Praying To Mother God in Today's ELCA Worship Services

7/18/2016

(The following article was written a couple weeks ago by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and twitter - here.)

Today's ELCA "Prayer of the Day" went like this:

"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, you are the city that shelters us, the mother who comforts us..."

I know of no verse that calls God our "city". There are a few feminine metaphors for God in the Bible (like Isaiah 66:13) but nowhere does the Bible encourage us to pray to God as our mother. Later in the service a prayer addressed God as "Gentle grower". Again, there is no verse that calls God our "Gentle grower."

What is going on? I think perhaps this is part of the "Reimagining God" mindset. Feminists from around the country years ago came to Minneapolis for the "Reimagining God" Conference. The conference encouraged the Church to rid itself of oppressive, patriarchal, and exclusively masculine images for God. Instead, we are free to invent and imagine new images for God. So instead of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" we get "Mother, City, Gentle Grower."

And, as always, ELCA prayers were made today for the well-being of the environment. But I am still waiting for one prayer in the ELCA's "Prayers of the Church" to mention the salvation of the lost. When prayers for the environment are weekly and prayers for the salvation of the lost are non-existent, something has gone very, very wrong.

In Jesus our Savior,

Pastor Tom Brock
pastorsstudy.org

2 Comments

Mike Rostad

7/21/2016 09:00:56 am

Prayer for salvation of the lost is not consistent with the post-Christian ELCA. "Salvation" is the political and social wellbeing of people now. They have become "the lost"

Stephen

7/25/2016 08:52:11 am

I formerly attended the "Lutheran" Theological Seminary at Gettysburg before dropping out after the 2009 ELCA vote on sexuality and after waking up and seeing how far ELCA strays form scripture and the Confessions. During my time at the seminary, the "pastor" from Her Church, came into our seminary to give a lecture. That alone is bad enough. But she also gave out what she called "goddess rosaries". They were beads you would use to pray the "goddess rosary" to the goddess Sophia. I understand that historically Celtic, Germanic, and Greek cultures had goddess worship, but that doesn't mean they respected women MORE. If you want to truly respect women in the church, try giving them key doctrines of salvation so that they be SAVED. That's how you truly love the women of the church.

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Praying To Mother God in Today's ELCA Worship Services

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