Church of England to consider use of gender-neutral terms for God

Church of England to consider use of gender-neutral terms for God (Guardian)

The Church of England is considering whether to stop referring to God as “he”, after priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead. The church said it would launch a new commission on the matter... A spokesperson for the Church of England said: “This is nothing new. Christians have recognised since ancient times that God is neither male nor female, yet the variety of ways of addressing and describing God found in scripture has not always been reflected in our worship. There has been greater interest in exploring new language since the introduction of our current forms of service in contemporary language more than 20 years ago"...

Another nail in the coffin. Soon there will be more bishops and consultants and bean-counters in the Church than people in the pews. Wokeism will destroy the Church.
Now I'm just an outsider looking in.

>2 PossMan:

The view of outsiders is often welcome, seeing things that insiders miss! I'm also an outsider as far as the Church of England is concerned, but not about broader issues on language about God.

As the C of E says in that article, "Christians have recognised since ancient times that God is neither male nor female, yet the variety of ways of addressing and describing God found in scripture has not always been reflected in our worship". There are occasions in the bible where "mother" images of God are used, but generally the male images have dominated Christianity. God is not actually any of the images that we have of God; any image of God that we can grasp is almost certainly inaccurate or incomplete. God is neither male nor female, father nor mother, judge nor lord, king nor servant, yet all of these are useful partial images that are used in scripture and in Christian tradition. Apophatic theology, often associated with Christian mysticism, often concentrates on what God isn't rather than images of what God is, to the extent that they can say God is Nothing, ie God is not a thing.

So it's not really so new and radical to try to find better ways of describing God, and correcting the overuse of one particular set of images by adding a broader and more inclusive range of images. It's not denying the utility of "Father", but recognising that there are plenty of other images which can help us towards a fuller understanding of God.

I have to say that I think "wokeism" is a meaningless and dismissive pejorative which is usually used to avoid rational discussion of a complex subject. The depth and breadth of two thousand years of Christian tradition (and indeed as far as images of God are concerned, several thousand years more as we delve into the Old Testament) does not easily succumb to whatever you might mean by the term.

>3 brone: this heresy we call modernism

Would you say that Genesis 1:27, Hosea 11:3-4 and 13:8, Deuteronomy 32:18, Isaiah 42:14, 49:15 and 66:13, Psalm 131:2 and 123:1-2, Proverbs 8, Matthew 23:37, Luke 13:34 and 15:8-10, and Romans 8:19-23 are examples of "this heresy we call modernism"?

>6 John5918: Nice to see you tap dancing over here.

>7 brone:

It would be nice to see you actually engaging in the conversation instead of making meaningless comments.

>4 John5918:: John, OK "woke/wokism" is often used in a pejorative way but I don't think it's meaningless. Many people would understand it to be jumping on to some form of fashionable bandwagon for example the "banning" of some words. A well-known example would be the person who referred to "people with a cervix" to which the response was something like "errr don't we call those 'women' " For which JKR has never been forgiven.

As for Church of England magazines such as The Spectator and "The Critic" have carried articles by priests despairing of the hierarchy --- not long ago one quoted an advert by some south-west diocese for a post with a "woke" (sorry, my word) job title and saying they would be better with more full-time priests in the parishes.

As for the theology of God's (Father's/Mothers) sex the point is that the man on the Clapham omnibus, or in the pew at St Bartholmew the Great, likes the familiar language of old. He's not stupid and knows He doesn't literally look like us, no cervix, no penis. He just likes to say the liturgy and prayers (eg the Our Father) as his grandparents did.

Sorry, I'm ranting

But maybe the woman on the bus is sick and tired of the church acting like God has a penis. Since mostly the men don't go to church, but the women do, maybe things should move a little towards them.

>9 PossMan:

Thanks for this explanation. I don't want to get sidetracked into a discussion of "woke", but if your definition involves "some form of fashionable bandwagon", I don't see theologians falling into that trap. The Church moves slowly, and rightly so even if it is frustrating for some of us. Theology is often described as "faith seeking understanding", so theologians are constantly interrogating our current understanding and exploring how we can understand better. It's an ongoing process and has been since the beginning of the Christian Church.

the "banning" of some words

I don't see it as involving banning but as opening new possibilities, so that "the variety of ways of addressing and describing God found in scripture" which have "not always been reflected in our worship" may now be available to us. I very much doubt whether the "Our Father" will disappear. Describing God as Father remains one valid incomplete image and does not need to disappear when other valid incomplete images become available. Many people seem to think in zero-sum terms, but that's not inevitable.

