God, Our Mother?

It is becoming increasingly common for people to use feminine terms in reference to God. Well, why not? In one way, this is not so radical. After all, the Bible itself uses feminine metaphors for God. We know that God created male and female in “His own image and likeness.” Therefore, women as well as men bear God’s image and likeness. This means that something of God’s essential nature is revealed through women in a way that it is not revealed through men. So why can’t we call God, “Mother”?

Lets begin our answer with this: we believe that the Bible is much more than a human document. Were it merely a human document, we would be free to edit it to reflect our growing sensitivities about such things. After all, women have often been greatly harmed by male domination, even within the church. Throughout much of history, a father or husband has been able to beat a woman of his household without answering to anyone for his actions. He could approve or disapprove his daughter’s choice of husbands. He had control over any income the women of the family might make. Most of us no longer believe that such male domination is an acceptable practice. So, naturally enough, some believe that addressing God as a Father only reinforces the old culture of male domination (the formal term for that culture is patriarchy). They argue that by sometimes calling God “Mother” or escaping from the dilemma altogether by calling God, “Parent”, will help us to avoid the reinforcement of patriarchy.

These arguments make sense. They will gain strength as new generations become the teachers and pastors of the faith. They are often made in all sincerity by sincere and capable people. They are not as Biblically weak as some conservatives might believe. Nonetheless, however noble the cause may seem, we simply do not have the authority to edit Holy Scripture.

When we develop theology from an orthodox view of the Bible, we are constrained by the belief that God inspired the Bible to be written in such a way that it reveals God as He wished to be revealed. In the Bible, God nearly always chooses to speak of Himself in masculine terms. Even the most conservative believe agrees that God “as He really is,” is beyond all gender distinction. Nonetheless, God “as He reveals Himself” in Scripture is nearly always masculine. The orthodox believer must ask, “should we do otherwise?” The answer one gives to this question depends on one’s view of the Bible.

Is the Bible the product of fallible human beings who strained to give us a divinely inspired message, in the best way they knew how, but distorted nonetheless by their own cultural biases?

Or, is the Bible, though certainly a product of human minds and hands, so inspired that its message is divinely protected from error?

Christians who are more liberal tend to give the first answer. More conservative Christians give the second one. It is a question that every Christians has to settle for himself or herself.

I am a conservative Evangelical. Although I am a fallible human being, and therefore realize that my interpretation of the Bible and of God’s intentions can be faulty, I believe that God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture comes to us through history as He intended. I do not believe we have the right to edit that revelation, however noble our reasons.

There is another reason why conservative Christians are reluctant to use feminine language in reference to God. Through history, when people have spoken of God as feminine, they have tended to drift into a sensual, pantheistic, fertility worship. (Pantheism is the idea that the earth is God’s body, and that everything that exists is a part of God.) “Goddess” spirituality seems to produce an earth religion, a sexualized spirituality without ethical demands. Through the centuries, Christian and Jewish thinkers have seen this as a dangerous seduction that takes us away from God’s Word. That redefines God, making human beings the judge of how God should be understood rather than accepting God as He wishes us to understand Him.

For all the reasons stated above, orthodox Christians conclude, together with the saints throughout history, that we should reject the current fad of so-called “gender inclusive language,” where the nature of God is concerned. This is not, or at least should not be, a political or social bias. We do this on the basis of a godly fear, resisting the potential for heresy at the core of our faith: God’s revelation of Himself to us.

The challenge facing Christians regarding so called gender inclusive language, is how to be orthodox without being reactionary. When translating the Bible from the original languages, we should feel free to be gender neutral where the original languages are gender neutral. In older English translations of the Bible, words that in the original Greek and Hebrew had been gender neutral, were often translated into gender specific words in English. The translators did not do this on purpose, they were merely reflecting the culture of their times. Also, we must remember that until fairly recently, the words “men” or “mankind” were often used to include both men and women. Nowadays, that practice is more rare. When modern Bible translators attempt to address these changes of linguistic habits, it does not necessarily mean that they have a liberal bias'.

The bottom line is that we must be faithful to the Word of God; we should not be resistant to change unwarranted discriminatory language. Words change. (Just think of how the word “queer” has changed.) To insist on freezing language in print when the meaning has changed on the street is foolish. It does injustice to God’s word, which was not written in English to begin with! The point in Bible translation is to make the Word of God clear to those who read it in languages other than Hebrew and Greek.

