Is God male? The Episcopal Church debates whether to change its Book of Common Prayer.

[DonViejo]

By Julie Zauzmer THE WASHINGTON POST JULY 03, 2018

The terms for God, in the poetic language of the prayers written for centuries, have almost always been male: Father. King. Lord. And in the Episcopal Church, the language of prayer matters. The Book of Common Prayer, the text used in every Episcopal congregation, is cherished as a core element of Episcopal identity.

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.

‘‘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.

-snip-

The leaders of the Episcopal Church, the American denomination that descended from the Church of England but has long been separate from its British mother church, will consider two dueling resolutions at their triennial convention, which began Tuesday in Austin and runs through next week.

One resolution calls for a major overhaul of the Book of Common Prayer, which was last revised in 1979. A wholesale revision would take years, the church says, meaning a new prayer book wouldn’t be in use until 2030.

Switching to gender-neutral language is the most commonly mentioned reason to make the change, but many 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.

The competing resolution says that the church should not update the Book of Common Prayer now, and should instead spend the next three years intensively studying the existing book, which has its roots in the first Anglican prayer book, published under the same title in 1549. In the decades since the 1979 prayer book, the Episcopal church has published numerous authorized alternative texts, which bishops can choose to let priests use alongside the Book of Common Prayer. Chicago Bishop Jeffrey Lee and other advocates of keeping the current prayer book say these alternate service materials are sufficient, for now, for priests who want the option of gender-neutral texts.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/07/03/god-male-the-episcopal-church-debates-whether-change-its-book-common-prayer/2kQ2oypOMpkzWKCh5xWwUN/story.html

[Zambero]

1. An essential ingredient for any made-up god

Attribute a set of physical human qualities, of which gender (preferably male) tops the list. An angry, jealous, and vengeful god requires an abundance of testosterone after all.

[Freddie]

2. The Episcopal Church

Like the ELCA, UCC and others, is one of the good ones.
My daughter has the "What to Expect" books. The author alternates pronouns (he-she, hers-his etc) when referring to a baby or child. I think that approach could be used in the Church, referring to God, as well.

[MineralMan]

3. In a patriarchal religion, of course the deity is male.

People create deities to match their culture. If the culture were matriarchal, God would look like this:

[Major Nikon]

4. All sorts of patriarchal cultures have had female gods

You find them all over the world throughout all of recorded history.

What’s far less common is to find gods that lack gender. In a monotheistic religion, why would god have gender at all? The obvious answer is humans created deities from their own images, not the other way around.

[Act_of_Reparation]

5. Polytheistic cultures, sure.

I can't think of a single monotheistic religion with a female deity.

[Major Nikon]

6. Some who adhere to Judaism and Christianity consider god to be feminine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhinah

[Act_of_Reparation]

7. Sounds kind of like Hinduism...

...in that the singlar deity has a masculine aspect and a feminine aspect, each distinct from each other. It's not clear the degree to which this interpretation is adhered. It looks more like a fringe, Kabbalistic interpretation of the term.

[Mariana]

8. Some Trinitarians say the Holy Spirit

is or represents the female or feminine aspect of God, or some such thing. There's no support in the Bible for this kind of belief, as far as I know. The story says the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, which would tend to indicate that the Holy Spirit is male.

[Major Nikon]

9. The reference I gave is where it comes from

When you start believing in poltergeists impregnating humans, I suppose other biological technicalities like gender just aren't all that relevant, mysterious ways and all.

[MineralMan]

10. Well, there is no shortage of female deities in polytheistic religions.

Aside from Hinduism, though, there aren't many of those religions left that have large numbers of adherents.

The monotheistic religions have pretty much been reduced to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which more or less share a single male deity. Of course in some Christian denominations but not all, that deity is actually a Trinity of deities, but they, too, are generally referred to as males, with some rare exceptions. As far as major deistic religions today are concerned, only Hinduism retains a polytheistic belief, and there are certainly female deities in Hinduism.

[Voltaire2]

11. Some Hindus will tell you that their religion is monotheistic.

That all of what we think are gods are just different aspects of Brahman.

Makes about as much sense as trinitarianism.

I personally think all gods are 7-gendered wombats.

[MineralMan]

12. For me, all deities are part of the null or empty set.

And there it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_set

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. Black and brown wombats?

Or brown and gray wombats?

[Voltaire2]

14. southern hairy-nosed wombat

Thought that was obvious.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. HERETIC!

The northern hairy-nosed wombats are the true wombat gods! Recant, heathen!