As >11 MarthaJeanne: says, not everyone is comfortable with "Father" language. That would include many women, but also, for example, people who have experienced angry and/or abusive fathers, or people who were abandoned by their fathers. God is not angry, nor abusive, nor absent, so for someone whose only experience of a father is anger, abuse and absence, it is not a good image to use as they try to relate to God who is love. For those who have experienced loving fathers, it is perfectly fine.

As for "the man on the Clapham omnibus", or the punter in the pew, who knows that God doesn't literally look like us, well, I sometimes wonder. I think there are a lot of people, both Christians and post-Christian atheists, who do tend to think in terms of an old man in the sky (those exact words were actually used by an atheist in the LT Pro and Con group just last week) with a big white beard. And for those who like the familiar language of old, it's not going to disappear. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is still an authorised liturgical book of the Church of England, and many churches still offer some services in that old familiar language, so there's no reason to think that any revisions of the new prayer book would affect that. The man on the Clapham omnibus is not the only punter in the pew, again as >11 MarthaJeanne: reminds us, so perhaps he should not be the sole arbiter of Church language.

>10 brone:

It's difficult to make much sense of your post, with references to the "left", "woke crowd", "politicising God", "gender ideology", "humanistic bandwagon" and "Marxist fashion" which really have nothing to do with a discussion on images of God. I think there's a lot of projection there. Using such terms is bringing your own political biases into a conversation which is not about politics. But I'll try to respond.

All words we use all the divine pronouns are predicates and are just a reflection of ourselves

No disagreement here. Ourselves. A human race made up of both women and men created in the image of God. So why don't we use divine pronouns to reflect that reality? And I can't disagree with Thomas Aquinas, that "God is the 'primary analogate' - human fathers are only fathers by way of their analogy to God, who is 'our Father'". But what about human mothers, who are only mothers by way of their analogy to God, who is 'our Mother'?

God's most proper name from the Old Testament is YHWH

Indeed, but other images of God are also found, as I indicated in >6 John5918:. And when God was actually asked about God's name, the reply was simply, "I am" (Exodus 3).

Jesus who call Him "Father" and teaches his disciples to address God as "Our Father"

Indeed. There's nothing wrong with the image of God as Father. The intimate family image was a great step forward for the Jews of that era. But again, why does it have to be a zero-sum game? Did Jesus also say, "But on no account ever describe God in any other way?" Quite the contrary - Jesus himself uses a host of different images for God in his parables and his teaching.

Changing our pronouns will not heal us, it is the Incarnate Word, who alone can heal

Again, no disagreement with you there. But we're not changing the language about God in order to arrogate healing to ourselves, but to help us understand the God who heals us. Faith seeking understanding. And maybe that deepened understanding will help us to behave a bit better towards some of the people who do not feel at home in a Church which uses such a limited vocabulary about the God who surpasseth all understanding.

The old BCP is certainly not going to disappear. That would take an act of parliament, as would any major change of liturgy.

>15 brone:

Just wondering what this has to do with images of and language about God.

>17 brone:

It would be nice if you would discuss the topic rather than introducing red herrings.

or attacking other members.

There is an arrticle here from spiked-online about Church of England and God's gender which may be of some interest.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/02/09/even-god-himself-is-now-being-gender-ne...

>20 PossMan:

Thanks for posting this, as it does give an idea of some of the rather hysterical populist stuff which is floating around on the internet. I have to say that any article which begins with a quote from the Daily Mail, talks about the bishops as "men in dresses", and includes the term "woke nonsense" would not influence my own theological thinking very deeply.

To be honest I think a lot of this sort of stuff is scaremongering - they're going to take away the "Our Father"! They're not. They're going to explore a broader range of words and images for God which give us (all of us, not just women and not just the man on the Clapham omnibus) ways of exploring who God is more fully. I will never stop saying the Our Father, but in my personal prayer and meditation, as well as in my conversations with others, I also use other words and images for God, as do many, many other Christians. If we use these images privately and amongst ourselves, why shouldn't we also use them in public liturgy? Lex orandi, lex credendi, as we pray, so we believe.

As the article says, "At some level of course, most of us know that there is a tiny, aggravating grain of truth in the notion that Our Father, who art in Heaven, is not really a bloke and not literally a father."