This is all easier said than done! We Christians can get downright testy when we think someone is guilty of deliberately tampering with our faith. We also have a tendency to elevate the cultural idiosyncrasies of a particular bygone era to a pedestal of special honor. Certainly, we should honor the Christians of the past. We should preserve their contributions. However saintly they may have been though, they were not right about everything. Peoples’ opinions about gender roles, like much of what we call “common sense,” is usually based on the accepted practices of the particular time and culture in which they live. One of the responsibilities of a Bible translator or a theologian is to carefully, prayerfully, and honorably separate what the Bible claims to be unchangeable truth from that which merely relates to his or her own cultural comfort.

In the matter of God’s 'gender', we must recognize that both male and female are made in His image and likeness. From that truth, we infer that both maleness and femaleness have their origin in God Himself. This obviously means that God transcends gender. Even so, for His own reasons, God chose to refer to Himself most often as male. This must be respected. But we should not make more of it than the Bible itself does.

God = ?

The word “God” means so many different things to people...

Of course, the English word “God” would have been unrecognizable to ancient Hebrews and Greeks. Early English speaking Christians searched for a word that would express what the Hebrew scriptures meant by the words “Yahweh” or “Elohim”. They chose the word “God”. Unfortunately, we use the same word to refer to any deity of any religion. That means that the word “God” does not communicate the same thing to everyone.

Socrates always insisted that the first order of business in any discussion is to define the terms to be used. We don’t want to upset Socrates, so lets stop and define the word “God”.

First, Christians believe that God has a personality. He is not like a borderless mist, some undefined, impersonal force of nature. God has a personality. We can know Him, communicate with Him, even have a relationship with Him.

Once we begin to believe that God has a personality then we are likely to ask, “what is His personality like?”

The Bible says that the essence of His personality is a quality called “holiness”. Being holy certainly means that He doesn't lie. He doesn't cheat. He doesn't go back on His word. But even more importantly, the Hebrew word kadosh, which we translate “holy,” means “other.” When we say that God is Holy we are saying that He is not like us or like anything else that we can or could ever know. He is beyond comprehension. He is “awe-inspiring”.

The only thing we can know about God are those things which He has revealed to us. However, even those things are sometimes difficult to grasp, as we have seen. Then, beyond all the we do know about God, there is infinitely more that we do not know. Realizing this keeps us from trying to make Him into our image. It stretches us toward Him rather than trying to bring Him down to our level. When we reject the idea that God is “beyond finding out,” we make a mental or physical image and call that image, “god.”

The Bible calls that process idolatry. It is strictly forbidden by scripture. The problem is, we all have idols; we must always be working to destroy them. We never get to know the real God if we keep admiring the substitutes we have made!

Yet once again we return to worship. We cannot figure God out, but we can worship Him, “in the beauty of holiness”. Jesus tells us (in Matthew 6:9) that we should begin our prayer by recognizing this aspect of God’s character, by saying, “Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed (Holy) be Thy Name!”

Thoughts on Trinity

Mark Twain wrote a wonderful story called the Prince and the Pauper. It is about a prince who discovered that a poor boy who often came by the palace looked enough like him to be his twin. So, one day the prince and the pauper traded places. The pauper got to experience royal life and the prince got to experience the life of his subjects. Christians believe that something like this really happened. God became a man and experienced human life, so that human beings could enter paradise and have eternal life.

We are speaking about Jesus, of course. He was a Jew who claimed to be God (see John 10:24-34). He was a wonderful teacher, or rabbi. He claimed to be the legitimate King of Israel. We believe that He was God. We also believe that He was fully man. Christians believe that this God-man, Jesus Christ, offers a way for human beings to become God’s immortal companions. We also believe that as King of the covenant nation of Israel, Christ has granted citizenship to all that believe in Him and accept Him as their King. In other words, Christians believe that the Christian church is the spiritual continuation of the ancient nation of Israel, and that Christians are citizens of that nation.

Sound preposterous? It is preposterous! That is, unless it is true.

If you have the slightest idea that it might be true, I suggest you look deeper into the story for yourself. To do that, you will have to read the Bible. So allow me to give you the “Cliff Notes” version of the Bible.

The Bible is the spiritual history of Israel, the life and teachings of Christ, and the beginnings of the Christian Church. Christians accept the Old Testament, or God’s revelation of Himself to the ancient Hebrews. We also read the New Testament, a collection of writings that introduces Jesus and the Christian Church. It tells us (in Acts 15) that the Church made a decision early in its history to include gentile (non-Jewish) peoples, if they believed in Jesus. It tells us that the purpose of the Church was to help us obey Jesus Christ, to help us grow in Him, and to take His offer of salvation to all the nations of the world. However, the early Christians intended to build upon the revelation that God had already given to His ancient Hebrew people. They certainly did not see their faith as “a new religion. ”

It was their commitment to remain faithful to God’s revelation to the ancient Hebrew people that caused Christians a most difficult theological problem: what to do about their doctrine of God. Being Jews, the early Christian leaders prayed a special prayer, called the Shema, every day. That prayer says, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” (Deuteronomy 6:1-4). That prayer is a declaration of monotheism (the belief in one God). It is a pledge to be faithful to the One invisible and almighty God of Israel.

