Let's face it. Talking about the Virgin Mary with an evangelical or fundamentalist Protestant is not easy. Marian doctrine is an emotional issue and, sometimes, the discussion can get a bit heated.

Situations like these are uncomfortable and frustrating. It's enough to make you want to avoid the subject altogether.

Alas, avoidance is not the answer. The answer is to get the answers. It's not as difficult as you might think. Why? Because when it comes to any particular doctrine, there are always a few simple questions that come up time and time again. That means there are only a few basic answers that you will need to remember. Once you become familiar with how to present these an-swers, you will be able to lead many to the truth with confidence and love.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception says that Mary was preserved from sin from the time she was conceived in her mother's womb. Protestants will argue that this doctrine cannot be true because they claim it is not found anywhere in Scripture. To support this, they will most likely quote Romans 3:23 — ‘All have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.’

Ask them to consider if, when Paul uses the word ‘all,’ instead of making a definitive statement about all of humanity, he might have been generalizing about what is true of most of humanity. Let's look at the facts.

Have all people been born into sin? Only Adam, Eve were not. Are all people in our world capable of sinning?

Sinning requires the intention to sin and the capacity to reason. Clearly, some people — infants, the mentally handicapped, the comatose — are incapable of meeting either of those criteria. This simple fact proves that there are exceptions to St. Paul's point.

Next invite your questioner to take a very close look at the Annunciation. In Luke 1:28, the angel Gabriel greets Mary, saying, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’ The phrase ‘full of grace’ is a translation of the Greek word kecharitomene.It is a perfect past participle. A participle has both the properties of a verb and an adjective. In this case it describes (in the past tense) an attribute of Mary herself: She has been perfected in grace.

At the time of the angel's greeting, Mary was already in possession of the grace the rest of us are born without because of original sin. She had to be in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence in order to merit the title ‘full of grace.’

Another objection you may hear regarding Mary's Immaculate Conception is derived from the Magnificat. Mary in her own words proclaims her need for a savior: ‘My soul rejoices in God my savior.’ The objection is: If she needed a savior, then she couldn't have been sinless. This might seem difficult to overcome, but it is really rather plain. God saved Mary from sin by providing her the grace never to fall into sin.

By far the biggest problem Protestants seem to have with Mary is that they presume her sinlessness somehow makes her equal to God or takes away glory from God. Your task is to help them discover how the reverse is actually true. Mary's Immaculate Conception and her sinless life glorify God. To show this, simply remind your questioner that we were created not to sin. It is when we sin that we fall short. When we do not sin, we are acting as were created to act.

God created the angels and then Adam and Eve without sin — and yet they were not equal to God. Why should it be any different with Mary?

Christina Mills writes from Eugene, Oregon.