ father again?
toujoursdan
Mary’s consent:
Love the politics on BJ, but whenever this blog strays into religious doctrine or praxis it’s always a trainwreck.
drkrick
Probably because the point of the biblical narrative is to tell the reader things about God, not invent the ABC After School special 1900 years early. The authors pretty much took it for granted that the reader would know what was involved there.
It’s interesting that the most fervent atheists and the most fervent fundamentalists tend to make the same mistake of expecting historical accuracy at some sort of exact level from scripture when that is a complete misreading of the purpose of the text.
burnspbesq
@Sebastian Dangerfield:
Yes, it is: you’re every bit as ignorant about Christianity as mistermix, but you’re unwilling to admit it.
Merry Christmas to you.
4jkb4ia
There may be a good theological reason for that. Rachel is buried on the road to Bethlehem, and her labor was difficult, and she died. The Temple in Jerusalem is partly in Judah’s territory and partly in Benjamin’s. So not emphasizing the labor part is the triumph of the Judah part (the seed of David) over the Benjamin part (trouble and suffering). The trouble and suffering that Jesus takes on later is more marked because it isn’t linked to his mother’s trouble and suffering in giving birth to him.
I think I missed tipoff, but that’s OK.
Svensker
@toujoursdan:
Your words to God’s ears.
You don’t understand it, MM. That’s fine. Leave it alone.
Merry Christmas everyone! And Happy Holidays!
Gex
I never understood why we live in a rape culture. But now I realize that the main ethical force in our society started with a rape. That is widely celebrated.
magurakurin
@Brian R.: yeah I sort agree with that advice as well. I’m a recovering Catholic, but it seems to me Mary is more or less Number 2, right after Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit (who are three but really only one, but actually three even though they are only one). In fact, in Latin America she might actually be higher in terms of popular worshipers. I mean, Mary being Jesus’s mother is, as Joe B. would say, a big fucking deal. If anybody sort of gets the short end, I’d say that’d be Joseph. I mean he didn’t even knock Mary up but he put up with a raft of shit and stepped up to be her husband and take care of Jesus. He’s got his place up there among the Saints, for sure, but you usually only hear him mentioned when someone hits the thumb with a hammer and yells, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!!”
Kind of like after a death, this post is a bit too soon. I mean it’s Christmas morning for “christ’s sake.” No real need to start slagging on the church this particular morning. At least not until everyone at least has had a few beers…
Napoleon
@drkrick:
Very well put.
geg6
Easy peasy answer to this, mm.
The Catholic Church, the authors of this particular myth, is a deathh cult that thinks less of women than they do of animals. Why should they give a shit about an ordeal only lowly women, even Mary was but a lowly woman, endure. Hell, they barely gloss over the fact that the poor woman not only gave birth in horrid circumstances but had to witness that child’s eventual torture and slow agonizing death, too. Even the praise they do give Mary is simply because she wasn’t a dirty slut like every other woman ever born. Sick fuckers.
srv
Mary gets lots of attention in the Catholic Church.
Attend any Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Spanish Mass and it is way bigger than Easter or Xmas. My mom said this years celebration had a dozen flower arrangements sponsored by families and they had to cost several hundred each. This is in rural TX where the natives don’t have a lot of dough.
BO_Bill
Jesus did not ask to be executed. Instead, the Jews killed him in a most horrific way.
Just saying.
Crusty Dem
@Brian R.:
Yeah, I grew up catholic (very much lapsed, thank you) and this post is so full of wrong I couldn’t parse the whole fucking thing if it was written by McArglebargle and I was TL.
stormhit
@geg6:
Yes, fundamentalist Christians are always going on about how Catholic veneration of Mary is idolatry because Catholics hate her and women.
magurakurin
@BO_Bill: He kind of didn’t really want to do it, did he? I mean that whole 40 days in the desert thing with Satan taunting him and all was more or less him coming to grips with his fate. The Last Temptation of Christ really puts a fascinating spin on that whole questions. That is a really an overlooked film in my opinion and well worth viewing.
MariedeGournay
@drkrick: Exactly. The gospels were written by different authors to spread the teachings, sayings, and passion narrative to different audiences. The further in time you get from the ‘events’ the more embellished the tales become. However the focus on the birth of the Christ over his resurrection really doesn’t happen until the church is actually the Church. We care far more for the ‘holy family’ than the Jesus of the gospels, as one his radical pronouncements was for us to abandon our families for the larger family of the kingdom.
James in NJ
There are many reasons for Mary’s relative unimportance in American Christianity, but by and large it comes out of a whole set of issues surrounding the Protestant Reformation: chiefly a rejection of saint worship in general and an “ad fontes” approach to theology.
That said, asking Roman Catholics “Why isn’t Mary more important to you guys?” is like asking Bulls fans “Why isn’t Jordan more important to you guys?”. The only proper response to either question is “Huh?”
ChristianPinko
Your overall point is actually pretty good, mistermix. But as toujoursdan points out, Mary did actually consent to giving birth.
Villago Delenda Est
Merry Christmas to all.
I’m afraid the story of Jesus’ birth is, like Zeus masquerading as a swan to seduce women, just more mythology. Which is why all the gritty details are ignored, to include whatever Mary went through. Just not relevant to the fairy tale being told.
fromOberlin
Hi All,
Lots of people wondered about this in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Mary’s labor was pain-free because it was opposed to Eve’s painful labor, which was God’s punishment for her fall: Genesis 3, verse 16: “To the woman also he said: I will multiply thy sorrows, and thy conceptions: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.” Since Mary helped undo the effect of Eve’s sin, it was only fitting that she gave birth without pain. One of the ways the medieval church answered concerns and doubts was to have them voiced by skeptics added to the story (Doubting Thomas is the best example of this). At the link below you can see Robert Campin’s Nativity, painted in the 1420s. It includes two midwives at the birth, come to assist Mary. One midwife doubted Mary’s virginity, and decided to check manually; the penalty for her lack of faith was a withered right hand, shown dangling and lifeless.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Campin_-_The_Nativity_-_WGA14426.jpg
jeffreyw
This thread really sucks. Here is a puppy.
vtr
See the Society of Mary at somamerica.com
Villago Delenda Est
@BO_Bill:
Actually, he was executed by the Romans.
