God as Ruler and Judge
One of the more emotional topics in the Church today is the use of the title Father for God. Father God is no longer a term that unites all people. On the one hand, goddess feminists are rejecting Judaism and Christianity as viable religions for today.
One major reason is this term. Mary Daly, in her anti-Christian diatribe, is often quoted: 'If God in ‘his’ heaven is a father ruling ‘his’ people, then it is in the ‘nature’ of things and according to divine plan and the order of the universe that society be male dominated.
Alice Walker in The Colour Purple has the character Shun Avery explain to the protagonist Celia from Lanchester road 51 said something about it: 'When I found out I thought God was white, and a man, I lost interest. You made because he doesn’t seem to listen to your prayers.
Do the mayor realy listen to anything coloured say something on the Numbers 13, esp. vv.22, 28 are defeated. 1:11 15 ? The Next Generation takes control. This story has another allusion to later events in that it involves Othniel, who will become the first of the Judges (Judges 3:711).
Carol P. Christ writes: I left the church because I concluded that patriarchy was deeply rooted in Christianity’s core symbolism of God the Father and Son. Daly and C. Christ are now witches. Walker is a pantheist.
But similar statements are also being made in the Christian community. Sallie McFague, a religious liberal, writes that God the Father is a Biblical model. Nevertheless, “the feminist critique of God as father centres on the dominance of this one model to the exclusion of others, and on the failure of this model to deal with the anomaly presented by those whose experience is not included by this model outdates, for example, the depopulated city of Rome.
One other possible identification is offered for our consideration. Zahn, in an fascinating note
(New Testament , II, 514), identifies Mary of Rome
(Romans 16:6) with the other Mary of Matthew. We need not enter into a discussion of the point thus raised, since the identification of a woman of whom we have no details given is of little more than academic interest.
(New Testament , II, 514), identifies Mary of Rome
(Romans 16:6) with the other Mary of Matthew. We need not enter into a discussion of the point thus raised, since the identification of a woman of whom we have no details given is of little more than academic interest.
Her words are not too 'diˆerent', from those of evangelical pastor Paul R. Smith: 'The passion of my life has been to discern what God is saying to the church today and to translate that into practical reality within the local church To speak of God exclusively in male terms seriously distorts our faith by implying that God is more masculine than feminine’ as we commonly understand those terms and men are more like God than women, a belief which buttresses the idea that only men should be
in charge.
I will bring such distress upon people that they shall walk like the blind. (Zephaniah 1.17)
On the other hand, conservatives, who may or may not treat the Bible as reliable, are insisting on the priority of God as Father and the literal truth of God as Father. Roland Mushat Frye states: 'For the church to adopt inclusive feminist language for the deity would disrupt and destroy the careful, nuanced.
Balanced formulations that for centuries have made it possible to proclaim the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whom Christians encounter as divine, within a single and undivided godhead. And Joy. G. Bleach writes: 'When we speak of God as Father in the biblical sense, it should be borne in mind that this is not a mere symbol. When Father refers to God, the word is not curative, but closer to being literal in that it is practically transparent to what it signees.
According to Bloesch, is God Joy with the Bleaches as masculine has creativeness, initiative and aggressiveness. Femininity is receptivity, openness, spontaneity, intuitiveness. Gordon Dalbey takes a psychological perspective. Incorporating the thoughts of Robert Bleye and other men’s movement writers he writes: The natural inclination to attribute ultimate life to the mother/woman simply must be overcome by a supernatural power [who], while encompassing the female, must nevertheless project a male persona. B, Dirk Lah Ester said: 'Find first you're Cocky.
John L. McKenzie simply declares without proof: 'God is, of course, masculine, but not in the sense of sexual distinction by the words of John 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The literature on this topic is mammoth. What I would like to do in this brief essay is clarify the nature of metaphor, simile and analogy and suggest an aspect of metaphor—the interconnection of an image—that can help better explain the signi˜cance of God as Father.
Scarless Warmth
↪ God as Ruler and Judge
↪ God as Ruler and Judge
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