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

[Vicomte13]

God is a He. I don't know why its such a problem to accept that.

If God is a Trinity, then God is a he, and a he, and a she (in Hebrew and Aramaic), a he, a he and an it (in Greek), or three he’s (in Latin). So the Trinitarian God’s pronouns depend on what you think the authoritative Scripture is.

 

[Original Happy Camper]

I dont see the problem.

and that is the problem.

 

[salt-n-light]

If God is a Trinity, then God is a he, and a he, and a she (in Hebrew and Aramaic), a he, a he and an it (in Greek), or three he’s (in Latin). So the Trinitarian God’s pronouns depend on what you think the authoritative Scripture is.

The post is about God, they are not talking about Son, and Holy Spirit. I'm not talking about the Trinity, I'm talking about God, and God is a He.

The trinity is another topic.

 

[hedrick]

It will be interesting to see how it works out. This is guidance, which means it may or may not actually happen.

The PCUSA did this kind of stuff a few decades ago, but a lot of it died down. We tend to avoid using "he," and some rewording of hymns has happened. But it's mostly in stuff no one would notice. We still call God Father and Lord, though at one point Father might have been avoided. Sophia never caught on.

The following paper comes from the ELCA: How_is_language_used_in_worship.pdf. It expects continuing use of Father and Lord, asking for variety and avoiding masculine pronouns. That would be similar to PCUSA practice.

I note that we currently have an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church that requires use of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in baptism.

 

[eleos1954]

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?

I think the Lord God and the Lord Jesus would prefer we concentrate of getting the good news of the Gospel out rather than getting tangled up in the weeds with semantics regarding Him?

Does it matter if God, is male female or neither? No. Is it something we will ever know on this earth? No So should we really be concerned about this? No Isn't this kind of futile? Absolutely!

1 Samuel 12:21

21And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.

What about the phrases the "LORD your God" ? Is He not our master? Which is what
the word means?

Below, Kind of interesting I think.

Looked up the word "him" in the original languages, using Strongs concordance.

I looked up the word him in the Greek ... here it is:

autos: (1) self (emphatic) (2) he, she, it (used for the third pers. pron.) (3) the same
Original Word: αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό
Part of Speech: Personal Pronoun
Transliteration: autos
Phonetic Spelling: (ow-tos')
Short Definition: he, she, it, they, them, same
Definition: he, she, it, they, them, same

Didn't find a Hebrew definition for in the Strongs
ū-ḇōw - i.e. him

Regarding the word LORD (in caps)

Hebrew meaning:

Yhvh: God
Original Word: יְהֹוִה
Part of Speech: Proper Name
Transliteration: Yhvh
Phonetic Spelling: (yeh-ho-vee')
Short Definition: God

Greek meaning:

kurios: lord, master
Original Word: κύριος, ου, ὁ
Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine
Transliteration: kurios
Phonetic Spelling: (koo'-ree-os)
Short Definition: lord, Lord, master, sir
Definition: lord, master, sir; the Lord.
HELPS Word-studies
2962 kýrios – properly, a person exercising absolute ownership rights; lord (Lord).

God Bless

 

[chevyontheriver]

I note that we currently have an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church that requires use of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in baptism.

Because otherwise PCUSA members who become Catholic would need to be rebaptized like with is done with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneness pentecostals and rare others with defective baptisms. If the Swedish state religion persists in this linguistic deformation perhaps their baptism will also not be acceptable. We'll see.

 

[hedrick]

Because otherwise PCUSA members who become Catholic would need to be rebaptized like with is done with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneness pentecostals and rare others with defective baptisms. If the Swedish state religion persists in this linguistic deformation perhaps their baptism will also not be acceptable. We'll see.

As far as I know, Catholic churches didn't actually rebaptize Presbyterians before this (in part because we used that formula anyway), but it's part of a formal agreement on mutual recognition of baptism.

 

[chevyontheriver]

As far as I know, Catholic churches didn't actually rebaptize Presbyterians before this (in part because we used that formula anyway), but it's part of a formal agreement on mutual recognition of baptism.

Catholics would not have rebaptized Presbyterians as long as they used water and the proper Trinitarian words. At least they shouldn't have, unless there was doubt about the wording. Then a conditional baptism was possible. The biggest recent problem is baptism in the name of 'the creator and redeemer and sustainer'. Not at all considered valid.

 

[bsy]

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?

Unless they say that our Lord is lying, Jesus Himself teaches us "Our Father" prayer. Father is masculine.

 

[redleghunter]

I disagree with you assertion that it dows not matter when Jesus is oour example and he never refered to God as mother

Many examples in the words of Jesus
Our Farther which art in heaven
Father forgive them
Sermon on the mount
Ect....