SOME of the Jews (mostly your masters of the top 1% of the time, miserable serf) just egged them on.
Amanda in the South Bay
1. I think Mary’s perpetual virginity sorta covers the “why she didn’t experience a normal childbirth” part.
2. There’s obviously a shitload of deovtion, feasts, dogma, etc centered around the BVM, that she’s in no danger of being ignored. I mean, just recently you had this:
http://02varvara.wordpress.com/tag/belt-of-the-holy-mother-of-god/
So yeah, lots of (Catholics and Orthodox at least) luv em some Mary.
srv
Peggy Noonan explains that the hangup is probably because y’all are rich people who hate diversity.
MariedeGournay
@Gex: Don’t be clever. Unexpected and divinely influenced births are a common trope in the ancient world. The Greek stories are more rape like. However the Hebrew stories follow the pattern established since Abraham and Sarah: children of the promise. The come unexpected to the young, old, barren and virgin. The special child is always the least expected child.
magurakurin
@James in NJ:
this. The post really is pretty ignorant and silly. I’m not a member of the flock, but this post as stated above is really just filled with wrong.
Patrick
The Irish have a story of the birth involving Saint Bridget.
The whole, “Christmas Story” was added in centuries after Paul wrote Acts. In is generally acknowledged that Mark originally started with chapter/verse 23 and everything in there now was added later, much later.
There was no Bethlehem in Israel until the 5th century and that was only because a town in the right general area changed its name to attract pilgrims.
It is possible, as Mary becomes more important to Catholics, that the birth story will be embellished and become more important. Something to watch in the years ahead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James in NJ:
I don’t know about Jordan, but if you fielded an entire team of Blessed Mother Marys, against an entire team of Ditkas, on a snowy Christams afternoon, who would win? The Ditkas can have Tebow, and the Blessed Virgins get Aaron Rodgers. Discuss.
See also, the number Notre Dame de cathedrals, Frauenkirche, Damenkirche,, Santa Marias, etc etc etc
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
This is unlikely to end well.
/stating the obvious
Happy holiday season, of whatever variety is appropriate.
A Humble Lurker
@toujoursdan:
To be honest though, if God came to you in a vision and asked something of you, wouldn’t you be tempted to say yes no matter what it was for fear of smiting? Just sayin’.
Emma
@toujoursdan: Exactly.
Odie Hugh Manatee
The whole baby Jeebus thing never hit me as anything significant. I had it drilled into me from my youngest days and yet it never took hold, I never believed. Frankly, I never really cared a bit about it. I saw too much hypocrisy amongst the parishioners, enough to know that if they believed then they didn’t give a shit anyway.
But I did like the holidays as it meant NO SCHOOL!! :)
@Brian R.:
God botherers love to stick their religion in the face of every person they can and yet they want people to shut up about it unless it’s to agree with them. That or convert.
You want people to stop commenting on it? Then stop shoving it in their faces, keep it to yourselves.
Emma
@Gex: Jesus Christ. No. It did not you ignoramus. Mary AGREES to it, as quoted upthread.
Look, I’m about as lapsed a Christian as you’re likely to get, but some of you are the asshole atheist flavor. There are a great many, many, many things to criticize about the way churches, especially the Catholic church, has behaved over the centuries. But practicing your snark on the central story only makes you…well… never mind. What you already are.
AND, at least in the Catholic church, there’s a massive celebration of Mary: it’s called the Rosary.
Schlemizel
@BO_Bill:
Ah, Brick head Bill, wish I could say we missed you – or rather that we were still missing you.
Your fractured misunderstanding of history shines through again. Having read the entire Bible through on 2 separate occasions I can assure you the guys slinging the whips, driving the nails & spearing the side were not Jews, not one, not close, not even a little. But thanks for keeping the Christ Killers mythology alive when it is getting so close to finally passing into hates history.
BTW – if you really understand the story Christs death was a suicide not a murder. He was born only for this death, he (in the tri-part of his dad) needed this death and it was not to be avoided.
Keith G
Darn you MM. Your statement about the virgin birth has the facts all wrong.
What?
Linda Featheringill
@BO_Bill:
Actually, it was the goddamned Italians that killed Jesus. They also crucified approximately 100,000 other people during their rein.
And don’t tell me that Italians are not responsible for what the Romans did. People who say that are usually in the front row cheering for making today’s Jews pay for what their ancestors may have done.
The occupying army ruled with an iron hand. They weren’t forced to do anything.
Genine
Happy Holidays! Peace, love and goodwill to all!
jon
Feh. I’m going to go have Chinese food with the rest of the tribe. You can have your silly idolatrous and pagan sacrifice on the altar of consumer capitalism.
lonesomerobot
this post assumes that Jesus actually existed and wasn’t just a replacement icon for already existing pagan myths.
Nikki
Now that’s some male feminism, right there! Merry ‘effing Xmas!
jon
@Schlemizel:
Why do these dirty hippies always try to take credit away from us? Yes, we killed your stupid false messiah. As if whatever it says in their lying Notsrim text is proof of anything.
jon
@Linda Featheringill: Who cares who “actually” did it. If it was us, good for us. If it was the Romans, good for them.
