Naming God in the ELCA

8/19/2018

Some ELCA pastors go out of their way to avoid using male pronouns and words for God. Some decide they will address God using female pronouns and words:

ELCA Bishop Guy Erwin tweets this:

In an article in the ELCA's Living Lutheran magazine titled, "God or mother? Both"
we read, “The metaphor of God the Father is not enough for me now. I now see God as the Mother.” (see here and see the end of this article for a response from Rev. Tom Brock)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America seminary, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, posted an article that says this, “So we decided to appeal directly to the Holy Spirit and the power of God and wait to see what She did.” (see here)

A God who is known by her handiwork… her creative genius… her wisdom and skill that gave birth to a complex and... https://t.co/PHxElKU2c0
— First Lutheran, Lynn (@flclynnma) May 26, 2016

The above tweet by First Lutheran in Lynn, Massachusetts, posts a quote from their pastor Pr. Jon Niketh's sermon (at the 7 minute mark):

“A God who is known by her handiwork… her creative genius… her wisdom and skill that gave birth to a complex and beautiful universe..." (see here)

5 Comments

Steve Hedlund

8/20/2018 03:29:28 pm

Those who opt for no pronouns claim somehow to be "de-sexing" God or something like that. They don't seem to realize that more fundamentally they are de-personalizing him. One cannot imagine a personality without first assigning sex to that personality. There is no such thing a personality without sex. Its sex is the most distinguishing characteristic of any personality. The only things that come close are age and race. Just listen to any police report looking for and describing a suspect. It will typically say they are looking, for example, for a white male in his thirties, or something like that. To imagine any personality is first to imagine a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. "Parent," for another example, doesn't describe any personality, but one of two personalities (we human creatures all have two "parents"), and to know which one of the two is at issue, one needs first of all to know the sex.

Many of today's enlightened teachers "know" that referring to God in masculine terms is dated at best, and that he shouldn't be thought of or spoken of in masculine terms (it is also sad that the English language has also been affected first by confusing sex with gender and then opting to combine the two concepts using the word for "gender" for both of them).

Ohers who refer to God in feminine terms are re-gendering him (“gender” being used in its former sense, which was not to equate it with sex-- although I'm not sure how they understand "gender"). Either way, whether de-sexing or re-gendering him, they play fast and loose with revelation.

They all seem to claim that they have a better grasp on Yahweh than those of earlier, more primitive times. Worse: they seem to claim that we get to imagine God according to our own proclivities, regardless of revelation, and that our imaginations will give us better understandings-- at least for "us" (and, isn't that what really counts?).

My response is that on the mountain Moses saw God and spoke with him, and Moses referred to God in masculine terms. On account of Moses' encounter with the Holy One, his whole countenance was so bright that the people had to put a bag over his head, just to be able to look at him.

Until we have to put bags over the heads of our present-day enlightened ones on account of the brilliance of their enlightenment, I'm going with Moses.

George Timothy Rahn

8/22/2018 09:06:25 am

Good comments here. Thanks and keep on keepin' on here with the critique of the pronoun craziness in God language. Has Christianity forgotten about Jesus and Our Father in heaven? Seems so.

Didaskalos

8/20/2018 04:51:01 pm

Jesus gets the first and last word on pronouns for His Father. Not that it matters to the we-know-better-than-Jesus ELCA, of course.

"My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word" [John 8:54b-55]

Masculine pronoun purges aren't new to the ELCA. From a blog post a number of years ago entitled "Is God Still Father?" by Pastor Eric:

"The prize for not using a pronoun for God has to go to Bishop Mark Hanson, who recently said in a statement to the ELCA News Service, 'You can bet your life that God will be faithful to God's promise, because God bet the life of Jesus on God's faithfulness...' It seem to me that Bishop Hanson should use a pronoun when Bishop Hanson speaks about God or Bishop Hanson might confuse Bishop Hanson's listeners."

Dave from Minnesota

8/21/2018 11:40:38 am

Sounds like the ELCA is only a couple of steps away from replacing God altogether with a New Age religion. Where they worship Mother Earth. The remaining members will say they are “spiritual, not religious”.

Alf

8/21/2018 01:02:26 pm

Dave nailed it.

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Naming God in the ELCA

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Dan Skogen

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