Never Mother

To believe that you can substitute mother for father is a slippery slope to perdition. IMHO

From a Biblical and orthodox (little "o") perspective:

Masculine imagery in revelation is not without significance, however. A second time that God was specifically said to be revealed via a physical image was when Jesus was asked to show the Father to the disciples in John chapter 14. He responds in verse 9 by saying, “The person who has seen me has seen the Father!" Paul makes it clear that Jesus was the exact image of God in Colossians 1:15 calling Jesus "the image of the invisible God." This verse is couched in a section that demonstrates Christ's superiority over all creation. Most ancient religions believed in a pantheon - both gods and goddesses - that were worthy of worship. But one of Judeo-Christianity's distinctives is its belief in a supreme Creator. Masculine language better relates this relationship of creator to creation. As a man comes into a woman from without to make her pregnant, so God creates the universe from without rather than birthing it from within . . . As a woman cannot impregnate herself, so the universe cannot create itself. Paul echoes this idea in 1 Timothy 2:12-14when he refers to the creation order as a template for church order.

In the end, whatever our theological explanation, the fact is that God used exclusively masculine terms to refer to Himself and almost exclusively masculine terminology even in metaphor. Through the Bible He taught us how to speak of Him, and it was in masculine relational terms. So, while the Holy Spirit is neither male nor female in His essence, He is properly referred to in the masculine by virtue of His relation to creation and biblical revelation. There is absolutely no biblical basis for viewing the Holy Spirit as the “female” member of the Trinity.

Is the Holy Spirit a "He," "She," or “It,” male, female, or neuter?

 

[redleghunter]

So, when the Bible was retranslated, the wording of pronouns was looked at. Where the Hebrew or Greek words are not forcibly masculine or feminine, or where the people referred to are referred to collectively, the traditional linquistic convention of translating ambiguity with the male pronoun is discarded, and the inclusive pronoun is used. "They", instead of "he", "us" instead of "us men", where what is intended is humans, not males.

That's what is vexing. The NABRE did not go down that road. Only the local liturgy.

When I went back to the same Roman Catholic church in 2014 for a friend's funeral mass, they went back to the "In Him, through Him" instead of the aforementioned "In God through God."

Where the NIV and NABRE did opt for gender neutral language they did not when referring to God.

For example,

John 16: NABRE

12 “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. 13 But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. 15 Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

John 16: NIV
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine position: That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

So it's interesting that even with all the discussions of making things more inclusive and neutral, both the NABRE and NIV still opted to keep the masculine when the neuter was available.

 

[dqhall]

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?

Some people refer to God as the Holy Spirit. Others know God as a healer or creator. One group used the name Higher Power to try to describe God. There are ways to avoid using the pronouns he or she. I do not think calling God Father or he is inherently evil. Some have referred to God as she. If referring to God as she is wrong, then why refer to God as he? God does not have sex organs like most people do. People tried to describe God in terms of their own human experiences.

 

[buzuxi02]

So they are no longer Trinitarian christians. The Nicene Creed makes clear that God is a Father to His only begotten SON who was born in time to a human female mother as a male who is still God of God.

 

[SnowyMacie]

.

 

[redleghunter]

I note that we currently have an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church that requires use of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in baptism.

Nothing like keeping it according to Sacred Scriptures and tradition.

 

[redleghunter]

Are you assuming the gender of the person in your meme!

 

[hedrick]

For example,

John 16: NABRE

12 “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. 13 But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.

So it's interesting that even with all the discussions of making things more inclusive and neutral, both the NABRE and NIV still opted to keep the masculine when the neuter was available.

I checked all the translations I have, which include some that use gender neutral language. All of them have "he."

I'm not sure what neutral language is available. "It" would make it impersonal, which wouldn't do. One approach our texts often use is to avoid pronouns entirely, typically replacing then with God or whatever else is the referent. But John's prose is so repetitive that replacing the "he" with "the Spirit" consistently would make really stilted English. You can often reword things in the plural, but there's only one Holy Spirit.

 

[dqhall]

So they are no longer Trinitarian christians. The Nicene Creed makes clear that God is a Father to His only begotten SON who was born in time to a human female mother as a male who is still God of God.

In John's Gospel a Samaritan woman was talking to Jesus near "Jacob's Well" south of Shechem.

John 4:20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. 22 You worship that which you don't know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshippers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

This passage taught me God is not of human flesh and God is not in a special place where people must go to worship. God is more interested in people's spiritual qualities than where they worship. Jesus went so far as to recommend people pray in private (Matthew 6:6). God knows when a sparrow falls from the sky (Matthew 10:29) as God is omnipotent. Jesus called him Father, yet one would not expect to see God in the flesh, for God is spirit.

 

[redleghunter]

So they are no longer Trinitarian christians. The Nicene Creed makes clear that God is a Father to His only begotten SON who was born in time to a human female mother as a male who is still God of God.

It's worse. This is a 1994 article.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1994/november14/4td044.html

 

[GingerBeer]

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?

They are a Lutheran state church (or were a state church, maybe they are not now) so what do you expect?