Schlemizel
Ya know, this calm, rational discussion of religious minutia makes me hope we can have a gun thread next.
wrb
In my memory of a few years of Methodist sunday school, the whole birth/ shepherds/manger deal is bigger that the death drama.
In The Beginning of the Modern World Thomas Cahill argues for it being the Mary cult that changed everything.
He was fairly persuasive. He’s at least partially right imo.
jon
@Emma: As a Jew, when I read posts like this I don’t really see them as “atheists” no matter what they self-style. I read them as people who are bitter at their upbringing and are just trying to cleanse themselves of it.
Anyway, arguments for or against the positive or negative historical effects or actions of the religious are not theological arguments for or against the existence of God. They are assertions about religion. Saying that the followers of a religion are assholes so God doesn’t exist means you have to say the followers of a religion are good so he does. And with very little dilution, this gets you to, Tim Tebow prays and scored a touchdown so Touchdown Jeebus exists.
wrb
@Schlemizel:
Jesus would have survived if he and the apostles were packing
jon
@wrb: The Mary Cult was more important in the areas that came under Muslim domination until it emerged with more effect in the west, but I’m not sure I’m fully in on it being decisive in changing everything. The dejudaization of the religion by Paul was probably the most critical. Gentiles wanted to eat pork and not cut their schlangs.
Waterballoon
The Catholic Church I grew up in was very Mary-centric, especially for Italians. In fact, the evangelicals I know don’t consider Catholics Christian because of the Hail-Mary prayer.
SiubhanDuinne
The ad on my screen says:
EARN A BIBLE DEGREE. Study the Bible online. Earn a degree today.
Those ad-algorithm people are so.darned.clever.
srv
Here’s some Mariology for you Mistermix.
Ever want to make a $100 off an insufferable Catholic or ignorant Xtian? Bet them that the Immaculate Conception and Virgin Birth of Jesus are two completely separate things.
SiubhanDuinne
@wrb:
This is so wrong, but made me LOL.
Keith G
@jon: Yeah, I never understood why Christians got caught up in the blame game. Dude was trying to fulfill prophecy. He had to take one for the team to not be a fraud. Judas Iscariot did Joel Osteen et al one big fucking favor.
Schlemizel
@jon:
Actually, as a Pastafarian (in large part because I did actually read that book) I take it as an astounding collection of herder myths. But, to those who follow the faiths it inspired it has varying degrees of veracity. I only ask that those who purport to believe in its story at any level take what it says for at least as true as their faith expects.
But I have to say I admire the swagger with which you step up to take credit. Considering the millions of deaths and untold suffering the Christ Killers myth engendered that has to be significant.
DCinME
For one of the best if not the best take downs of the idiocy inherent in Christianity watch The Man From Earth. Rips the whole basis and practice of Christianity to shreds in a thorough way.
Schlemizel
@wrb:
May you be blessed by His noodly appendage for that!
But we are still missing a giant GFY!
SIA
@jeffreyw: Is that a real puppy? Teh cuteness is so overpowering I truly can’t tell.
Was just about to quit this thread – glad I stayed for da puppeh!
Yutsano
@Linda Featheringill: Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution. The Israelites stoned them. And not in the good way. There is a theory the Bible was changed to appeal more to Roman audiences.
Linda
Actually, the Catholic church gives more props to Mary than many other branches of Christianity. Mary is a venerated figure, and while her pain in childbirth is downplayed, her role in making the Word flesh is treated as important, and her role as an intercessor to God is solid.
The cult of Mary was important in converting non-Christians in the early church, in that they had to come up with a framework for Christianity that was meaningful to Europeans who believed in godesses as well as gods. By the time Christians tried to convert non-Christians in Asia and Africa, they didn’t bother to do this, considering it too “pagan.” Sometimes, framing things in “paganism” is just part of accepting primal human needs.
Oh, and the reason the crucifixion is given more press than the birth is obvious: we were redeemed by Christ’s death, according to Christian theology. Without the death and resurrection, Christmas would just be the birth of a nice guy.
BO_Bill
Mark 14-15
Quote: And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?
And they cried out again, Crucify him.
Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.
UnQuote.
Trentrunner
@Amanda in the South Bay: So: Either Baby Jesus had a head like a ping-pong ball or Mary had a birth canal like a laundry chute. Which is it?
Linda
I’m an agnostic, and dumped the Catholic church ages ago. But this thread is depressing. There is a lot of rage against religion, some of it well-informed and some not.
And this is how conservative culture warriors get purchase in the hearts of people they are economically screwing over. They may be screwed over, but at least their screwers are not spitting in their face about their most cherished beliefs, and calling them stupid. Just saying.
eemom
This is an utterly assholic post — regardless of one’s views about religion, mythology, childbirth, or, like, anything.
Merry Christmas, jerk.
Schlemizel
@BO_Bill:
Yes, and the Romans always did everything the Jews asked.
Which still misses the fact that it couldn’t have ended any other way. As a thought experiment (sorry to exclude you Brick Head, maybe in your next incarnation higher reason will be gifted to you) Create a world in which The Christ is not sacrificed. What does that world look like? What happens to Jesus of Nazareth? Realize that Paul is no longer necessary and Peter would not be ‘the rock’.
Angela
@4jkb4ia: Wow. Thanks for that!
mistermix
To address a couple of points:
* Mary may have been reported to consent but she didn’t go looking to be Jesus’ mom.
* I’m more than well aware that Mary plays an important part in Catholic theology (I was raised by a Mexican Catholic). So the characterization of the post as “why isn’t Mary more important to you guys” isn’t what I was getting at — it was more, “why isn’t the birth of Jesus, and the pain Mary endured, more well documented”?
