“Mother, Child and Womb”
No doubt y’all have already seen this around the ‘net, but we want to be ecumenical in our laments, and so here are a few other ways that the Presbyterian Church (USA) has suggested that liturgies might refer to the Trinity:
Now, of course, some of these do come out of Scripture - they are legitimate ways to refer to God (though I’m hard pressed to figure out the “Womb” thing). But clearly this is has a lot more to do with making the Gospel acceptable to modern feminism than with offering worship to God. Really just sad, to tell you the truth.
June 20th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Next thing you know, P-USA will begin referring to feminism as a spiritual gift…
June 20th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
The modern usage of “Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe” is just too commercial. I’ve always preferred “Peanut, Butter, and Jelly.” Wait- what was the topic?
June 20th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
How far are some of those suggestions from “Paper, Rock, Scissors.” I think I will stick with scripture on this one . . . well, all of them actually.
June 20th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
What’s really cute is the way Mother, Child, and Womb dork up the procession of the Holy Ghost, as well as the begetting of the Son.
But it’s not like this change is about God.
June 20th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Yeah, maybe we should collect some other options and I can forward it along to the PCUSA folks - see if they can give it a go…
June 20th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Peter, Paul and Mary?
Bacon, lettuce and tomato?
Shave & a haircut, two bits?
Happy, Happy, Joy joy?
June 20th, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Fairy Godmother, Glass Slipper, and Great Pumpkin?
June 20th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
george burns (oh God!), william dafoe(the last temptation…), patrick swayze (ghost)
June 20th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Bryant, Denny, Stadium.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
The question is…how self absorbed are these people?
It truly blows my mind.
Maybe I’m strange…but if I had a problem with what the Bible says…then I wouldn’t be a Christian and would quit the Church rather than try and change it to fit my views. I would do the same if it involved any other religion as well (that had definite views). Of course, especially in Judaism and Christianity…since the gist of the whole religion is that man set himself up as God (i.e. rebelled)…which is exactly what these people are doing.
It really makes me think they’re moronic.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Feminism? What? Seriously, this is really reaching. Apart from the fact that the bottom four have absolutely nothing controversial about them, surely you can’t be too blind to see the metaphor in the first? Why the obsessive horror over liberalisation to the point where even non-examples are caught in the witch hunt? Geez.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Hmm, I’ve now read the article (sorry, didn’t spot the link before). Okay, it is about gender-inclusive language. But that’s hardly radical feminism. No-one thinks that God is *actually* male - they all know that the male pronoun is just to avoid the imperson ‘it.’ Furthermore, no-one denies that there has been a history of treating women as second class which almost all denominations are trying to rectify. To lament these creative phrases as signs of feminism is to miss the point of a living faith which goes far, far beyond mere words.
June 20th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
It seems to me that, while it may be useful for the purposes of study to use alternate names for the Trinity, to help understand what the three Persons of the Trinity actually do and stand for, changing the names as a matter of liturgy blurs the real relationship between them–as well as their relationship to man. For instance, to label Jesus as “Savior” is correct, but “Son” is a constant reminder of what God sacrificed for mankind and implies much more about the relationship between the Trinity and ourselves.
Here’s an interesting article:
http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/863846fatula.html
June 20th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Pejar, while you are correct that God “is a spirit and has not a body like a man” (as the catechism goes), you are dead wrong that the Bible does not predominantly describe God the Father in masculine terms. God, when He inspired scripture, certainly could have chosen to describe himself as a mother or parent or womb, but he didn’t. It’s not a matter of misogyny, it’s a matter of being true to how God described himself.
And, yes, God is beyond words, but He chose words to convey to us what he wanted to know about Him. If “living faith” means to you “make it up as you go” to suit your own preferences, you not only lack a living faith–you lack any faith at all.
June 20th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
To continue on Bart’s thought, such descriptions would also have been far from shocking. While the “Mother Goddess” tripe is obviously false there were female spirits a plenty when the Bible was being written up. It would have been no more shocking than “out of nothing” or “one God”.
June 20th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Thanks Nick. Also, if Christianity is so mysogynist, Pejar, how do you explain the fact that everywhere Christianity spreads, it increases respect for women.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:54 am
The beauty of the trinitarian formula–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is that it goes beyond describing what God does. It reveals who God is.
Any attempt to improve upon it is silly at best.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:35 pm
“Also, if Christianity is so mysogynist, Pejar, how do you explain the fact that everywhere Christianity spreads, it increases respect for women.”
Well, when I see a shred of evidence for that, I’ll be able to respond.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Let’s see, 14,000 women are killed each year in Russia as a result of dometic violence. India continued widow burning until Christian missionaries began to oppose it. China advocates aborting female babies and forced abortions to enforce its one child policy. Several Muslim countires forced female circumcisions, give women no rights and make them second class citizens. Compare all this to the rights of women in the West.
Need I go on?
June 27th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
The Chinese Gov’t continues their abuse of women:
Look at today’s (6/27/06) WSJ:
“I told them about how Uighur women are sterilized or forced to have abortions because the Chinese government says they are too poor to afford to have families.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008572
June 27th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
The Chinese Gov’t continues its abuse of women:
Look at today’s (6/27/06) WSJ:
“I told them about how Uighur women are sterilized or forced to have abortions because the Chinese government says they are too poor to afford to have families.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008572