Here in Austria I have known Roman Catholic churches to offer a 'bridal mass' to bless the civil marriage in cases where someone (even a non-Catholic) has married a divorced person.

The current situation lets the Church of England separate itself very visibly in the media from the homophobic statements that some bishops in the Anglican Communion keep making.

>19 MarthaJeanne: Attacking?

>25 brone:

Posted elsewhere on LT two days ago and not relevant to the topic of this thread, but since you ask, Pope Francis asks Virgin Mary to intercede for Nicaragua after bishop sentenced to 26 years in prison (CNA)

Pope Francis entrusted Nicaragua to the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary on Sunday after Bishop Rolando Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years in prison by Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship. “The news from Nicaragua has grieved me a great deal, and I cannot but remember with concern Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, whom I care about deeply,” the pope said on Feb. 12. Speaking at the end of his Angelus address, Pope Francis said that he was also praying for the 222 Nicaraguan political prisoners who were deported to the United States and “for all those who are suffering in that dear nation.” “We also ask the Lord, through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, to open the hearts of political leaders and all citizens to the sincere search for peace, which is born of truth, justice, freedom, and love and is achieved through the patient exercise of dialogue,” Francis said...

>22 brone:

As usual, you omitted to link to a source for your quote from the archbishop's statement. Here it is. I have read the entire text and it says absolutely nothing about the topic of this thread, namely the possible expansion of language and images of God in public worship.

Statement issued by the Archbishop of Uganda at a 10 Feb 2023 press conference following the vote by the Church of England synod to permit gay blessings

It would be helpful to try to stick broadly to the topic of this thread, I think. Perhaps you could start new threads to discuss some of these unrelated issues?

>32 John5918:: Agreed John. After clicking the link to see what was new on the gender topic I thought I'd landed up somewhere else.

>34 brone:

Once again, may I suggest we stick to the topic? If you wish to discuss the blessing of same sex unions, could you please start a thread dedicated to that topic?

Lord’s Prayer opening may be ‘problematic’, says archbishop (Guardian)

The archbishop of York has suggested that opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, recited by Christians all over the world for 2,000 years, may be “problematic” because of their patriarchal association. In his opening address to a meeting of the Church of England’s ruling body, the General Synod, Stephen Cottrell dwelt on the words “Our Father”, the start of the prayer based on Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4 in the New Testament. “I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life,” he said. His comment – a brief aside in a speech that focused on the need for unity – will divide members of the C of E, a body whose differences on issues of sexuality, identity and equality have been highly visible for years...

The phrase ‘Our Father’ hovers ambiguously between the second and third person (Tablet)

the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, caused some controversy with a comment about the Lord’s Prayer. Saying “Our Father” might, he observed mildly, be “problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life”... The questions Cottrell referred to will not be quickly or easily resolved... They should be taken seriously and discussed thoughtfully. They concern the divine nature, the meaning of religious language and liturgy, the impact of patriarchal oppression and the trauma of childhood abuse. It is more appropriate, I think, to talk to God in the second person than to talk about God in the third person. The Lord’s Prayer is such a direct address. But the phrase “Our Father” hovers ambiguously between the second and third person. It certainly can be used as a description of God. But, like many theologians across different traditions, I understand God to be beyond gender and beyond concepts. So our relationship to God must be mediated by our imaginations, which are shaped by our collective culture and by our individual experiences. Words such as “father” and “mother” come heavy-laden with complex, often ambivalent associations... How can the Church find words that preserve the meaning of Jesus’ Gospel for an entire community, when its individual members’ imaginations are configured so differently? Given these unavoidable differences, can language ever be truly inclusive? Precisely because the Lord’s Prayer poses such a deep challenge, it ought to be handled with great care and compassion. As Cottrell told the Synod, “It is all there in the very first word. God is ‘our God’. There­fore, we who say this prayer belong to each other.”

Worth repeating. God is "our God".

The issue is still gendered, though, in the 'Lord's' Prayer.

Lords are men.

Kings and Queens are gendered. For women, there's no escaping the diminution of being female.

>38 MsMixte:

Yes, "Lord" is a contentious one, and not only because it is gendered. In UK at least it also has strong connotations of privilege, entitlement, aristocracy, wealth, domination, autocracy, patriarchy and class and, in the more distant past, of feudalism and all the ills that went with it. There's also a popular perception that lords are all inbred and rather dim. None of these characteristics have any connection with a loving God. The modern-day lords are unelected parliamentarians and there is a growing movement to abolish them.