* @Scott P.: This link about Mary’s painless delivery is a conclusion drawn from the biblical verses with a lot of reasoning, not documented in those verses.
* Why is there such an issue with the notion that Jesus was a willing martyr? He suffered and died for our sins, and he was the son of God, so some of what he did must have been voluntary.
* @eemom: Why is it “assholic” to acknowledge that childbirth is a trauma? Isn’t it more “assholic” to pretend that it isn’t?
Merry Christmas!
Robert
If you want to get a good understanding of how the Catholics are taught about Mary’s labors, find a copy of the 2006 film The Nativity Story. We were given a hard push to go see that from our church. It actually deals with the issues you brought up in this post. If I remember correctly, some of the villagers want to stone Mary for being a whore and some of her family will no longer talk to her.
BO_Bill
This is a difficult task Schlemizel. Perhaps Jesus would have gone on to right books and extol the Natural righteousness of Talent and Virtue over those Artificial forces of Wealth and Birth, using the powers granted to him by his Father.
If he ended up being immortal we could put him in charge of Harvard University to shake that place up.
toujoursdan
Yes. It is depressing that Balloon Juice is to religion what RedState is to politics.
Anyway, were is Johann Sebastian Bach’s wonderful rendition of the Song of Mary, which according to the narrative, Mary exclaims when she finds out she’s pregnant:
Bach: Magnificat
English translation:
Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate. Happy Channukah to Jewish readers.
Villago Delenda Est
@mistermix:
One might as well ask why the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears isn’t “more well documented.”
It’s a myth. If there WERE details on it, you can bet the patriarchy reinforcing first fathers of the Church would have conveniently misplaced them somewhere.
Calouste
@wrb:
They were packing. One of the apostles pulled out his sword when the Romans came to arrest Jesus, but Jesus told him not to use it. DFH.
Scott P.
I guess it depends on definitions of “the early church”, but the focus on Mary in Christianity is much later, developing in the later Middle Ages (12th century and later). Mary is rarely depicted in art until the 6th century, long after what scholars would call the ‘early church’.
toujoursdan
The orthodox (small “o”) (non-fundamentalist) version of Christianity would say that the Gospels weren’t biographies of Mary or Jesus, but theologies of Jesus.
The goal of the Gospel writers wasn’t to document the life of Jesus like a modern biographical work would, but build a theological picture of who Jesus was. It’s the literary form of painting a picture. So they not focused on documenting details, but using narrative (viz., story telling) to paint a picture of what he was like.
BTW, most of Jesus’ own life was left out. We don’t have many details of the first 30 years of his life after the birth narrative, so it wasn’t just Mary.
This literary form doesn’t exist in modern, post Enlightenment western culture, so people aren’t aware of it and tend assume the Gospels are biographies (and critique them as such). But in a pre-modern culture where 95% of the society was illiterate and there weren’t recording devices, this was a primary means of describing how people were.
A secondary answer would be that the Gospel stories were finally written down between 60-100CE, or two to three generations after he was born and over one generation after Jesus died. Before that, they had been transmitted orally. Many details that weren’t germane to understanding who Jesus was were discarded along the way. Again, this was a culture where 95% of the population was illiterate and written language didn’t have the same value as today.
I’ll leave the patriarchal conspiracy theories to others. Given how widely dispersed the writings were and how diverse the cultures were at the time, I don’t tend to believe that one group of people could conspire to leave details out. The Roman Catholic Church didn’t get around to even listing which books were canonical scripture until the Council of Trent.
Villago Delenda Est
@Calouste:
Hmmm….was it a concealed sword? An openly carried sword would have not been as effective. Don’t ask me why. I don’t pretend to understand the theology of the gun loon.
FlipYrWhig
Does anyone know any ancient stories that DO depict childbirth as painful? I have never been any kind of Christian and it seems to me that the blind spot, assuming it exists, has zero to do with Christianity and much more to do with the ancient depiction of woman-specific experiences in general.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@wrb: The apostles were packing, one even cut of a soldiers ear, and then Jesus healed it and told the man to put the sword away.
Because Christianity is not defined by Jesus’ birth, but by his death and rebirth. He was a man – yes, he was God but still a man – and he still had the ability to choose not to go through the sacrifice of his execution. It was his choice that defines Christianity, not is birth.
Which is why the Christians upheaval over the book and movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” was so wrong and so indicative of the incorrect thinking of most Christians. It’s the very fact that he could have gotten out of the sacrifice – he was the Son of God after all – that makes the choice more profound.
Signed, Atheist
El Cruzado
As a side note early Christianity didn’t dwell too much on Jesus torture and execution, preferring to put the spotlight on the ulterior resurrection. Part of it was the awkwardness of having the wise, divine founder of your religion be killed like a common criminal using a barbaric method that didn’t get forbidden until the empire itself converted to Christianity (when it became obvious that giving criminals the same method of death that the Lord got was too good for them).
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: viz – immaculate reception.
I also note the Episcopal church snub of Mary, at the end of a set of prayers to Jesus, He is addressed as ‘our only mediator and advocate’. I am pretty sure that was no accident.
catclub
@FlipYrWhig: somebody else referred to Genesis in which pain in childbirth is given to women.
The Birth of Jacob and Esau was no picnic. I admit that the emphasis is on their birth, not their mother’s pain.
Also, since the knowledge of good and evil came in the garden, we have big brains. Hence, because of big brains and big heads, labor and delivery is painful – but via evolution.
