God’s Pronouns

There is a trend – perhaps it can be called a movement – for people to identify the pronouns that they prefer to be used for themselves.  If I was going to identify which pronouns I prefer, I would out (he/him) after my name.  To be clear I am using this to illustrate the issue and not to indicate that I will start  doing this.  This probably means I am not ready to begin doing so at this time.  I may start doing this at some time in the future but I am not at that place yet. 

That raises for me, the issue of what pronoun we should use when referring to God?  It has been the practice throughout the history of Christianity to refer to God as him (sometimes capitalized Him).  This use is, of course, supported by Jesus Christ himself (note the pronoun), when he referred to God as Father (at least in translation), or his heavenly Father, especially in the prayer that he taught us – the Lord’s prayer. 

I raised this issue in a sermon I preached this past Sunday when I raised the issue of our tendency to put restrictions on our idea and understanding of who and what God is.  To think of God as Father, and use the pronoun He for God, is to put God in a box and to restrict our understanding of God.  As I noted in my sermon, God is beyond anything that we can do to describe or identify God.  We are limited by our humanness so; however we think of God, God is beyond our definitions or descriptions.  Theologians have been exploring this for millennia in more ways than most of us can imagine.  Indeed, if we look to the Bible, we will find innumerable ways in which the people of God have described God.  Here are only a few examples: Abba, Adonai, El Shaddai, Elohim, El, Yahweh.  Of course, we can describe God as The Force a la Star Wars to move beyond the bible.

Beyond names, God is also given characteristics that can be seen as feminine (I found these on the internet):

• God comforts his people like a mother comforts her child (Isaiah 66:13)
• Like a woman would never forget her nursing child, God will not forget his children (Isaiah 49:15)
• God is like a mother eagle hovering over her young (Deuteronomy 32:11)
• God seeks the lost like a housekeeper, trying to find her lost coin (Luke 15:8-10)
• God cares for his people like a midwife that cares for the child she just delivered (Ps 22:9-10, Ps 71:6, Isa 66:9)
• God experiences the fury of a mother bear robbed of her cubs (Hosea 13:8)

It is not wrong to describe God as masculine and use the pronoun Him and all its derivations.  God can be described as masculine.  However, in doing that we need to remember that we are limiting God just as we do if we describe God as feminine (Her) or in any other way.  God is beyond any description we can use for God.  He/She/It…and so on, is perhaps necessary for us limited people to try and understand God.  However, let’s try not to put God in a box and limit God for convenience or any other reason.  It’s not fair to God or yourself or others.

Blessings 

 

Evangelism Today Part Two

Last week I wrote about Evangelism in our multicultural, multifaith and secular world and how Christians and particularly Anglicans should approach evangelism.  The Anglican Church of Canada supports and encourages an ecumenical and multifaith approach and I proposed that we should focus on our actions to show the world “we are Christians by our love” of others as our neighbours, whether or not they are neighbours that we are comfortable with.

I noted that this week I want to explore one way which is very helpful on the approach we can use in interfaith dialogue; work done by the Snowmass Conference.  I was not aware of this organization before hearing about it a few weeks ago from Richard Rohr. 

In 1984 Father Thomas Keating invited a small group of contemplatives from eight different religious traditions—Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic, Native American, Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic—to gather at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, to engage in what he called “a big experiment.”

The Snowmass Conference Eight Points of Agreement

1.      The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate Reality, to which they give various names.
 

2.      Ultimate Reality cannot be limited by any name or concept.
 

3.      Ultimate Reality is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization.
 

4.      Faith is opening, accepting, and responding to Ultimate Reality. Faith in this sense precedes every belief system.
 

5.      The potential for human wholeness—or, in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transcendence, transformation, blessedness—is present in every human being.
 

6.      Ultimate Reality may be experienced not only through religious practices but also through nature, art, human relationships, and service to others.
 

7.      As long as the human condition is experienced as separate from Ultimate Reality, it is subject to ignorance and illusion, weakness and suffering.
 

8.      Disciplined practice is essential to the spiritual life; yet spiritual attainment is not the result of one’s own efforts, but the result of the experience of oneness with Ultimate Reality.

In closing, I would point our that throughout Human history, God has been given many names which have attempted to capture the ineffable nature of God.  This has been true within our Judaeo-Christian history from El to YHWH (Yahweh which was transcribed as Jehovah), to Our Heavenly Father.  This might make an interesting subject to write abut another time. 

However, Ultimate Reality is, I believe, as good an expression of the ineffable nature of God as any.  The eight points of agreement are a good way to begin conversations on an  interfaith and ecumenical basis.

Blessings on your journey.