Posted on 04/22/2007 2:48:10 PM PDT by Zakeet
God has no gender. And the Lord? There's not much Lord in this church service.
At Tucson's largest Episcopal church, St. Philip's in the Hills, the creators of an alternative worship service called Come & See are bucking tradition by rewriting what have become prescribed ways of worship.
For the faithful, that means God isn't referred to as "him," and references to "the Lord" are rare. "Lord" has become a loaded word conveying hierarchical power over things, "which in what we have recorded in our sacred texts, is not who Jesus understood himself to be," St. Philip's associate rector Susan Anderson-Smith said.
"The way our service reads, the theology is that God is love, period," St. Philip's deacon Thomas Lindell added. "Our service has done everything it can to get rid of power imagery. We do not pray as though we expect the big guy in the sky to come and fix everything."
St. Philip's isn't the only local church to re-examine its language. Other local religious leaders already are eschewing the use of "Lord" for similar reasons. First Congregational United Church of Christ in Midtown even has a different name for The Lord's Prayer. They call it "The Prayer of Our Creator."
"We do still use the word 'Lord' on occasion, but we are suspicious of it," First Congregational pastor Briget Nicholson said. "Inclusive language is important. Our United Church of Christ hymnal does have hymns that will say 'Father' and 'God.' but the next verse will always then say 'Mother' and 'God.' It's gender-balanced."
(Excerpt) Read more at azstarnet.com ...
I am not sure, but I know C.S. Lewis did. The whole Lord, Liar, or Lunatic argument. If Christ is a good teacher, then He must also be the Christ, and thus, LORD. Otherwise, he is just a liar or lunatic. But it seems many “Christians” have embraced the concept of Christ as a good life teacher, but lets not talk about Him being the Son of God.
Ping!
Careful. You might have some Romans after you with that line of reasoning....
Yesterday I read about a married couple so progressive that the wife not only kept her maiden name, but their daughters carried the mother’s name and their sons carried their dad’s.
It’s sort of like building divorce in as you go along, I guess.
God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has three answers to prayer:
Yes,
No,
Not now.
**Tradition (heresy older than fifty years} is just as good.**
Where are you getting this idea? Sounds anti-Catholic to me.
Not reasoning, just reporting. Christianity encompasses so many conflicting claims, it’s easy to get folks all stirred up.
**Tradition (heresy older than fifty years} is just as good.**
Tradition has a lot to do with it. Stories about Christ were passed down orally (this is what tradition means) and finally written down around 80-90 when the apostles started to die.
We would NOT have a Bible if it were not for this oral tradition of the Catholic Church.
My fault for sounding narrow. Anti-religion is apt.
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The way I read this is Jesus is LORD. Every knee will bow, either voluntarily or otherwise, and confess that JESUS CHRIST is LORD.
I choose to bow my knee voluntarily now and forevermore.
Thank you, LORD!
Christ is the King of Kings.
I don't know which sacred text they are referring to. Mine says that all power and judgment over this world was given to Jesus Christ by the Father. They must have a special version of the Bible.
Read Ezekiel 34 and weep those who profess to shepherd the sheep.
"Gender-balanced". Barf. These leftists make me ill, wanting to make God what they want Him to be.
This is nothing but an attempt at relief of guilt.
“Our service has done everything it can to get rid of power imagery. We do not pray as though we expect the big guy in the sky to come and fix everything.”
I understand how they would like this. I mean, all that pesky Christian activist stuff is so much easier to handle when you picture God as useless and weak.
“Lord” has become a loaded word conveying hierarchical power over things.....
^^
Well, moron, are any of us on His level?
And God is a He whether girl ministers like it or not.
And my Buddy said, go and be fruitful in my name?
Somehow it doesn’t have the same power to move me.
Yeah, they don’t like the term “the LORD” because it’s in the US Constitution, if they get rid of the term, it makes the liberal denial even easier for them.
Sounds like those folks just needed a hall for a get together, instead of a ‘church’.
It would be interesting to see their version of the scriptures; It must have taken them years to get everything down to one paragraph; Or maybe a sentence “I will not serve”, or one word “Me”.
P.S. On the tradition question.
Same place sola scriptura came from. That ‘by word’ part is a problem.
...we might as well just start worshiping Gaia.
&&
Ah, now your on the track they’d like you to be on. If you were serious, I’ll bet they’d love you at this church.
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