Jews have always been willing to die for that monotheistic belief. Indeed they often have died for that belief, both in ancient and in modern times. The early Christians, being Jews – or at very least believers in the Jewish God – shared all of these convictions.

However, Christians had a dilemma. They believed in God, to whom Jesus had prayed and called Father. They believed that Jesus was Himself God “come in the flesh” (as St. John puts it (in 1 John 4:2,3). They also believed in the Holy Spirit, whom they had experienced after the resurrection of Christ. They said that He too was God! Did that not make Christians tritheists (believers in three gods)? Which were they; monotheists or tritheists?

What a problem! They believed in one God. But they also believed that the Father was God, that Jesus was God and that the Holy Spirit was God. They believed that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were somehow distinct from one another. Yet they continued to fiercely declare that there were not three gods … only one! “What could they possibly mean?” their Jewish brothers were continually asking.

It took Christians about three centuries to develop a language of faith that would fully express what they believed about the nature of God. Sometime in the second century AD, Christians begin to use what we call the Apostles’ Creed which declared their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, the creed did not attempt to further clarify the issue. As the years went by however, Christian leaders and thinkers gradually began to use a new term to express what they believed about God. It was the word “trinity, ” a shortened way of saying tri-unity, or “three in one.”

Then the Church Fathers (the people who participated in the early church councils) borrowed a word from the theater (of all places!) to express how Father, Son and Holy Spirit were distinctions within God’s nature. In Latin, that word was “persona.” Although the English word “person” is how we normally translate the Latin word, in those days a persona never referred to an individual as it does for us. According to the Langerscheit-Shorter Latin Dictionary (McGraw Hill Book Co.:1969) the word meant a “mask” (worn by an actor), “character” (part in a play), station, rank or condition.

Obviously, by deciding to use the word persona, the Church fathers were using a metaphor to help us understand the nature of God as we had come to understand Him in the New Testament. Like all metaphors, the word persona has strengths and weaknesses. A mask hides the actual face of a person. A role is something an actor assumes in contrast to his actual personality. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not God’s masks; they are who He is. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not roles the God assumes; they are revelations of His actual nature. So the word persona can confuse as well as enlighten. Greek speaking Christians decided not to use the word persona for that very reason. However, Western Christians have continued to use it, despite its limitations because we really have no other word that works nearly as well. I once heard an Eastern Orthodox theologian say that “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” are the interior names of God, they tell us what God is like inside Himself. That comment helped me a lot.

Anyway, if your mind is turning around and around, don’t feel bad! The fault is not with your intelligence. All the best minds of the Christian church have found it difficult to express what the divine Godhead is like. They still do! They often get frustrated!

Nonetheless, let’s try again! If God is really who the Church Fathers proclaimed, then it is important that we try to understand them. In the Old Testament, God reveals that He is One and that this truth is extremely important. Israel’s God was unique. One rabbi says that when God told Moses, “I am what I am!” He was saying something like, “If I told you what I was really like, you would never believe it!” Another writes that in the shema (“Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One”) God is saying “I am in a class all by myself. There is no one like me.”

God wanted His people to understand that He was not some celestial pagan king, capable of being bribed and manipulated. God was above all of that. He was in a class by Himself. One!

Wedding Vows and Credo

If you have been to a wedding in the last twenty years, and especially in the last five, you might have noticed a trend. More and more couples are deciding to write their own wedding vows. This change no doubt reflects the desire for the couple to really 'own' their vows, to put their own spin on the words they would nervously utter while exchanging rings.

I understand the desire to do this; after all, our society is now very far removed from using words like 'with my body I thee worship' and all the other antiquated phrases that have been used through the centuries. There isn't anything wrong with altering the vows, given that the bride and groom understand and thus mirror the oaths that the older vows represent.

You might think me old in saying this, and that is of course your perogative. But I do think it very important to maintain the ideas behind our older ceremonies, even if we change the words. It would be appropriate to vow your devotion and service to your spouse, regardless of situation or feeling. But it would be less than fitting on your wedding day to say, "Hey, you're pretty cool and I think we can take a swing at life."

