This is a Joke, Right?
From The Daily Mail (UK):
Outcry as Clergy Say Calling God 'He' or 'Lord' Encourages Wife-Beating(emphasis added)
Church of England leaders warned yesterday that calling God 'He' encourages men to beat their wives.
They told churchgoers they must think twice before they refer to God as 'He' or 'Lord' because of the dangers that it will lead to domestic abuse.
In new guidelines for bishops and priests on such abuse, they blamed "uncritical use of masculine imagery" for encouraging men to behave violently towards women.
They also warned that clergy must reconsider the language they use in sermons and check the hymns they sing to remove signs of male oppression.
The recommendation - fully endorsed by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams - puts a question mark over huge swathes of Christian teaching and practice.
It throws doubt on whether the principal Christian prayer should continue to be known as the Lord's Prayer and begin 'Our Father'.
***
"... the idea of God as "Lord" may be used in harsh and domineering ways."
[More]
My Comments:
You know, because only traditional Christians beat their wives.
That reminds me ... I fully intended to smack Sarah across the mouth after the Kyrie this past Sunday. All that "Lord have mercy" stuff just makes me feel so superior.
posted by Pro Ecclesia 1:43 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
No, it's ordaining women as priests and bishops that makes me violently angry.
But the Extraordinary Wife isn't the one I want to take it out on.
What do you expect from a religion founded upon the principals of divorce? Wife beating and divorce seem to have a logical correlation to each other.
Of course it's not a joke. Newspaper stories are always 100% accurate when they report what you want to believe. Uncanny, isn't it?
This ultra-ridiculous Church of England report (and what isn't ultra-ridiculous coming out of the Church of England these days?) also says that the traditional marriage vow whereby a wife promises to obey her husband should be scrapped, because that also encourages wife-beating.
'Anonymous' would obviously like to believe that the story is untrue, so clearly thinks the Daily Mail has got it 100% wrong. Unfortunately for him/her, the story also appears in the Daily Telegraph, and I have seen a copy of the report itself (it is available at http:// www.cofe.anglican.org/info/papers/domesticabuse.pdf). It is every bit as daft and politically correct as the Daily Mail maintains, in spite of an attempted rebuttal by the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Rev Graham James (see the news section of the website).
Try this for size: 'many conceptions of God derived from the Bible and the Christian tradition have portrayed divine power in unhealthy and oppressive ways... When used as a model for human relationships, this emphasizes authority and obedience at the expense of mutuality. In combination with uncritical use of masculine imagery to characterize God, it can validate overbearing and ultimately violent patterns of behaviour in intimate relationships. The "post-Christian" feminist Mary Daly had a point... when she said in the 1970s, "If God is male, then the male is God."' (Responding to domestic abuse, Appendix 1: 'Harmful theology'.)
Daily Mail. Daily Telegraph. Two of the LEAST respected papers in Britain. Surely, God is not he or her, but it?
God must be beyond sexuality?
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