Keith G
@toujoursdan:
I think it is likely that you are painting with too broad a brush and along with a few others (Hi eemom) are protesting a bit over-much.
I like having off handed notions thrown out for general discussion.
Nutella
mistermix, she has a Twitter account now. One entry:
Dr. Squid
Ooh, ooh ooh, I want an I/P thread!
noodler
Mary has a feast day on January first BTW. She is surely venerated in the Church, and is one of my personal favs.
FlipYrWhig
@catclub: True, pangs of childbirth are mentioned… But not _depicted_, which is what the OP was saying was lacking in the nativity story.
Amanda in the South Bay
@mistermix:
Which sounds a lot like Protestant arguements against Catholicism and Orthodoxy for not drawing all their conclusions solely from scripture. I don’t think you are aware of the role of tradition or how off balance your arguement sounds to any grounded Catholic or Orthodox christian.
Amanda in the South Bay
@catclub:
Yes, and Anglo-Catholics piss all over that :P
Gretchen
@83 catclub – I was raised Catholic, and when I couldn’t take the obsession with abortion any more, I moved over to the Episcopal church. The one thing I missed most was the verneration of Mary, who is omnipresent in Catholocism and nearly invisible in Protestanism. I’ve heard her described as “the feminine face of God”, and Catholics pray to her (supposedly just for “intervention”) as well as to God directly. The whole month of May is devoted to her, with special songs, May-altarts, ceremonies crowning her statue with flowers. Catholic brides always have a detachable part to their bouquets, and before heading up the aisle after the wedding, stop to pray at Mary’s statue and place the bouquet at her feet. Not to mention rosaries, Perpetual Help novenas, and 2 of the 6 holydays of obligation being devoted to her. That’s all gone in Protestantism, and I really missed it.
I was interested in hearing that there was a tradition that her birth-experience was painless – I’d never heard that.
eemom
@mistermix:
What is “assholic” is for someone who is not only not religious but admittedly ignorant about a particular religion, to post a self-important, and, again, ignorant screed on that religion — passing judgment from a 21st century secular perspective on its ancient traditions — on the occasion of its holiday. That’s what’s assholic.
And neither I nor any other woman needs you to remind us that childbirth is traumatic, today or any day. Also.
Mnemosyne
Like Flip said, show us any ancient story that emphasizes the pain and danger of childbirth. It’s pretty much invisible everywhere.
Though I think part of it is that we’ve basically reconstructed Christmas so it runs backwards. It used to be that the celebrations started on the 25th and ran through the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6th.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Scott P.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Encaustic_Virgin.jpg
Of course there was much earlier artwork dedicated to the Virgin, but most of it (at least in the East, which is where you’d expect to find it) was probably destroyed during the eras of Byzantine Iconoclasm. Plenty of Marian devotions/feasts/dogma came around in the 4th-6th centuries, not “Biblical early church” but still pretty freaking early. I’m afraid I don’t get this Protestant/atheist argument that if if wasn’t like in the first century its an accretion that is probably wrong?
John M. Burt
I really, really like the idea of following the station’s of Mary’s labor.
No, seriously, I like it. Picturing people (mostly but not all women, with the front seats reserved for pregnant women, women with newborns, and midwives and other birthing professionals) gathering to pray over the First Contraction, the Breaking of the Water, the Beginning of Heavy Labor, the Dilation to a Finger’s Breadth, the Dilation to a Hand’s Breadth, the Final Push, the Delivery of the Placenta, the Cutting of the Umbilicus, the First Taste of Colostrum.
Absolutely, a marvelous idea. I sincerely urge any practicing Christians who visit this site, especially Catholics and Orthodox, to give serious thought to this.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, IIRC in Catholic tradition, Mary’s childbirth was painless since she agreed to bear the Savior, so there isn’t a gory, painful story to tell. Yet another way that Mary is better than us merely mortal women.
wrb
Seems to me that the best music is about the birth.
“unto us a child is born…”
I remember lots of singing at christmas services with quite impressive music.
The church decorated all in white was impressive too.
Easter was less memorable
mistermix
@John M. Burt: You know, when I started thinking about this earlier this morning, I was thinking, yeah, I’d like to point out that about this time in Bethlehem, the bloody show was over, the membranes had ruptured, Mary was fully effaced and 10 cm dilated, Jesus was at station 0, and contractions were heavy and a few minutes apart.
But, I thought that some of the Christians wouldn’t appreciate that so instead I went easy on that. And look where it got me.
@eemom: As far as I can tell, I got one fact wrong in that post: Mary consented. The rest of the facts are right. Not too bad for a lapsed Catholic.
wrb
@FlipYrWhig:
Wouldn’t that have been considered rude?
Didn’t the girl deserve some privacy?
Should art really depict her bloody naughty bits?
wrb
@catclub:
Don’t know that it is really a snub. Just a statement of the facts as understood. The granting of an ongoing functional role to Mary was an entirely Catholic thing.
FlipYrWhig
@wrb: Mistermix seems to think that leaving it out is a diminution of sorts. But, yeah, I mean, there are a lot of important human experiences that get omitted from religious fables.
eemom
@mistermix:
Assuming that glaring ignorance of the church’s deification of Mary, which many have pointed out, doesn’t count as a “fact.”
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@eemom: More assholic than poking fun at someone’s physical traits?
C’mon, eemom. If it had been a Newt fat joke or something about Mitch McConnell’s jowls, you’d have been laughing your ass off.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@eemom: God’s lawyer, I see.
ETA: Or merely “God spox?”
eemom
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy):
Ah, so you’ve “evolved” into a full-time parrot of suzie-Q. Good progress.
Ruckus
Whatever.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@eemom: How many Hail Marys shall I say to atone, Wise One?
