Our Parental Unit, Who art in Heaven...

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has decided to change “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” in many of its prayers to “Holy Eternal Majesty, Holy Incarnate Word, and Holy Abiding Spirit.” This is done in an attempt to be more inclusive. Never mind that Jesus was a man, the Son of God, and referred to God as “Father” (actually “Abba,” which is better translated as “Daddy”).

Obviously, our human words are woefully inadequate when it comes to describing our relationships with and our experiences of the Divine. Like Newtonian Physics, our words work perfectly for the mundane, but they break down in the extremes. Often, the English language gets lambasted for being “sexist,” though I don’t think it is any more sexist than any other language. In fact, it is less sexist. At least we have gender-neutral plural nouns, such as “children.” Take for example Latin, where the term for “boy” is “puer,” “girl” is “puella,” but “children” is “pueri.” Nonetheless, the dominance of gender hinders our language when we attempt to discuss the Nature of God.

But, isn’t this action by the ELCA taking political correctness a little too far? I hate to break it to you, but God is not politically correct. For example, remember when President Bush said after 9/11, “if you’re not with us, you’re against us?” He was called undiplomatic and divisive for using that phrase. But, it wasn’t his phrase. He was quoting Christ who said, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matt 12:30). A loving God, yes, but not very P.C.

But, here’s the question we should now ask ourselves. If we should not refer to God as “Father,” can we still refer to the Church as the “bride of Christ?” Or will the New Jerusalem be located in San Francisco?

My problem with using gender-neutral language when referring to God is not that it is factually or doctrinally wrong, but that it denies the personality of God. I use “it” to refer to my toaster, not my God. Even my cat gets to be called “she.” Does not my God deserve the same? I know God isn’t really a “he,” but unfortunately I have no other pronoun to use. Again, our human words are inadequate, and we must make do with what we have.

This story also illustrates the limitations of the top-down structure of the Lutheran Church and others like it. If a believer in a Baptist church preferred to say “Holy Eternal Majesty” rather than “Father” in his prayers, there would be no need for a massive, denomination-wide meeting to ordain such a practice, he would simply say that in his prayer.

–J.E. Heath
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