{"id":9238,"date":"2024-04-03T15:53:18","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=9238"},"modified":"2024-04-03T15:54:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T15:54:30","slug":"in-the-image-of-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/in-the-image-of-her\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Image of Her"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Riddle of Holy Motherhood<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Dr. Amy Marga turns to early Christian history to turn our facile notions of what it means to be a Christian mother on their heads.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Vienna Scott
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I\u2019m going to begin this review in the same manner in which Dr. Amy Marga begins her book: at the beginning, or roughly as close to the beginning as we have records of. Christ is risen. Christians now exist. Men and women, mothers and fathers, young and old are converting to Christianity and figuring out what it means to live a Christian life. And sometimes that life didn\u2019t look much like the life a lot of Christians live today\u2014or would even want to.<\/p>

For example: Saint Paula of Rome\u2019s eyes were dry as her children wept, grabbing her sides and begging her not to leave. But she left. With a greater love for God than for her five children, one of the wealthiest women in the Roman Empire abandoned her family and took to the desert to practice strict asceticism. She became a disciple of Jerome, helping to translate the Vulgate. Some now call her Christianity\u2019s first nun. Paula was sainted a mere year after her death. Her story was once heralded as an example of the virtuous Christian life. But stories that hold the identities of mother and believer in tension are far from our current cultural imagination.<\/p>

Last year, I had the opportunity to speak at a conference of Christian college students. Before my talk, the organizers gave me a booklet and I thumbed through the headshots and short snippets the students submitted to introduce themselves to each other. The students listed role models who shaped their faiths. Skimming quickly, the answers blended together: C.S. Lewis, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, G.K. Chesterton, \u2026 other canonically cool men\u2026 and <\/em>my mom.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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This book needs to be widely read by people of wide-ranging expertise so that they write more books and flesh out Marga\u2019s project.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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My mom<\/em>. Many of us can imagine our own mothers as holy, but we have limited imaginations for holy mothers beyond ours and Jesus\u2019s. Amy Marga takes this fault of our imagination and, as any good academic does, she turns the idea of the Christian mother inside out and sets it straight again. She introduces us to women we should know and gives us the dignity of their complicated stories. This is one simple reason to read her book: people should know Paula (and Perpetua, and Felicity, and\u2026).<\/p>

Felicity prayed to God for a premature birth for her child, so that she could hand it off and die in the arena with her fellow Christians sooner. God answered her prayer. She turned her newborn premature infant over and faced her death. We don\u2019t know if she found a wetnurse, nor how the child of Felicity, a slave, could even find sufficient care. That was the point. These stories Marga highlights are the stories of women who radically put higher things over lower things. With single-minded devotion to God, the highest thing, even their own children were lower things. Children. Those of us who might jot down my mom<\/em> as our role models of faith.<\/p>

The book does not serve as an apologetic for such behaviors, but it complicates our received notions of Christian motherhood\u2014mainly shaped by Mary and mommy bloggers (the Holy Household faced significant domestication after the Reformation). While we often associate maternity with sanctity, we also often conflate motherhood with sanctification.\u00a0 Christianity has a unique role in the entrenchment of holy motherhood in the West. Marga (and I) believe this gives us a unique obligation to grapple with it more seriously.<\/p>

This book is fundamentally an academic book. Amy Marga is an academic, with a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a faculty post at Luther Seminary. Her writing is archival and theoretical, dense and interdisciplinary, tightly argued and exploratory. Since women\u2019s voices, and mother\u2019s voices in particular, are glaringly absent from our records, by fact of factlessness, Marga must engage with philosophy of science, theology, psychology, obstetrics, race theory, and history to draw out enough material to critically engage with the changing definitions and dispositions towards Christian motherhood through time. In her calling for canon-building, she offers up these many rich veins that require more exploration. Marga is many things, but she is not a scientist, obstetrician, nor psychologist. She is the woman who was clever enough to invite all of them, and many others, into this conversation. Of my many reasons to recommend the book, this is the most mercenary. This book needs to be widely read by people of wide-ranging expertise so that they write more books and flesh out Marga\u2019s project. As a selfish reviewer, I want more to read. I want the canon, not just its first book.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Vienna Scott<\/strong> recently graduated from Yale Divinity School with an MAR in Religion and Literature. She graduated\u00a0from Yale College in 2021 with degrees in Religious Studies and Political Science. In her free time, she enjoys baking, hiking, and hanging out with friends.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In the Image of Her: <\/strong>Recovering Motherhood in the Christian Tradition<\/strong> was published by Baylor University Press on September 15, 2022. Fare Forward<\/em> appreciates their provision of a review copy. You can purchase your own copy from the publisher here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Amy Marga turns to early Christian history to turn our facile notions of what it means to be a Christian mother on their heads. 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