Church of Sweden to formally stop referring to God as "he"

[FireDragon76]

Have you always been Lutheran, and if not, at what point did you become Lutheran, and why?

I was raised Methodist but I spent many years irreligious, then I practiced Buddhism for several years. Then I reverted to Christianity, went to Episcopalian churches and finally Eastern Orthodoxy.

I left the Eastern Orthodox church for pastoral reasons and after prayer and research I found my way to the Lutheran church.

Lutherans teach what has always been essential to the Christian faith in all times and places: they affirm those doctrines as true. Like the Orthodox, we have a sacramental faith and consider some things simply mysteries that are beyond human reason, so our theology is not shaped by trends common to other Protestant churches. We often follow a traditional Christian calendar, including feast days and periods of fasting.

Lutherans also have a strong sense of ethics without being legalistic. One Christian I have always admired, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was an important Lutheran theologian and ethicist.

 

[Noxot]

Adding anything to the Bible, and taking anything away from it, are equally and explicitly condemned in the Bible.

it's the same holy and spiritual command of "thou shalt not steal" but this is God speaking of his spirit that we are not to quench. many people quench his spirit by blindly following after the riches of the bible. it is hard for a rich man to enter into the reign of God.

Song 8:6-7 (YLT)
Set me as a seal on thy heart, as a seal on thine arm, For strong as death is love, Sharp as Sheol is jealousy, Its burnings are burnings of fire, a flame of Jah! Many waters are not able to quench the love, And floods do not wash it away. If one give all the wealth of his house for love, Treading down--they tread upon it.

Matt 13:44-46 (YLT)
`Again, the reign of the heavens is like to treasure hid in the field, which a man having found did hide, and from his joy goeth, and all, as much as he hath, he selleth, and buyeth that field. `Again, the reign of the heavens is like to a man, a merchant, seeking goodly pearls, who having found one pearl of great price, having gone away, hath sold all, as much as he had, and bought it.

 

[Rion]

It doesn't mean physical image; it means likeness.

We can show love, because God who created us, is love.
We are concerned with justice and peace, because God is just, Jesus is the prince of peace and God is a God of order.
We are creative, because God created the universe.
We have gifts, because God is all things and gives us the ability to be, and do, all things - pastor, teacher, evangelist, giver of hospitality etc.

All the good qualities that you can find in human beings you can find in God.
Also, we talk about being born again, being nurtured; Scripture says that God chose to give birth to us, James 1:18. Giving birth is something women do; nurture and care of children also tend to be mostly associated with women. God does all these, and cares for us as a mother cares for her children. The Holy Spirit (female) was hovering, or brooding, over the waters before the earth was formed.

The Holy Spirit is never referred to as female.

 

[FireDragon76]

To not take a stand against what we know to be false is to condone it. We should know better than this if we care for the truth of the scriptures.

Again, we Lutherans do things different. We are less concerned with our own personal righteousness and we are more concerned with people having the Gospel available to them in Word and Sacrament. If that is mingled with wacky religious tastes, it does not negate the grace promised and present.

 

[Biblewriter]

That's an overly broad interpretation of a passage in Revelation, considering that the time the book was written, there was no closed canon of the Scriptures.

It is not only stated in the Revelation, although in the judgment of almost all historians who are not Preterists, that was the last book of the Bible to be written. It is also stated in the following

11 According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. Deuteronomy 17:11


And in the words,

5 Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. 6 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar. Proverbs 30:5-6

 

[Kenny'sID]

I was raised Methodist but I spent many years irreligious, then I practiced Buddhism for several years. Then I reverted to Christianity, went to Episcopalian churches and finally Eastern Orthodoxy.

I left the Eastern Orthodox church for pastoral reasons and after prayer and research I found my way to the Lutheran church.

Lutherans teach what has always been essential to the Christian faith in all times and places: they affirm those doctrines as true. Like the Orthodox, we have a sacramental faith and consider some things simply mysteries that are beyond human reason, so our theology is not shaped by trends common to other Protestant churches. We often follow a traditional Christian calendar, including feast days and periods of fasting.

