Articles
Is God Male?
The above question is the title of an article from the Washington Post online (7/3/18). The article addresses the proposed revision of the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer: “This, week, the church is debating whether to overhaul that prayer book – in large part to make clear that God doesn’t have a gender.”
The primary reason for examining the article is not to defend God’s “gender” but to show how influenced liberal “Christian” theologians are by the culture and how willing they are to disrespect and deny the inspired words of God.
Article: “As long as ‘men’ and ‘God’ are in the same category, our work toward equity will not just be incomplete. I honestly think it won’t matter in some ways,” said the Rev. Wil Gafney, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Texas who is on the committee recommending a change to the gendered language in the prayer book.”
[Comment: Here we have a recipe for a religious quagmire. First, establish a religious fellowship that is foreign to Biblical pattern and based on political rebellion toward another religious fellowship (referring to Henry VIII’s establishment of the Church of England, the forebear of the American Episcopalians). Second, produce a manual for prayer that has no Scriptural precedent or authority. Third, elevate gender equity to such a degree that you are willing to alter how God refers to Himself in your special prayer book. Which, mind you, is only a backdoor effort to rewrite Scripture. Fourth, build another human institution to support your denomination and staff it with faculty and administration steeped in Postmodern thinking. Then sit back and watch the fireworks as they clash over a textual question which clashes with the PC culture.]
Article: “Gafney says that when she preaches, she sometimes changes the words of the Book of Common Prayer, even though Episcopal priests aren’t formally allowed to do so. Sometimes she switches a word like ‘King’ to a gender-neutral term like ‘Ruler’ or ‘Creator.’ Sometimes she uses ‘She’ instead of ‘He.’ Sometimes, she sticks with the masculine tradition. ‘Our Father,’ I won’t fiddle with that,’ she said, invoking the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught ...” (emphasis added).
[Comment: Yes, “Wil” is a female. Add the ingredient of ordination of women to leadership roles in contravention of NT teaching. Condition everyone to such by incorporating them through the auxiliary institution created to support your fellowship. Give them a platform for their liberal ideology via the classroom, articles, conferences, etc. And give tenure to female professors who flout the rules of the denomination and change divine pronouns based on whim. Stir vigorously.]
Article: “Switching to gender-neutral language is the most commonly mentioned reason to make the change, but many stakeholders in the church want other revisions. There are advocates for adding language about a Christian’s duty to conserve the Earth; for adding a liturgical ceremony to celebrate a transgender person’s adoption of a new name; for adding same-sex marriage ceremonies to the liturgy, since the church has been performing such weddings for years; for updating the calendar of saints to include important figures named as saints since 1979.”
[Comment: Uh-oh, someone just turned the KitchenAid blender to puree – without the lid on. Now we see a bigger agenda behind neutering God: Such pronouns are just too inconvenient for the cultural degeneracy that some want to advance.]
Article: “Chicago Bishop Jeffrey Lee ... is a member of the committee … [and] said current events have shown him the importance of listening to women’s demands for gender-neutral language. ‘In the culture, the whole #MeToo movement, I think, has really raised in sharp relief how much we do need to examine our assumptions about language and particularly the way we imagine God. If a language for God is exclusively male and a certain kind of image of what power means, it’s certainly an incomplete picture of God … We can’t define God. We can say something profoundly true about God, but the mystery we dare to call God is always bigger than anything we can imagine.’”
[Comment: Where do I begin?? Seriously, the #MeToo movement, which highlights the sexual assault of women by powerful, lecherous men is a reason to examine our “assumptions about … the way we imagine God”?! That is an OUTRAGEOUS comment, as if Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Kevin Spacey and others of their ilk are channeling their assumptions about God into lasciviousness. No man who abuses women justifies himself by how Scripture portrays God unless he is a total lunatic.
However, Mr. Lee is right about one thing: We cannot define God. But God can certainly define Himself, and this He has done by referring to Himself in Scripture in absolute male terminology. This is more than the use of pronouns; it is imagery such as a father, husband, shepherd, king, elder brother, priest (in spite of the Episcopalians, priests in Scripture were always male). This includes His incarnation as a man, not a woman. It is paganism that has historically defined deity in female gender.
The only way to say something “profoundly true about God” is to quote Him and use His own terminology. Altering God’s words is to attempt to define God according to our cultural assumptions, the very thing Mr. Lee says we cannot do. He and his committee, then, ought to stop trying. The slope, as they say, is slippery indeed.]
