This Christmas, listen to Mary Did You Know?
A popular and poignant Christmas song, written late in the previous century for a church’s holiday program, incites passionate criticism from those who disagree with the way it phrases its message. Since first being recorded in 1991, “Mary, Did You Know?” has been performed by soloists and groups ranging from Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton to Pentatonix, CeeLo Greene and Kathleen Battle. The lyrics are a series of questions to Mary, Jesus’s mother, asking whether she knew during his infancy about the profound impact he would make as an adult. Yet that powerful literary device annoys those who believe the song demeans its subject.
