Our Father ...

[SerendipityJane]

who art in Heaven ....

Of course if anyone had tried this stunt 500 years ago, then they wouldn't have had to worry about winter fuel bills for a start.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/07/lords-prayer-our-father-opening-may-be-problematic-archbishop-of-york-stephen-cottrell

The only conclusion I can come to is that these individuals have never truly read and studied the Bible. I would question their faith but that is between them and God.

If they want to change it to "Our Mother" and get rid of all the other patriarchal nonsense in their religion as well, that's fine by me!

Ah yes, now the very special 0.2% of the population don't like it let's change it - fuck the 2000 years of history!

Honestly, the continuous quest to make itself 'relevant' is really not helping the CofE.

I went to a very old-fashioned c of E service recently with a baptist and a presbyterian. They both loved it.

Our Them they, who art in heaven...

Our transcendent thingummy, who is historically a storm god of a patriarchal Middle Eastern tribe, and who may or may not exist....

As an atheist who has a degree in theology, I think it’s lovely that the small percentage of men who might be offended by this are being taken care of. Im convinced that this movement will both illuminate and solve all the historical issues that women of faith have suffered throughout both biblical history and canon.

in general, I think any genuine outreach for inclusivity is a good one. But FFS, really?

Just sounds like the church has never really known what "fairness" looks like. Feels good to exclude women, yeah let's go for that. Feels good to treat non- westerners as subpar, yeah let's go for that. Feels good to elevate other men above all the categories we've treated badly already, yeah let's go for that.

You are all so cynical! The archbishop is a man of God genderless worshiper of the genderless creator. Maybe God came to the archbishop in the wilderness and said that after two thousand years of hating on women they feel non-binary these days.

So we're about to try to redefine Christianity and exclude all Christians from it who believe in biological sex? 😂Along with womanhood, homosexuality, stuff like that?

I'll wait for the inevitable decision that 'person' and 'human' now has 'evolved' to mean 'an unconditional believer in our faith trumping reality and everything else' and excluding all from it who believe in biological sex. It'll come.

Being honest, the genders are the least offensive part of the Bible.

It is ridiculous. We also have the Hail Mary which celebrates mothers. They are equal prayers.

It’s not a new point. Christians have been discussing this sort of thing for decades- that language which presents God merely as male is reductive and limited and reflects the patriarchal societies that Christianity grew out of more than it reflects the nature of God. I wouldn’t change the wording of the prayer but I’m pleased to see church leaders acknowledging that language matters.

Thing is, the language of CofE liturgy is highly patriarchal, just like it's behaviour. He wasn't suggesting changing the prayer, just using it to make a point.

I don't think the CofE is capable of meaningful change and instead makes token gestures but that doesn't mean he's wrong to point the problem out.

Being honest, the genders are the least offensive part of the Bible.

I think that was part of his point. The bible regards women a damn sight better than Christianity has historically done.

They aren't equal prayers, even in Catholicism, but large parts of the CofE will never say a Hail Mary.

Rev Christina Rees, who campaigned for female bishops, said Cottrell had “put his finger on an issue that’s a really live issue for Christians and has been for many years”.

She added: “The big question is, do we really believe that God believes that male human beings bear his image more fully and accurately than women? The answer is absolutely not.”

In February, the C of E said it would consider whether to stop referring to God as “he”, after priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead.
It agreed to launch a commission on gendered language, saying “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”.

I can't imagine why any feminist would have a problem with gender-neutral language to describe an imaginary deity.

Personally I just see this as a tacit admission that religion - all religion and any religion - is all madey-uppey and has fuck all to do with any universal truths or a path to divinity.

God in the psalm, described as a hen gathering her chicks under her wings is as females as it is possible to be. Wisdom ends up personified as female through the vagaries of gendered grammar. The holy spirit has no gender. I'll keep saying the Our Father. I am not an Anglican, but looking at that church from outside it would seem to have as many real problems as any other denomination, and this sort of headline grab does not seem the best way to address them.

It is the devil 's work...

I'm Catholic and I just thought WTF . The whole point of the our father is its the prayer Jesus taught us.

I thought he was referring to making the church more inclusive for women. Is that not the case?

I don't personally have a problem with God being male in the bible. It was an early source of saying that men and women are equal in the sight of god. Bearing in mind it was written by many men. I never imagine a female writer of any of the bible.

It's worth quoting what he actually said:

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

And... he's right. If your experience of 'father' is abusive or violent, then that language is a barrier. It doesn't mean that that language is wrong or unbiblical, but simply that the images and languages we use for God are a barrier to some.

Fortunately the bible has plenty of other language and imagery for God. There's this from Matthew, for example:

how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings

This is not new. Augustine wrote about God as a nursing mother, bringing milk in the form of Jesus to nourish us. So did St Anselm, who picked up on the hen gathering her chicks image, to talk about Jesus our loving mother. Calvin compared the pains of the crucifixion with the pains of labour. And one of my local saints - Julian of Norwich - talked about "God our loving father; God our loving mother..."

So, if he'd tried this 500 years ago he wouldn't have been burned. He would have been entirely in keeping with generations of religious thought.

Really, it's only in the last couple of hundred years or so that we have lost this language of motherhood and nursing from our understanding of God.

This is not about trans people or about gender neutral language. This is about the church recognising the barriers it chooses to use present, and calling on the wide range of metaphor and imagery it has both in the bible and in two millenia of religious thought to, in the words of Jesus, gather everyone in.

And... he's right. If your experience of 'father' is abusive or violent, then that language is a barrier. It doesn't mean that that language is wrong or unbiblical, but simply that the images and languages we use for God are a barrier to some.

But we are dealing with the word of God here ? The word of God that has seen people killed in a spectacularly diverse and ingenious methods for not accepting every single letter as printed.

Seems a bit rum to have been wrong about it all this time if you ask me ....

Catholics included the Mother of Jesus, unlike other Christians.

Cloistered nuns are heavily respected.

As for rewriting Our Father, it's rewriting marriage.

The first miracle was...

The end of the Bible describes the bride - church and the groom Jesus. Jesus said marriage is one man and one woman. In mass the priest stands in for Jesus and says "this is my body" you can't leave him out of his marriage by transing the priest, as Gen says God not humans created men and women and the two greatest commandments from Jesus says who do you love first?

Well whether God transcends sex has been a subject of debate for centuries

God does tend to appear in male form in the Bible, but is that meant to be interpreted literally or allegorically?

But of course that's also tempered by speech habits at the times of the early translations (again an area which has been debated over the ages)

The debate and theorizing about this is pretty much ongoing constantly, but it's rare it ever attracts mainstream attention

Great post, @Motorina