Is misogyny related to homophobia? We have long noticed that the leading spokesmen against the ELCA gay-friendly policies often sound sexist tones in their rhetoric. That trend continues with the Lutheran CORE response to the Rite of Reconciliation service in California last week.
The blog of Lutheran CORE offered the following commentary yesterday:
A worship service formally receiving seven gay and lesbian persons as ELCA pastors included elements that many Lutherans would find offensive or even heretical.
The service also included elements of pagan and goddess worship (emphasis added) reflecting the practice of some of the congregations of the new ELCA pastors.
What the blogger referred to as “pagan and goddess worship” were prayers that recognized feminine and other images of the divine. I guess that can be pretty scary to the patriarchy.
Here are the offending prayers; is this pagan and goddess worship?
Our Mother who is within us we celebrate your many names. Your wisdom come, your will be done, unfolding from the depths within us. Each day you give us all that we need. You remind us of our limits and we let go. You support us in our power and we act in courage. For you are the dwelling place within us, the empowerment around us, and the celebration among us, now and forever. Amen.
God, lover of us all, most holy one, help us to respond to you to create what you want for us here on earth. Give us today enough for our needs; forgive our weak and deliberate offenses, just as we must forgive others when they hurt us. Help us to resist evil and to do what is good; For we are yours, endowed with your power to make our world whole. Amen.
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven. The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the people of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth! With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.
While the image of God as father may be the most prevalent Biblical metaphor for the ineffable and transcendent YHWH whose name shall not be spoken, it is not exclusive. The esteemed scholar of the Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann, suggests “No noun for Yahweh can be taken at face value; each must be attended to in its rich, contextual density”, and Brueggemann offers the following lists (The Theology of the Old Testament, pp 233-263):
Old Testament metaphors of governance
- Yahweh as judge
- Yahweh as king
- Yahweh as warrior
- Yahweh as father
Old Testament metaphors of sustenance:
- Yahweh as artist
- Yahweh as healer
- Yahweh as gardener-vinedresser
- Yahweh as mother
- Yahweh as shepherd
The Hebrew reluctance to name the one who cannot be named is rooted in the understanding that to name and define is to domesticate and control. How revealing is it that CORE would claim a metaphor of control as the sole and exclusive way of speaking about the divine? Is it “pagan and goddess worship” to call on other metaphors, especially those of sustenance?
Could Luther have been wrong or at least negligent ? For several years I have puzzled over the Lutheran versions of the first and second commandments. In many other denominations- the second commandment talks about not making graven images or worshiping other gods. With Buddists, Hindus, Asian religions coming into this country, are Lutherans really understanding what God said about worshiping other gods ? With the liberal influence in some of the ELCA confirmation materials, I doubt that some of our people even know what other gods are. In my own confirmation, it was anything you put ahead of God in your life ( and that was Concordia material). So is it any wonder that God can be called Mother–( which is ok with me because God is a Spirit) and that the hymnbook is getting liberalized to the point of distortion. I note the same inclusion of Mother in some of the alternative prayers in the UCC book. I heard it at a Christian Science funeral. One pastor we had just called God – God. That might be a good idea.
Unless we are going to outlaw televisions and radios from our homes, we will have to put up with all sorts of “pagan” things in our culture. Let us live together in harmony as long as our religions point us in the way of peace, but let us teach our children what other gods are.
Lilly, you are correct in quoting Luther: our God is what we treasure, what we base on our faith and life upon.
But God as mother, God as feminine? Is that paganism, is that idolatry?
Shall we check the scripture? As a rule I cringe when prooftexting,
but the proof is in the pudding:
Isaiah 49: 14- 15: “Zion said: ‘The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you..'”
Sounds like a pretty feminine image for God from the words of a prophet.
Again Isaiah 66:12-13: ” ..thus says the Lord..As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you..”
Again a maternal image of God. Is that paganism if it is from the Bible?
Oh, there is plenty of paganism expressed in scripture, but if it is from the lips of the prophet, is he then too pagan?
Hosea 13:4-7 “Yet I have been the Lord your God.. besides me there is no savior.. I ..fed you in the wilderness.. therefore they forgot me. So I will….fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs… ” A fierce feminine image. Paganism?
Deuteronomy 32: 18- “you were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, you forgot the God who gave you birth..”
EVen in Genesis, the opening words: ‘the spirit of God brooding over the waters..’
Hebrew for spirit is the feminine noun: ‘ruach,’ Feminine language describing God.