Why?

Well, there is power behind words. Despite our society's desire to deny this truth, it remains unaltered. When we vow and affirm our promises, we say something about our ability to hold to them. Understanding what millions of people throughout history have said and believed and held to can help connect us to a community that spans even time.

This is why we need to understand our spiritual heritage and the words and vows that our ancestors made. It is a good thing that we are always trying to relate to the world in ways that make sense. We employ technology, sound, visual aids, and modern vocabulary because without these things, we aren't very relevant! But as we do this, we must also keep the same message. We can change the wrapping, but the gift still needs to be the same.

It is with this understanding that I want to present something I wrote a few years ago regarding the Apostles' Creed. If you aren't familiar with it, or want to commit it to memory (a very good idea), I will include the text below.

No doubt, many of you who are reading this blog attend non-denominational churches. Churches like these are relatively new, historically speaking. They are usually independent congregations, made up of believers who come from every conceivable background. This tells me why some of my readers may be cautious about the study of doctrine. Their unity in Christ is precious. They want to guard it. Believers in these churches have enjoyed a generation of unity because they decided not to discuss doctrinal differences. The problem is, most of these churches have now come to the time when they must decide what to teach their children and new converts. Trying to meet this need often opens up the potential for disunity. When I served at a church in central Phoenix, this very dilemma pushed us towards a new and, for us, a surprising insight. We decided that if we could go back to the days before Christians began to divide from one another, back to the days before the great denominations were formed, we would find the common deposit of faith, the essence of "Mere Christianity. " We wanted to get in step with the steady beat of the Great Parade.

For three centuries after the death of the apostles, Christians struggled about what they believed. Even when the apostles were alive, Christians often disagreed among themselves over issues such as how to interpret various portions of the Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament). Then, immediately after the apostles, they argued about which writings should be included in the New Testament. Early Christians also held different beliefs about Christ. Some of these beliefs questioned the deity of Jesus Christ. Others questioned His humanity. Differences like these left Christians divided and discouraged.

To settle such issues, the Christians held special gatherings called councils. Christian churches all over the known world sent representatives to these meetings. In these councils, the believers worked to define and describe the doctrines that would be common to all Christians. The first of these councils is recorded in the Bible itself, in Acts, chapter 15. In the next few centuries there were several more church councils. In them, the Christians decided things like which writings would or would not be included in the New Testament, how much of Jewish practice would or would not be retained in the Christian Church, and what Christians would teach about Jesus Christ. Through the ages since, the overwhelming majority of Christians have agreed with the decisions these early councils made. They have played their music to the steady beat established in the church counsels. The decisions of these councils have stood the test of time through countless trials and tribulations. They are important to all of us.

The early councils struggled over how to describe Jesus Christ and the doctrines about Him. Their decisions were then worded in such a way that they could be memorized and used in public worship by common people. We call these doctrinal poems "creeds," since the first word in each of these doctrinal poems is the Latin word "credo," which means, "I believe."

The first and most important of these creeds is called the Apostles' Creed. No one knows for sure when it was written. We do know that Christians were quoting it in the second century. A couple of centuries later another important creed, called the Nicene Creed, was written. There are few Christians anywhere, with all our differences, who do not accept the doctrines that these creeds teach. So it is in these creeds that believers in Christ find their common doctrinal heritage. The creeds contain what C. S. Lewis meant by "Mere Christianity."

The Apostles' Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

*The word catholic refers to Christ's universal church, not to the Roman Catholic Church. You will often hear this replaced with 'holy Christian church' to promote clarity.

Is Creed A Good Thing?

I recently heard a story from a friend about something that took place in her church which absolutely baffled her. The pastor began a teaching series on the apostle’s creed. He walked the congregation through the meaning of each of the concepts of this ancient statement of faith. He even went so far as to explain the meaning of words that might be “offensive” to some of his congregants. My friend said that he did nothing more than lay out the basics of our faith in a clear and concise way. At the conclusion of this series the pastor asked his congregation to join him in affirming this creed together in their public worship service. After such thorough teaching there was now no reason for anyone to be confused about the truth claims of the creed. But before the congregation had finished the last line, a whole family of faithful congregants stood up and walked out of the service. They refused to be part of a church that used a written creed in their worship service. It’s absolutely amazing how many people question whether a creed is a good thing.

