Immaculate Conception and Anti-Semitism

It seems that many people, even some scholars, do not know what the term "Immaculate Conception" means. It does not refer to Mary's supposed virginity.

You may think this is an odd pet peeve for a Jew to have, but stay with me.

The Christian belief that Mary was still a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus is called virgin birth.  Immaculate conception is an entirely different concept, one that is a necessary result of another Christian belief: original sin.

Early Christian theologians invented the doctrine of Original Sin and based it on a Jewish story to explain why it was necessary to worship Jesus rather than practice Judaism, a temptation apparently still faced by some Christians in the early Church. The doctrine asserted that, before Jesus, no one was "saved."

Christians invented the idea that the disobedience of Adam and Eve had caused all successive generations to be born with an ailment called Original Sin. They claimed that worshiping Jesus was necessary for one to be worthy of heaven. According to them, the Hebrew prophets, patriarchs, and matriarchs were dwelling in hell. Only people living after Jesus could have this original sin washed away. It required baptism... by a Christian priest, of course.

This new idea, Original Sin, created a problem in the minds of some Christians. Since Mary must necessarily have been infected with Original Sin, how could she have given birth to the son of god?

Christian theologians solved this problem with another new idea called Immaculate Conception. When Mary was conceived, god made sure she didn't catch the disease from her parents. Why god couldn't have done this for all people remains unexplained.

All these ideas were sufficiently convoluted to prevent most theologians from asserting their absolute truth. It wasn't until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the near-divinity of Mary was widely accepted by Catholics, that a papal bull commanded "all the faithful" to believe that Mary was conceived "without the stain of Original Sin."

So, the term Immaculate Conception does not refer Mary's chastity. It is the end result of one more idea that was invented to invalidate Judaism.

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As an aside, I must admit that I rather like statues of Mary and appreciate the inclusion of feminine imagery in religion.

So for a more complete and more sympathetic explanation of the concepts of "virgin birth" and "immaculate conception," as well as an appreciation of the divine feminine in Christianity, I'd like to point you to this article.