Meghan Murphy-Gill? What do you do with the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, who came into this world, was crucified and died for the sins of all of us, walked out of the tomb three days later, ascended into heaven and will one day return, referred to God in precisely these terms?
But at the root of how the church understands itself in relation to God is the language it uses to talk about and to God.
If the church wants to change, we have to stop referring to God in only male pronouns and metaphors. King, lord, he, him, his, father. They are insufficient. Just as female pronouns alone are insufficient because God is God, ineffable mystery. No single way to talk about God will ever be enough because God is always more.
But the language we use to address, refer to, and describe the divine is where the rubber hits the road in a life of faith. We must use it, despite the fact that it is never enough. I can’t recall if this metaphor came from Elizabeth Johnson or if I dreamed it up myself while studying her work on precisely this topic in her book She Who Is : Naming “toward” God is sort of like swimming. Each stroke that cleaves into the water is important, necessary, but ultimately you push the water behind you and take another stroke. You have to keep going, or you will sink. In the life of faith, we can never be satisfied with one way to talk about God. If we do, we make idols of our metaphors. Our god becomes a golden calf.
Meggie, are you suggesting that God Incarnate was, well, wrong? Or are you suggesting that Christians have the right to rewrite the Word of God whenever the mood strikes us and make it say whatever the Zeitgeist wants it to say?
In either case, Meggie, you people would be a lot happier if you'd just come out and admit that you're nothing more than High-Church atheists. Your "deity" is a fictional Episcopalian motivational speaker of your own creation whose job it is to approve of everything you do while making you feel entirely good about yourselves.
Not interested. I'll stick with Yahweh and His only begotten Son. Win some, lose some, Meggie.
4 comments:
What stupid cow doesn't understand is that if you look at Scripture closely, you will discover that, yes, the metaphors for God tend to be masculine, but the similes tend to be feminine. But, unlike stupid cow, Scripture is not confused about the difference.
The forces of ignorance and darkness are working hard in the Catholic Church just as they are in all the others. If God Incarnate tells me to pray to God as "Our Father," then that's what I'm going to do. If some voice is telling this woman otherwise, she ought to consider seriously what the source of that voice is. (Hint: It's not good.)
Further, dear idiotic woman, Catholic priests don't behave wrongly with young boys because male pronouns are used for God. They behave wrongly because the church has tolerated wrong behavior for decades, in many cases with older pederasts who had risen in the ranks grooming and covering up for the younger ones.
It always amuses me when people fail to gain full knowledge of a subject, before they put their foot into their mouths. In tribal societies, (long before the current enlightenment and the omnipotence of the Liberal thinker) men and women were assigned roles within their society. Granted, with our increase of knowledge (and the pure perfection of the Liberally Educated Mind) many of these roles have been divided and shifted in today's world. However, the core roles are still viable and really work well! Men are made to be the soldiers, generals, hunters and defenders of the group. Women are the nurturers, the producers, the homemakers who take care fo the children etc. This does not mean that they cannot perform other roles with great alacrity. Many of the young men and women in our armed forces perform equally well in many areas.( I have yet to find a woman who can easily carry a motor base plate carry an M-60 MG through rough terrain.) So both genders have certain roles in which they exceed. I was deployed twice as were many lady troops, but cannot bear a child.
Please don't get me started on Genderdisphoria....
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