Is a Creed A Good Thing? (Taken from Twelve Drummers Drumming)

Perhaps you have heard people say something like, "Christians don’t need creeds, they don’t need doctrine! They just need to love Jesus!" I have certainly heard people talk like that. It sounds right until you ask, “What do you mean?” For if you ask a simple follow-up question like, "Who is Jesus?" he or she will, without fail, begin to unfold his or her own doctrine. For if, in trying to answer the question “who is Jesus,” he says something like “the Jesus of the Bible." You need merely ask, "And what does the Bible say about Jesus?" You will soon see that any answer he gives reveals his doctrinal viewpoint.

The fact is we all have doctrine! Our doctrine may be “homemade,” something we have pieced together ourselves from countless experiences, teachers, preachers, and personal feelings. Or, we may have learned much of our doctrine from some seasoned mentor. However we came up with it, we all have some sort of doctrinal system, formal or informal, that forms our practices and beliefs. The question is not whether we have doctrine or not. It is impossible not to have doctrine. For the conscientious Christian, the question is, How does my doctrine compare with what the Bible teaches and what the saints through the ages have believed? Am I marching to the steady beat, the common rhythm of my faith?

The family that walked out of my friend’s church did not understand what the pastor was trying to do. We live in an age that denies the existence of absolute truth with such loud shouts that it drowns out the music of our faith that has played through the centuries. That pastor was merely trying to beat the drums a little louder in order to help his people find their place in the music again.

I received this e-mail from a younger member of the congregation. As it raises some pertinent questions (and difficult ones at that!) I thought it might be some fodder for conversation. Please add your thoughts, and let's get some dialogue going!

Am I marching to the steady beat, the common rhythm of my faith?

This question leapt off the page when I began to read Twelve Drummers. Though I know the typical answers, I struggle with it nonetheless.

It is my experience that today’s society asks us to eschew labels and yet simultaneously embrace them. We desire to define ourselves by these labels, but not to be bound by them. I don’t think that churches are any different in this regard.

I have always attended a church. More often than not, it has been a quasi-charismatic, non-denominational, Evangelical church. These churches have been happy to tell me that Jesus is Lord, that Easter is about the Resurrection, and that the Bible is a very, very important read.
Beyond this, I’m sorry to say that there was little formal teaching. I gleaned things from Sunday School, VBS, and my Christian school Bible classes. I was left to the very differing whims of the Southern Baptist, ex-Pentecostal, and former Lutheran.

Upon meeting someone my age who was very catechized, I realized that my beliefs were…interesting. This is not to say that they were incorrect or even uninformed; no, they were just different from those of someone who served in the same realm of religious life that I did.

What I am trying to get at is that the churches I grew up in didn’t want to try too hard to be ‘penned in’ by the confines of an absolute catechism. I both appreciate and mourn this idea, and I believe that it has much to do with my level of difficulty with the aforementioned question.
I am surrounded by good, loving, Christian people of all colors and stripes. This adds to my life greatly. But it also means that I am sitting in the middle of a very mixed up pot of beliefs. Why does this matter?

Well, if we are trying to walk to the ‘common rhythm’ that the question presents, we have to come down to the bare minimum that the drummers are drumming!

If we have all manners of beliefs on who the Holy Spirit is and who is saved and what the process of sanctification includes and WHAT on EARTH should the choir wear for the Christmas concert, then we really have to simmer this pot down very, very low.

What we come down to are several things, and these things are usually those that are included in the Apostles’ Creed: Jesus was a man, Jesus was God, He died, He rose, and the other ‘basics’.

The problem is, if we only stick to these basics, we are left with a large problem.

Someone who is living a homosexual lifestyle can believe these things and yet, according to ‘mainstream’ Christianity, not be considered to be living within the Biblical framework that we are trying to uphold.

We can say that the issue of morality is not a salvific one. Indeed, if we are to be judged, we all fall miserably short. And yet, we know that it is important to try our best to adhere to Biblical principles on Christian living.

While even casually perusing the Bible, I can see many examples of how even the most conservative of modern Christians do not practice the ideas of the Old and New Testaments. We understand that some things were ‘for a time’, and that time has now passed. If you are a woman, you are most likely able to speak in church or hold a class in which you instruct women and men. This would not have been kosher, so to speak, during Biblical times.

How then do we know what to cast off and what to retain?

Commonality is a difficult thing to understand, as people and institutions are fickle by nature.
In order to march to a common beat, we need to carefully define what set of drummers we are following.

In today’s times, there are many people in the band, and it seems as if they all want to be in the drum core. I hear many beats, many rhythms, and many sounds that cause me to get lost.
Lately, it isn’t about staying away from those whose beliefs are widely different from our own. No, it is more important to know what subtleties and slightly varying scores will cause us to forget what tune we are supposed to be playing.