CynDee
@Brian R.: Have you ever given birth to a baby?
CynDee
@geg6: There was a woman on our block who had been married 11 years and had 10 children. Her husband was a rail-thin alcoholic and seldom worked. They faithfully attended mass. The young woman, about 32, looked 55 and was very thin and tired and cried every day. Her children were always dirty and half-dressed, poorly fed, and the school age ones, some sad and shy, and some sad and wild, had learning difficulties. My parents, aspirants to joining the middle class, did what they could for this family. The woman told my mother that she would repeatedly ask her priest to approve for her to use birth control so she could take better care of the children she had, and his answer was always “Pray for grace.” The bishop in our medium-sized town lived in a grand mansion on the most affluent and outwardly beautiful boulevard in town. His elaborate Christmas decorations were legendary and every year the whole town turned out to see the glorious sight. When I left home to go to college this sad and wasted woman died in her 40s, faithful to the virgin and her church. I don’t know what happened to her husband or the children.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@eemom: Just when I see your sorry fucking ass pipe up about anything. Otherwise, not really. Mary (sic) Christmas, asshole.
CynDee
@fromOberlin: Talk about sickening myth.
Schlemizel
@Gretchen:
Thats not entirely surprising. If one is going to start a new religion you really need to counter things in the old one or whats the point?
There was a huge fight between the followers of Jesus (direct descendants of those who walked with him) and Paul. He eventually met with them & while there is no record of what happened the obvious outcome is Pauls version was spread in Greece and Rome. A lot of that was not based on teaching but on rejection of the practices and religions of the day in those places.
Tuffy
Great post. Christianity is putrid garbage (in additional to being obviously completely made up), which serves to make it a malleable tool for its patriarchal, misogynist leaders.
CynDee
@Schlemizel: Wow, how uplifting.
Everyone should pay for their own “sins” — harmful actions that affect others. That’s the way to prevent destructive behavior. In the vernacular: no bailouts of the guilty.
mistermix
@eemom: There are no fewer than a dozen different portrayals of Mary (more specifically, Our Lady of Guadalupe who is said to have given roses to Juan Diego as a sign to build a church) in the house where I grew up, so I’m well aware that Mary is deified by Catholics.
But the point of my post, which you seem to willfully ignore in your crusade to point out what an asshole I am, was that the details of the birth of Jesus are not discussed in the same depth as the details of the death of Jesus. And that those details were undoubtedly unpleasant, given the time in which Jesus was born.
Those are simple facts, aren’t they?
Jane2
@drkrick: Amen.
Schlemizel
@Schlemizel:
Whats sad to me is to think about what Christianity could be. We know that the 4 Gospels were not written contemporaneously or even within the lifetimes of the purported authors. A couple appear to used the same source material but even that is not thought to have been written until well after the fact. Then, hundreds of years later many other books have appeared (some written in the same periods as the big 4 some written later) and the church is faced with a problem about what is true & what is not. There are good arguments for including some of the excluded but none of the stories included or excluded can be assumed to be accurate representations of the people they appear to be.
How different would a church be if it included the Gospel of Mary or of Judas or of Thomas(all rejected by the church 1600 years ago)? These were choices made by men, living in a dark and brutal time, not by God.
wrb
@mistermix:
as is proper. Are we so coarsened the this isn’t obvious? The birth should have been on reality tv?
manners, carriage, civilities, comportment, courtesy, culture, decorum, demeanor, deportment, dignity, elegance, etiquette, good breeding, good form, mien, mores, p’s and q’s, polish, politeness, politesse, propriety, protocol, refinement, social graces, sophistication, taste,
character, courtliness, culture, decency, decorum, elevation, eminence, ethics, etiquette, grace, gravity, greatness, hauteur, honor, merit, morality, nobleness, perfection, poise, propriety, quality, regard, seemliness, self-respect, solemnity, stateliness, sublimity, virtue, , cleanness, continence, decency, demureness, devotion, honor, immaculacy, innocence, integrity, modesty, restraint, , temperance, uprightness, virginity, virtue
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@wrb:
Santa left somebody a pocket thesaurus in their stocking!
Mnemosyne
I think Karen Horney has the answer you seek.
Arundel
If anyone got the short end of the Christmas stick, it was Joseph. Mary’s anguish over Christ’s fate is well covered in the lore, but nothing of how Joseph felt. Think of it: what a thankless role! No one asked him how he felt, to raise and support Christ and protect Mary and the child, a mere foster parent in the greater story.Not even his own son, but Joseph sacrificed a lot. There’s a nice Elton song about this interesting theme, with lyrics by Neil Tennant, “Joseph (Better You Than Me)” about how that must’ve suuucked.
Glad many people have noted that Mary is indeed venerated in Catholicism, she’s quite up there, a nicely sublimated bit of feminine principle/pagan goddess worhip, kind of wonderful. I’m agnostic and far-lapsed, but once asked my Episcopalian boyfriend, “So, you guys don’t pray to Mary?” and he quipped, “Nope. We go straight to the top.”
:)
Sarchasm
HA HA…..loved it!
Can’t understand why people get so upset. It’s just religion. She’s not your mother.
Mustang Bobby
Were it not for the fact that millions of people have been killed and subjugated in the name of Jesus and his religion, this whole argument about birth, death, and so forth would all have an amusing battle-of-the-nerds “Star Wars” vs. “Star Trek” flavor to it.
