For more information about the Catholic Worker Movement, please see http://www.catholicworker.org/ The Virgin Mother Terry Burridge, on the psychology, politics, and power of this Christian mythology In a recent SOF Magazine the question was asked:
What is the point of the story of the Virgin Birth? The question stuck in my mind and | thought that it was one to which I wanted to give at least one kind of answer. I take the view that the story of the Virgin Birth of Jesus is a myth, and like any other myth is not be taken as being literally true. Myth serves a purpose, although that purpose will be different from age to age, culture to culture, and person to person. As Bruno Bettelheim writes of fairy tales, the fairy tales’ deepest meaning will be different for each person and different for each person at various moments in his life.
The child will extract different meaning from the same fairy tale, depending on his needs of the moment. When given the chance, he will return to the same tale when he is ready to enlarge on old meanings, or replace them with new ones.' It is these layers of meaning that account for the survival of some stories over generations.
As a young man I was an enthusiastic fundamentalist Christian. From this perspective, | saw the Virgin Birth of Jesus as having a satisfying symmetry. In the beginning was Creation, followed by the Fall and the beginning of Man’s sinfulness and alienation from God. This situation needed to be remedied, but the remedy had to come from outside of Man. Thus a saviour was needed to rescue the situation, but this saviour had to be different from me. He had to be born without sin; thus Mary’s role. End of story for Mary - at least as far as a good protestant fundamentalist was’ concerned! Rather like one of Shakespeare’s “mechanicals”, she had her part to play in the action, but it was as a relatively minor character. It was Jesus who was the star of the show, but please give Mary a big hand for being such a good sport!
Some years on and I find myself embarrassed by The Virgin and Child (1436-38) by Rogier van der Weyden, Museo del Prado such naked sexism, let alone any other aspects of my 20-year-old self. And this, for me, is the problem with the Marian story. There are too many layers of meaning to be found. As Paul Fleischman comments religion ... is a structural aspect of personality. It differs from our philosophical self in that it seeks to discover meanings, not to create them; and it differs from our scientific self in that it seeks to discover meanings, not causal forces.” The story of Mary is so full of meanings that it is a daunting prospect to try and focus on only one or two.
The more I thought about this story, the more aware I became of its inherent sexism and patriarchal thinking. God is portrayed as the prime mover in this account. It is his son who needs to be released into the world to rescue human beings from the mess they have created since Eden. Humanity cannot be trusted not to make a complete hash of things, so the father God takes matters into his own hands and has his son conceived in a human womb — a kind of supernatural surrogacy agreement with a clear understanding of who is the important party. As Bishop Spong comments, ‘Yes, Mary was a woman, but she was both de-sexed and de-humanized by a condescending and patriarchal hierarchy before she was finally said to have been lifted back into God.” For good measure, he adds, “The result of this history is that the Christian church is still today one of the most sexist institutions in Western civilization.’ As a story that heralds the dawn of a new era, it is depressing in parts. The prayer that the devout Jewish male was supposed to pray still has its echoes in this story: ‘I thank God that I was born a Jew not a Gentile.
A freeman, not a slave. And a Man, not a Woman.’ Given, also, that the Gospel stories of Jesus’ Virgin Birth come from two male writers, we cannot avoid the sexism inherent in these stories. It is a story about male power and how it is used, whether creatively and generously or destructively and possessively: a choice that always has to be made by those who hold power.
It is, however, much more difficult to see this as a power story if one is a man. One of the disturbing movements of the twentieth century was the women’s movement with its critique of the ways in which men kept women in a particular role. As Adam Jukes writes, It has become increasingly clear to me that violence qua violence is simply the most visible pole of a continuum of abusive treatment which men inflict on women, designed to establish and maintain control of them in both institutions and personal relationships.’ The Judeo-Christian tradition is no exception to this use of male power and Jukes, an analytical psychotherapist, has made a brave attempt to understand its origins. His views make uncomfortable reading for a contemporary man.
But, to see the story of the Virgin Birth only as a misogynistic parable is to miss another important part of the story. God is limited in this story—or chooses to be limited. No more than a man can become pregnant could God ignore humanity. If psychological health is to be found by allowing both the male and female aspects of ourselves to be expressed—regardless of gender—then God (He being male in this story) needed Mary in order to become complete. If man is separated from God by sin, so God is separated from humanity by his divinity. So Christ is understood to become human to identify with human suffering. Mary therefore gives God access to becoming human. Jung, in his Four Archetypes has this to say about Mary: [W]hat has become of the characteristic relation of the mother-image to the earth, darkness, the abysmal side of the bodily man with his animal passions and instinctual nature...?° We are used to the idea of man striving to reach the gods (often with tragic consequences, as the story of Icarus demonstrates). We are less accustomed to the gods wanting our humanity, which Mary represents.
This is the point that Jung is also making.
It is also worth seeing an admission of failure in this story. If Eden represents God’s attempt to do things alone, then it also highlights the failure of that attempt. Mary’s presence serves as a reminder of the benefits of joint working. (It is a collaborative idea that many have realised is the only real way in which things get changed.) Whilst there will always be a ‘Jehovah’ with the overarching vision there must always be a ‘Mary’ to bring about the fulfilment of that vision. This highlights another important aspect of this story, that salvation in all its forms needs both male and female to work together. In psychoanalytic terms, material that remains unintegrated is always at risk of becoming toxic. As long as God denied his humanity, as seen in the creation stories, there was always the Sof 66 july 2004 danger of sabotage because an essential part of him is not allowed a voice. Thus Adam and Eve, his sole creation, fail. So, too, had Mary tried to produce a saviour only of her own making, that would have failed, as do so many ‘saviour children’. So I do see the story of the Virgin Birth as being of profound relevance to us today. Bishop Spong comments, Both Wonder Woman and the Virgin Mary are mythological figures... Wonder Woman has shaped, freed, called and transformed the limits for more women since her birth in 1941 than the Virgin Mary has done in 2000 years.° Unlike the bishop, I think Mary offers a richer role model than Wonder Woman - and has already far outlasted her rival as an icon. The story of the Virgin Birth serves as a salutary reminder about power and who holds it. It also reminds us of the failure that can result when we deny important parts of ourselves. And it also highlights the creativity that can flourish when co-operative working becomes the order of the day. The strong and the powerful need the weak and poor as much as the weak and poor need the powerful. To give Mary the last words:
My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things: and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed for ever.’ References ' Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses Of Enchantment (Penguin 1975) * Paul R.Fleischman, The Healing Spirit: Case Studies in Religion and Psychotherapy (SPCK 1989) * John Shelby Spong, ‘The Virgin Mary is No Wonder Woman’ (published on The Center for Progressive Christianity web site 2001) www.tcpc.org * Adam Jukes, Why Men Hate Women (Free Association Books, 1993) * Carl Jung, Four Archetypes (Ark Paperbacks, 1998) * John Selby Spong, op.cit. ” Luke 1: 46-55 (King James) Terry Burridge is a psychiatric nurse who also trained as a psychodynamic counsellor. From this combination comes an interest in the “meaning” of stories. He is also particularly interested in the ways in which psychotherapy can shed light on religious themes and ideas.