And if man/woman were made in God’s image, then both masculine and feminine describe God. We can’t ignore one and allow the other to dominate.
Or as scholar Mary Daly said: “If God is masculine, then the masculine is God.”
Children and young people need to learn scripture, and learn the catechism, but they also need to learn that they are created in God’s image, and are blessed, no matter if they are boys or girls, no matter if they are straight or gay.
We do ourselves no favors when we politicize scripture, and draw lines and boundaries that define the sacred in a narrow way.
As I tell my confirmands: God is not God’s name; the Bible reminds us that God has many names: Lord, Creator, Savior, Redeemer.. to name a few. To limit God to the only name “God” is to limit our understanding of how God lives and moves among us.
Even the term ‘pagan’ is very broad, but that is, as I tell my parishoners, a subject for another sermon.
If God is a creation of our own bias and preference, then may we have mercy on Ourselves. Any god we believe in becomes a mere idol.
There is nothing to fear about feminine imagery, (such as “new birth”,) what we do have to fear is a god so “expansive” as to communicate nothing about who he is and what he does. Brueggemann’s book, while dealing with varied and even contradictory testimony of YHWH, addresses specifics about what Israel’s witness was about him.
(Apologies for the naughty word concluding the last sentence, and the two others of the previous sentence.)
The trouble with “the feminine” that, o.k., I fear, is a god left in the mist, the ether, the primordial goo, the hidden God. (Luther’s Deus Absconditus)
The problem is not the feminine image, but what we believe or don’t believe that God is doing in the world to save us.
To wit, I mention a name that appears no where else on this page, through whom worship in the church is offered and in whose Spirit we live: Jesus of Nazareth, whom we call, among other things, the Christ.
Therefore, with only the prayers read above, and not knowing, as of this writing, of any of the other prayers offered, the answer to the question posed above is “yes”.
Sometimes we confuse names of God with attributes of God. The Bible gives some names for God such as “I AM”. The Bible gives many attributes of God- “God is Love.” None of these are wrong- just another way to express “God” . The UCC church I am currently attending is using for it’s benediction the verse that starts “Jesus, Name above All Names” . For me that says it all.
Obie, Terry Fretheim once said that “everytime Walter has a thought he writes a book.” I ran out of shelf space, so I do not own his Theo OT. Where does he cite the metaphor of mother in the OT? Just curious.
Hi Tony ! I thought you were lost in the Northwoods somewhere and enjoying the peace and quiet. We were up at Ladysmith last week and the mosquitos kept us inside. It sure will be interesting when we all get to heaven and find out what God really thinks about all this quibbling about fine points of scripture.
@Tony Stoutenburg
Welcome back. Missed you.
This book is a real tome, but I highly recommend it; it addresses the core issue of what is the Bible and how do we use it. Here are some pertinent quotes in answer to your question:
Here, then is what he says specifically about the metaphor of Yahweh as mother. I will strip out some of his text and create a list:
Brueggeman concludes:
Thank you, Obie. Had a week of vacation in Colorado and then a week on a mission trip in Cedar Rapids, Ia, where they are still rebuilding houses after the flood of 6/08. (Then a less fun week of loading programs on a new computer after the old one died.)
I am NO Hebrew scholar, but based on what you have given me here, it would seem that Lilly has it right above: “Sometimes we confuse names of God with attributes of God.” What Bruggeman seems to cite is not a metaphor of God, as much as a metaphor of God’s activities, attributes or attitudes.
A number of years ago (about 20) there was a persuasive article in Dialog by Ted Peters that argued that while the Triune name was indeed a metaphor, it is not exchangeable. So while I have NO issue with the use, and pointing out of, maternal images of God in prayer and preaching, calling God “mother” is not something that we, as Christians, have leave to do. Aside from the language that the first person of God resides inside us. Brings to mind “sparks of the divine” language. Almost sounds LDS.
I think he is happy that we care. 🙂
I really don’t understand this idea that somehow we do not have “leave” to call God “Mother.” Where does this rule come from? What gives us “leave” to call God . .. well, “God”? What gives us leave to translate anything at all? Why is it okay to say “God” or “Father” rather than the Hebrew and Greek words that are presumably God’s “actual” name? Why are we not required to call God “Abba”? Where does this “leave for naming” idea come from anyway?
In my view, God hears us through our faith, and the name we use for God don’t mean a hill of beans to God. God knows who God is, and God knows exactly who is praying and worshipping to whom.
Tim Fisher