Frodo gave his finger for you. Gandalf said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
ursine
Perfect BJ thread: equal parts information, invective and snark. Enjoy the season and Happy New Year.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Long-ago-lapsed Catholic here, too… Yes, yes, yes, the church has committed many great wrongs. (Much atrocity is committed in the name of all sorts of religions, of course.) Curious to me though how some people feel absolutely free to spew all sorts of bile on Catholicism in general, forgetting (it seems all to clear) that some of its followers are perfectly gentle and loving individuals. Maybe I’m being too sensitive here, but it seems sort of like if I spewed all sorts of hate-filled invectives upon Germans; after all, look at all the murderous harm Germans committed during WWII.
Nonetheless, merry Christmas to all; happy Festivus; merry hatching of the Flying Spaghetti Monster… fill in the blank.
4jkb4ia
@Angela:
Uh, I don’t deserve that, the Christians who commented on the easy labor really knew something. I should clarify that the labor that Mary went through is part of being human, so the choice to undertake suffering was meant to stand out as part of the divine nature. I suppose so. I don’t know. I know I commented here that the New Testament edited by Jewish scholars made me drool, but it’s the New Testament. My husband won’t let that in the house under any auspices.
I admire jon’s chutzpah. Would not have written any of it myself…
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): What’s curious to me is that those Catholics who aren’t perfectly gentle and loving, with the support and blessing of the Catholic Church, can work tirelessly to keep women in their place as breeding chattel, yet if someone else points out that the church has a big problem with women that person is just being a meany head.
Who cares what the church thinks and does, right? Other than those whose lives have been ruined and destroyed by getting raped as a child or being forced to give birth to their rapist’s child. (These are generally separate groups, of course, but it’s sure funny how so much of the Catholic Church’s victimization of the innocent revolves around rape, eh?)
No, we must pretend that shit doesn’t happen. Facing stark reality is rude on this most fantastical day. We must make believe that it’s not deeply misogynistic for Mary to have a painless childbirth that leaves her hymen intact, basically negating the reality that real women face during childbirth. I suppose, though, that when seeking a religious justification for forcing a nine-year-old to give birth to her father’s baby, it’s nice to think that childbirth can be painless and trauma free. Just toss that little slut into a barn and let the magic of Christ loose!
Oh, but we’re all the good sort of Christian here. Nobody likes that stuff, but golly. We gotta go along to get along so we don’t end up burning in hell like you rude old atheists will. Yup, we believe that you will be tortured for all eternity and you’ll deserve it, but don’t go doing anything nasty like mentioning that.
Yeah, Merry fucking Christmas.
toujoursdan
@Keith G:
I don’t think I’m painting it with too broad a brush at all.
Most religion-based threads on BJ are full of poorly researched, strawman based screeds. They aren’t offensive as much as tedious, more titillating than substantive, boring and seem to provide no more than a forum for people who brainlessly repeat what they read in a Hitchens book and spin “DiVinci Code” based conspiracy theories.
In this case, Jesus’ birth narrative can be found on any online Bible and takes possibly 10 minutes to read, but instead of doing the OP just wallows in ignorance (combined with a dose of smugness) by making a series of easily disprovable assertions.
As I said, on this topic it’s no different than RedState.
Liberty60
@Linda:
This is my take on it; That old line about how some people would be happy to lilve under a bridge surviving on a pidgeon they roast over a trash can fire as long as the black guy the next bridge over didn’t even get the sparrow also has another meaning;
religious Americans WOULD rather cling to a party that shows their belief system respect regardless of whether it was in their economic interest or not.
Ian
@jon:
For those of us in Denver, touchdown jeebus has to exist. Otherwise we have to go to playoff purgatory.
Lysana
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): Speaking as a lapsed-Catholic-turned-pagan (non-Wiccan, just to be clear), I think some of the anti-Catholic invective is leftover anti-papism of the stuff that encouraged hatred of the Irish and Italians back in the 19th century and also taints some attitudes toward the French. It’s merely encouraged by the Mother Church’s attitude toward the pedophiles and rapists in its priesthood. We are not so far removed from the children of my grandmother’s day who beat her up (or tried to) because she was Irish.
To add to the iconoclasm, I had the most brutal thought that a myth could arise of pork being made sacred because the pigs in the stable ate the afterbirth. And yes, I know, why would there be pigs? The area wasn’t 100% Jewish-owned-and-operated. Romans liked their pork.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Oh-oh, Baron’s got his angry britches in a bunch… tee-hee!
Lihtox
A prayer ritual based on Mary’s labor is an interesting idea, and it would be nice to see a more accurate portrayal of Mary and Jesus post-birth. The importance of the Incarnation to Christians is that God became flesh, and shared in all of the pain and joy and dirt and labor that humans do. It’s fun and also powerful to imagine four-year-old Jesus running around doing four-year-old things. (As long as you ignore the Infancy Gospel of Thomas which portrays a very nasty little boy; ugh.)
As to why the Gospels don’t mention the labor in more detail? It is well known that childbirth is painful; Gospel readers would not need to be told the details to understand that laboring and birthing a baby in a stable was an unpleasant experience. I imagine that Mary had probably witnessed other women’s labor in the past, and was not caught completely unprepared. And it is entirely possible that she did have a midwife; none was mentioned in the Gospel but it might have been taken as obvious. Mary and Joseph were not in the middle of nowhere; they were in a sizable town, large enough to have several inns at least. Surely it would have been commented on (as part of the hard-luck story of Jesus’ birth) if *no* woman could be found to assist in the birth. (I’m assuming that having a midwife attend the birth was standard practice then; I have no idea.)
Schlemizel
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
YOU INSENSITIVE PRICK!
Pastafarians celebrate Holiday at this time of year, NOT hatching!!! Further we do not believe FSM was “hatched” I am sick and tired of all the anti-Pastifarian rhetoric here!
