I came real close to praying for the first time in my life to Mary this week. Not because I’m becoming Catholic, but it’s just been one of those weeks.

A recent blog exchange about The Virgin Mary at SQJTaipei, caused me to recommend a book to him that upon later reflection I felt several others of you could really benefit from reading. The book is called Mary for Evangelicals and it is by Tim Perry. I think many Evangelicals (or Protestants in general) would benefit from reading this book because it would help answer and orient questions that people like SQJTaipei is asking about The Mother of God. Besides being a solid introduction to the Church tradition, Perry takes the reader through a sola scriptura approach to the importance of Mary for issues pertaining to the doctrine of Christ.

In the last part of the book, he deals with most all of the issues that Evangelicals raise in rejecting to view Mary any higher than they typically do. Perry defines what he calls an “Evangelical Mariology”:

“Mary is ‘beneath’ the church because she is a member thereof, even if she is its most preeminent one. She bears the Word in an unprecedented manner that the church can follow only analogically at best. But insofar as she bears the Word of God to us in her words–the Magnificat–and in her body as Theotokos, she is a type of hte community that God has by grace called into being to bear his Word to his world.” (p. 284)

Before reading this book, you may be skeptical. After reading this book, you still may be skeptical, but at least you’d be a bit more informed as to why Mary gets the press that she does (or should get?) in the Church. I still highly recommend that you pick it up and hear Tim Perry out.