Lutherans also have a strong sense of ethics without being legalistic. One Christian I have always admired, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was an important Lutheran theologian and ethicist.

Do you ever consider you found what you wanted to find, something that fit your needs?

There are all kinds of supposed interpretations and so-called ways to Heaven that often are anything but. And some absolutely DO choose those ways (just a fact) because it serves what they want and not necessarily what the bible teaches, so I think it's a least a fair question.

I'm aware that question may not be well received, but from reading how you ended up there, it does concerns me for you, that you may not have considered that.

 

[Vicomte13]

While we are generally traditionalists, if it's not prohibited by the Bible, we are reluctant to condemn it without good reason.

A wise stance.

 

[Strong in Him]

The Holy Spirit is never referred to as female.

No, but the word for Holy Spirit is feminine.

 

[Strong in Him]

God is also flesh and blood, material.

When Jesus was on earth, that was true.
He himself taught that God is Spirit.

 

[discipler7]

It doesn't mean physical image; it means likeness.
We can show love, because God who created us, is love.
We are concerned with justice and peace, because God is just, Jesus is the prince of peace and God is a God of order. ...

You are wrong, veering way off-topic and misinterpreting GENESIS.1 & 2.
.
The OP is "Church of Sweden to stop referring to God as 'he' or 'Lord'. I mean, I don't believe God is necessarily physically male or female, but this seems like a bit much. What are your thoughts?"

In my previous post, at EZEKIEL.1 and REVELATION.4, the prophet and apostle stated that on His heavenly throne, God looked like a man and not like a woman. This was because man was created in His image or likeness.
... If and when we finally meet and see God on His heavenly throne, He will look like a man and not like a woman, as written in the Word of God/Bible at EZEKIEL.1 and REVELATION.4.

 

[SolomonVII]

When Jesus was on earth, that was true.
He himself taught that God is Spirit.

I am pretty sure that Jesus is still resurrected in heaven too.
Resurrection of the Body is the belief as far as I know. There is no reason that I can surmise where we ought to contemplate the Body as being of a 'Clap on, Clap off' sort of detail.

 

[Vicomte13]

It is not only stated in the Revelation, although in the judgment of almost all historians who are not Preterists, that was the last book of the Bible to be written. It is also stated in the following

11 According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. Deuteronomy 17:11


And in the words,

5 Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. 6 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar. Proverbs 30:5-6

Yes, but now read it correctly.
In Deuteronomy, God is referring to the Law - the Torah, of which Deuteronomy is the final piece. The entire Bible, all that would come later, is not the Torah, and most of what remains in the Old Testament is not God speaking directly. No more law is given by God in the Old Testament. Do not add to the Law is what God said in Deuteronomy, not "do not add to the Bible". The Bible and the Law are not at all synonymous. It is adding to the Bible to state they are.

The admonition to add nothing nor subtract anything from this scroll, in Revelation, is a direct reference to THAT scroll - Revelation - which John was told to take up and write. It does not in any sense apply to the rest of the Bible, which was not compiled until the 300s AD.

As to the admonition in Proverbs - absolutely so, but what are the words of God? The words of the Law, the rTorah, the words that God spoke. Solomon's proverb there is not words spoken by God, but by Solomon (et al). To call them "God's words" when they are Solomon's words is to add to the words of God. All of the LAW in Scripture came out of God's mouth. Jesus told the Devil that man lived on every word "that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God" - a lengthy and rather convoluted expression. The Bible always identifies the words that God spoke himself. It is THOSE words that Jesus referred to, specifically - the words that proceeded forth out of the mouth of God - that Jesus referred to.

The Torah is all law that came directly out of God's mouth. Jesus' words are recorded in quadruplicate.

