The Deposit of Faith and Inclusive Language
Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
July 11, 2018
“Almighty
and Everlasting God, you gave to your apostles grace truly to believe and to
preach your Word. Grant that we may love
what they believed and preach what they taught, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.” (adapted from BCP p. 243)
At the 79th General
Convention of The Episcopal Church meeting this last week in Austin, much has
been said, proposed, and voted concerning possible revision of the Prayer Book
and our need, while remaining true to the faith passed on to us from those who
have gone before, to use inclusive and expansive language for humanity and
divinity in our worship. The House of
Deputies seemed more willing to pursue revision, albeit with an amendment requiring
that any draft revision respect the basic orthodoxy outlined in the Chicago-Lambeth
Quadrilateral statement of our ecumenical principles. The House of Bishops was less than sanguine
about starting a process of revision immediately that promises to be
contentious and divisive.
The issue of
gender inclusive/expansive language for the Divine is not simply resolved, since such basic
elements of our faith as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” “Our Father, who art
in heaven,” and “the Lord is his name” all use male-centered imagery and
words.
Many of the liturgical enhancements
proposed in recent years in such works as Enriching
our Worship seek to address the issue.
But these have been criticized on occasion precisely for seeming to sacrifice
Trinitarian doctrine and scripturally-based language for God on the altar of
interest group politics. It was Jesus,
after all, who taught us to call God “Father.”
Phrases such as “Creator, Redeemer, Life-Giver,” or “Earth Maker, Pain
Bearer, and Life Giver” complicate the matter because they see the One God in
three distinct roles or functions rather than three persons in interrelationship,
one being. The early Church Councils rightly
or wrongly labelled such a way of speaking of God as heresy: modalism or
Sabellianism. Scriptural passages abound that suggest that all or any of these roles were played by all or any of the Three.
The fact is, there are plenty of
scriptural images of God that are feminine as well as masculine: a hen gathering her chicks, a mother giving
birth or nursing children, etc. The
well-known “All Mighty” replicates the Latin Omnipotens, itself a translation of the Greek Pantokrator, “the one who holds all things in hand,” which itself translates the mysterious Hebrew El Shaddai, the God of the Two Mounds,
probably a reference to a mother’s breasts.
The best way to render it to my mind is “the All Nurturing.” Sophia,
or Lady Wisdom, is a common image for God in the late books of the Old
Testament. Even the word for “Spirit,” though
in Greek neuter pneuma, in Hebrew, ruach, is feminine.
As for gender inclusive Trinitarian
formulas that are faithful to the tradition and are doctrinally sound, I prefer
one from Saint Augustine that you may have heard me use in the Benediction at
the end of Eucharist: “The Holy and Triune God: Lover, Beloved, and Love
itself.” This combines a Greek Orthodox formula with Augustine’s idea his great Treatise On the Trinity that God is love and that
this is implicitly Trinitarian: “Now when I, who am asking about this, love
anything, there are three things present: I myself, what I love, and love
itself. For I cannot love love unless I love a lover; for there is no love
where nothing is loved. So there are three things: the lover, the beloved and
the love itself.”
It is important to be true to the
faith once given us. It is also important
to follow the Holy Spirit as she leads us into new perspectives and
understandings, and more just and welcoming patterns of behavior and
worship. Stay tuned for more on what
action is taken or deferred by GC79.
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
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