Hey! this is fun, maybe I’m going to abandon my “first take no offense” policy and go with injured outrage first.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): If it makes you feel better, I hope that you and yours aren’t tormented in the fiery flames for the rest of eternity. I hope nobody suffers that fate.
My belief, if the Bible is to be followed, means that eternal suffering is what I have coming as my just reward. But I’m the hateful one.
@Lihtox: It’s also well known that nailing someone to a slab of wood and leaving them outside for several days is painfully fatal. That hasn’t stopped hardcore Catholics from obsessing over every torturous detail of Christ’s execution.
Of course, since Catholic dogma is that Christ’s birth was easy and painless for Mary, there’s not much drama in that particular event. It’s also fair to point out that all the other details of Christ’s birth are obsessed over and reenacted in nativity scenes.
It’s interesting and worth pointing out that even though Christ’s story focuses on his birth and his death while ignoring most of his life, the pain and trauma of his birth is minimized and nearly eliminated, while the pain and trauma of his death is exaggerated. It’s fair to wonder why that might be.
Mnemosyne
Well, if you want to piss off a fundie sometime, remind them that there actually is no Hell in the Bible. The only threat in the New Testament is that non-believers will not have any kind of afterlife — you’ll just die and be permanently dead. All of the Hell stuff is apocryphal.
Also, I think womb envy by men is the most likely explanation for the downplaying of Mary’s role, but apparently guys don’t want to talk about it.
catclub
@wrb: “Seems to me that the best music is about the birth.”
Nope, just the best known, and the most likely to be played on the radio and TV.
There is a gigantic amount of church music. I would pick Bach’s St Matthew Passion as the greatest Christian music.
Others might go for the Hallulujah chorus, which may be played at Christmas, but is of course about Easter.
The Mozart Requiem and Bach’s B-minor Mass are other choices. The Creation, a whole heckuva lot of renaissance music. Who have I left out?
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know about hell not being mentioned as a place of torment. The NT mentions fiery furnaces and lakes of fire as places where unsaved souls go, though those are things that would normally destroy anything tossed inside. I think the interpretation of damnation as an eternal, conscious punishment is better supported by the Bible, but there’s certainly room for other interpretations.
As for Mary, call it womb envy or call it misogyny, either way it comes back to hatred of women. That catholics put Mary on a pedestal as the perfect woman who was born perfect to give perfect, painless birth to God himself hardly negates that. The perfect woman is one who stays eternally a virgin while still giving birth, and who doesn’t complain when some stranger wants to impregnate her. Yuck. We may as well venerate the Stepford Wives if we’re gonna be that creepy.
Mnemosyne
And that’s the implication in the original text — the souls that are thrown in are destroyed by the fire. It was only much later that the Church decided that dying wasn’t enough of a threat to keep people in line, so they blew it up into an eternal punishment that was not originally implied.
dyz
@ChristianPinko: My mother told me that Jesus did not like the orange laces she wore with her blue shoes… I was ten at the time and I believed her utterly. Twenty years later she told me that I appeared to her in a fantasy — as a beautiful version of myself — and I died by being stabbed through the throat by an alien.
Do you want to write a book about my mom? She’s dead now, but I have info to share. What I can remember, that is.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Mnemosyne: It was Matthew 25:46 which talks about eternal punishment, and from what I’ve just read its a mistranslation. So you’re absolutely right.
Thanks for the food for thought.
You know, a Christianity which invites people to join them in eternal life, rather than threatening eternal punishment, would be a much less skeevy Christianity. Thanks again, Catholic Church, for making Christianity into a hideous parody of its original intentions.
suzanne
@eemom:
Ooooh, another thread that you whine about me being mean to you (or something) when I wasn’t even in the conversation! I’m touched. It’s EXACTLY what I wanted for Christmas.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Original intentions? Geez, how Protestant-the church was so pure and wholesome when hippy Jesus walked the earth, then it became horribly decadent and corrupt when evil bishops and emperors did their thing and all that jazz.
You guys are one step away from Da Vinci Code logic, is what is hilarious.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Amanda in the South Bay: Boy, that’s a pretty stupid belief that you made up then pretended I hold that’s not based on anything I actually said. I think the fake me that lives in your head and believes such things should be ashamed of his stupidity!
If you honestly don’t think Christianity in the west was far more varied and egalitarian before the Romans had the Gnostics and other heretics slaughtered, that’s fine. If you don’t think there’s a pretty large difference between a Christianity that faces constant persecution and a Christianity that inflicts constant persecution, well that’s fine too. I’d say those are pretty untenable positions to hold, but that’s what religion is all about!
I just want to know what that has to do with the Da Vinci Code. Did the imaginary me that you hear in your head say that he thinks Jesus was the progenitor of the Merovingian kings? You should stop listening to that guy. He says all sorts of dumb shit.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Greetings, Schlemizel @135… My sincerest apologies for discussing the FSM without proper reverence! I will probably bake in the fiery pesto of eternal damnation for my words! ;)
Doubt anyone will likely stumble upon these words, they being delivered so late in the game, but thank you for your more nuanced observation, Lysana @132. I (as I said earlier) am a long-ago lapsed Catholic. I find Wiccan philosophy to be quite intriguing. I’ve attended a handful of services over the years from various churches/synagogues (Methodist, Episcopalian, Jewish, Lutheran, et al.) but am ultimately comfortably agnostic. My original point was that I see a fair bit of anti-Catholic invenctive on this forum. I think the church has committed many wretched atrocities over the years. I do not condone what individual pedophile-priests do; I do not condone the church’s clear effort to sweep such wrongs away. I get a little nervous, however, when someone seems to conflate “the church” and individual practitioners of the faith. Such is life….