THOSE are the words that God spoke, that can't be added to. To take the whole Bible and claim that God spoke all of that is not true. The Bible itself makes a very clean and clear distinction of what God said. And the Bible says - in those passages you quoted - to focus on what God said. To take, for example, what Jude said in his letter about Enoch and claim that Jude's words were spoken by God is to mash a bunch of words that God did not speak with what he did speak - and to break the commandment. Jesus gave commandments. If he wasn't really God, then what he did was blasphemous. That's why he was killed: the Sanhedrin did not believe he was divine.

The tradition of holding up the entire Bible and pretending that God spoke all of that is in violent conflict with these very passages warning people not to do that. It is a stubborn tradition, and one that we will not be ending today. Nevertheless, no: God did not speak out the whole Bible. Nor did he arrange the Bible, deciding what was in and what was out. Men did that. IN the Bible, what God said is recorded, mostly in the Torah, a few of the prophets, the Gospels and Revelation. The rest of the Bible is not what God said. It's what men said about God, and that does not have the same authority.
To say that it does is to add massively to the words of God.

 

[Vicomte13]

When Jesus was on earth, that was true.
He himself taught that God is Spirit.

No question, God is spirit. God is also flesh and blood and material - unless one wishes to say that Jesus was not God.

 

[Vicomte13]

No, but the word for Holy Spirit is feminine.

Correct. And throughout the entire Old Testament until the late Greek books, the Holy Spirit in Hebrew is always referred to as "she" when the pronoun is used.

 

[Noxot]

You are wrong, veering way off-topic and misinterpreting GENESIS.1 & 2.
.
The OP is "Church of Sweden to stop referring to God as 'he' or 'Lord'. I mean, I don't believe God is necessarily physically male or female, but this seems like a bit much. What are your thoughts?"

In my previous post, at EZEKIEL.1 and REVELATION.4, the prophet and apostle stated that on His heavenly throne, God looked like a man and not like a woman. This was because man was created in His image or likeness.
... If and when we finally meet and see God on His heavenly throne, He will look like a man and not like a woman, as written in the Word of God/Bible at EZEKIEL.1 and REVELATION.4.

so I guess since we are the church that we will look like a woman

 

[fat wee robin]

No, I cannot quote Scripture, as you wish, and I have no problem with those of you who are concerned about this matter. Also, like most people, I tend to view God as a Father in Heaven. However, I just see no real harm in seeing him as a mother, as well as a father. After all, I doubt that God has a sexual identity like humans or animals do. Does it somehow harm our faith to quit referring to God as Father? I guess that is up to each person. It should not make much difference one way or the other, as long as we love God and keep His commandments.

I think you folks misunderstand me. I am not endorsing this change. It would not be my preference. I just do not see it as a critical thing, as long it does not go into the direction of the California branch of the ELCA.

You are I assume already a sure Christian ,but those who are not ,or are just becoming one will pick this up and think that it does not matter whether God is male of female ,which then leads to
changing the whole basis of how God wishes us to know Him .
Only the males carry within them the whole gene pool , whereas women only carry that of the mother . This is because God made Adam like Himself , and from him made a help mate .We cannot change this even if we want to ,as the C. of Sweden and transgender etc would like .

There are of course some flaws(strange flooks in nature ) as there has been since the fall,but it was not like that at the beginning .

 

[Rescued One]

Church of Sweden to stop referring to God as 'he' or 'Lord'


I mean, I don't believe God is necessarily physically male or female, but this seems like a bit much. What are your thoughts?

Are thay going to use the pronoun It when they refer to God? Resist the devil and she will flee from you!

 

[discipler7]

No, but the word for Holy Spirit is feminine.

Correct. And throughout the entire Old Testament until the late Greek books, the Holy Spirit in Hebrew is always referred to as "she" when the pronoun is used.

.
HEBREWS.10: =
15 But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before,

16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”[JEREMIAH.31:33] 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”[JER.31:34] 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

JOHN.14: =
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. ...

25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

JOHN.15: =
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

 

[Rescued One]

So how will they say "Our Father?"

 

[Vicomte13]

so I guess since we are the church that we will look like a woman

Seems legit...