Posted on 06/21/2006 10:39:16 AM PDT by MountainMenace
Quote from the Morning Eucharist Sermon on June 21, 2006 (at General Convention 2006) by Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori:
"Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation -- and you and I are His children."
(Excerpt) Read more at americananglican.org ...
This "woman" has a serious mental problem and no doubt belongs in the "new" Episcopal Church as a bishopette.
Aside from the obvious lunacy, what is the point of calling Jesus mother and then talking about "His" children?
Here is the full quote for those (most) who won't read the whole thing.
"That bloody cross brings new life into this world. Colossians calls Jesus the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn from the dead. That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained labor of the cross bears new life. Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation -- and you and I are His children. If we're going to keep on growing into Christ-images for the world around us, we're going to have to give up fear."
It's called a "metaphor". You may have heard the teacher mention it in school at some point. It won't hurt you.
Because men don't normally give birth, but that's the metaphor in use here.
I know around here people are a lot more comfortable with absolutely literal writing. :)
It's so cute when kiddies play religion.
Calling it by its "part of speech" name doesn't make it correct and proper.
Even lunatics can use metaphors.
Not normally. :)
I read the whole thing and it is the same bilge it has always been. At root is the total offensive of feminism on the church. They cannot stand a Bible that is not gender-neutral. What about you?
IMHO, when you notice you have written "our mother Jesus," you giggle at yourself and find a different metaphor.
Oh, as a sermon, it's not great writing, by any means. I've heard the difference in the pulpit, as I'm sure you have.
I've never seen a gender-neutral Bible, personally. The only really modern translation I've seen is the "New English" Bible from about 35 years ago, and I didn't much care for it. I also can't stand the vernacular American ones that try to sound like Billy Graham wrote the whole "thang".
Bizarre metaphors serve no useful purpose. They only create doubt in the listeners or readers mind as to the thought processes of the creator of the attempted metaphor. In this case one has to wonder; how serious this bishop is in her office? Is she there to save souls or advance a social agenda?
Yes, it's a metaphor. Just like homosexual marriage is a metaphor for heterosexual marriage.
I don't know, since, like you, I just heard of her for the first time a couple of days ago.
Wow, you're good. I didn't see THAT in the sermon at all!
You never heard of "The Mothers of Invention"?
She's even better - I don't see God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit referred to as "Mother" (or anything feminine, for that matter) anywhere in the Bible, Sacred Tradition, etc.
I think you saw what you wanted to see. To defend this as a " metaphor" in a dismissive tone shows just what track you are on.
How preposterous!!
In the current state of the Episcopal Church, in the current controversy over matters of sex and gender and who can do what to whom, in a communion where 60 years ago my parents could not get married in a church because my father was divorced "with a wife still living" but now divorce approaches being a norm for bishops, to initiate her ministry as Presdiding Bishop by making that unoriginal, cheap, but scandalous rhetorical trick is to throw down the gauntlet.
If Osama makes metaphors about, say, beheading or driving planes into skyscrapers, I'm going to get edgy and kind of inch toward the door. If a new Presiding Bishopette who clearly doesn't get what a "vow" is or have a whole lot of luck with the whole marriage/sex thing but who is confident that it's okay to make a bishop of an alcoholic who leaves his family because that's not where his sexual fulfillment lies ... if such a person makes such a metaphor, it ain't a metaphor, it's a preview.
The nice men in the white coats should be arriving any minute now.
OK, at least make the pronoun agree with the noun. If it's mother Jesus then the sentence should read ......and you and I are her children.
On the other hand if it's father Jesus then it should read "his children".
The theological whackiness is too ridiculous to even address, leaving aside the historical lunacy which ignores the fact that Jesus was a man, born of a mother, Mary.
Still, if we can get the English correct, we'll have achieved something for this woman is too far gone to hold out much hope of achieving anything on the theology issue.
It's called "stick-in-the-eye" political correctness. It was meant as a slam against the traditionalists who are quite offended by her.
You obviously haven't been following all the lunacy occuring in this "church" or you would know this goes far beyond being a metaphorf. Try and keep up
I think you care about it a lot more than I do.
I believe I am the only graduating seminarian anywhere or anywhen to have nominated Frank Zappa to give the commencement address. But I believe in that connection, Zappa, pbuh, was using mother in the same sense in which it was used in my direction by the gentlemen who, by waving a club at me, prompted me to draw my weapon and offer him a barrel-end view of just how wide .357 caliber is. It was used, as they say, as, ah, "half a word".
The whole word, now, that MAY have been intended as a metaphor ....
I referred to it that way because some of these modern versions go overboard to be "folksy", and end up sounding more like Brer Rabbit than anything else.
"the current controversy over matters of sex and gender and who can do what to whom"
I agree that's overblown.
"in a communion where 60 years ago my parents could not get married in a church because my father was divorced "with a wife still living" "
That was wrong too.
Oh, I'm a member of it, so I think I have some slight idea that General Convention is going on. A "metaphorf" is new to me, though.
I've not seen the direct quote, but one of the other websites said that in a recent interview Schori denied eternal life. So that pretty much answers your question about 'saving souls.' In her theology there is no "save" and there are no "souls."
Like "curiosity is the mother of invention"? Sure. But people like Franklin and Edison are always referred to as "The Father of ..." I've never in my life heard of a man being referred to as the "Mother of..." Again, its pointless, as "father" has the same connotation.
Are Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc. referred to as the "Founding Mothers"?
Actually, it's necessity that's the mother of invention, but in this case, I was referring to Frank Zappa and his band, The Mothers of Invention, all of whom were male.
Like most jokes, once it has to be explained, it dies. :)
Somehow I think Zappa meant "mothers" as a short form of a longer, male-gendered, term.
Appearances are it was a gender-based selection. With an 'in your face' for good measure.
I apologize for my lack of "necessity" and for ruining your joke. I'm afraid I've never even listened to a Frank Zappa song.
Well, actually I don't think so. He made vows which are intrinsically and explicitly exclusive and comprehensive. "forsaking all others" "For better for worse" and so forth.
But what is pretty clearly wrong is the way TEC jerks people around based (these days) on the opinion of a few people high up in the heirarchy who have no intention of following either the vows they made or canons with which they disagree. When one of the politburo at 815 told me that breaking the canons was the way they "made theology" was when I decided that if they didn't mean my ordination vows, it was probably okay for me not to keep them -- and I became Catholic.
Back in 1989, when I got married, we couldn't get married in the Episcopal church because we were both divorced. What a bunch of hypocrits they turned out to be. The rector and assistants all got divorced there. Now I don't go there thanks goodness.
Many religions use those terms. They are not the exclusive property of the Roman Catholic church.
Well put. I call B.S. too. Very B.S. The lady bishop is trying to be provocative. Using B.S. to create a stir. Whole lot B.S.
Typical confusion and concocted theology when they lose sight of Traditional theology.
The 'Birth-giver', the Mother of God brought forth the Son of God, the Creator. This is why she has been venerated by Christians for 2,000 years.
If this Bishopesse-elect studied Orthodox/Catholic doctrine and imagery, she'd not have to mix genders to get her point across.
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