When using a personal pronoun in referring to the Holy Spirit, even the NRSV uses either he/his/him or it/its, never she/her/hers. My statement about “humor gone awry” was meant to refer to the “domestic chores” portion of Michael’s statement, which certainly suggests the questionable parallel of liberating the Holy Spirit from the traditional cultural role of women as involving “domestic chores.”

Using feminine terms for the Holy Spirit is, in my view, only a milestone along the road to avoiding reference to “Father” and “Son” in describing the first two Persons of the Trinity.

Hi Dick,

By your use of the term “milestones”, you seem to be using a metaphor of a journey from one place to another.  The journey metaphor is a common one in religious talk.  Some consider journeying a good thing and always feel the source place was bad…or at least worse…than the destination.  Others find journeying less than desirable and would prefer very much to stay in the comfort and safety of what is known and familiar…for them the source is good and the destination unknown…thus usually bad.

However, in the case of using the feminine for the Holy Spirit, our journey is taking us backward to a place that ought to be familiar but is instead forgotten.  As Benjamin shared, it is masculine in English and masculine in Latin (“spiritus”) but if we reach back further to the Greek (“pneuma”), it is neuter and the further back to the Hebrew (“ruah”), it is feminine.

As for the use of “Father” and “Son”, those are important metaphors that we use for God and Jesus.  I would agree with you that changing those metaphors to some type of neutral “Creator” and “Redeemer” would change the entire way we view the Trinity.  I think we have more education to do to keep that from happening.  I would suggest that the education needs to be positive and not simply refer to Tradition in an authoritative manner.  That approach will not go far.

In Christ,
Shawn

From today’s Gospel I suppose the next “improvement” regarding the First Person of the Trinity will be: “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son….” [John 3:16a]

The “journey” has already begun regarding name(s) used for the Trinity. (1) “The old ecumenism [of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches] became intensely embarrassed by allegedly sexist language about God the Father and God the Son—so much so that some of its leaders were quite willing to give up classic Trinitarian language in favor of more ‘correct’ formulations such as God the Parent, God the Child, and God the Spirit of Love.” [Thomas C. Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, p. 59] (2) “The Presbyterian Church USA has begun experimenting with reformulations of the doctrine of the Trinity. ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ will be substituted with ‘Mother, Child, and Womb,’ ‘Rock, Redeemer, Friend,’ ‘Rainbow, Ark, and Dove,’ and other assorted triads.” [Jim Tonkowich. “Religion Without Foundations: The Split in the Mainline Denominations Is About More Than Politics.” The Weekly Standard, July 26, 2006, at ]http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/462drjbf.asp] (3) In the Church of England’s Common Worship: Daily Prayer (2005), the traditional words “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit” now precede inclusive language wording: “Glory to God, Source of all being, Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit.” [CWDP, p. 648]

So I agree with Philip Turner when he wrote: “The most serious issue in respect to ecclesial integrity and tolerable diversity that faces the Anglican Communion does not concern women’s ordination or the ethics of sex, but attempts to diminish or rid ECUSA’s Book of Common Prayer of use of the Trinitarian name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” [The Fate of Communion, p. 125]

Hi Dick,

I don’t think anyone here is arguing with you in terms of the use of Trinitarian language.  In fact, I would tend to agree with you regarding the use of inclusive language beyond the Trinity.  I find it more cumbersome than helpful stylistically.  However, that is a matter of personal taste, not theology.  Touching the Trinity, I agree with you that it is a matter of theology, very important theology, not adiaphora at all.

My point, however, is that if we just use the same ole conservative argument that “change is bad”, then we will get nowhere.  We have to do a better job of educating as to why it is important that God the Father be referred to as Father and not Parent or Creator.  We have to tie this to Christ’s message that God is our “Abba” our “Papa”.  Of course, this would help if we emphasized God’s loving embrace for humanity.  That it is God’s greatest desire to see all people saved, i.e. healed.  We need to move away from the “fire insurance” soteriology of old line evangelicalism which was patently self-centered.  And return again to the place of salvation as healing, not just for ourselves but for all the cosmos.

In other words, we need to return to the ancient orthodoxy and rid ourselves of this modernistic, self-centered, schismatic “orthodoxy” that plagues our Church today.

In Christ,
Shawn

Shawn, I agree that the standard of orthodoxy must be “ancient,” that is, based on the prophetic and apostolic witness recorded in Holy Scripture and taught by the early church. Yet any effort to teach orthodoxy must include a countering of heterodoxy. “But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!” [Gal. 1:8] (2) “I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine.” [1 Tim. 1:3]

Unfortunately, however, in some instances in church history, education has not proved sufficient to promote orthodoxy and to counter heterodoxy and even heresy and apostasy. Then church discipline is required. If there is a failure to exercise proper discipline or if repentance is not forthcoming when discipline is applied, the division that already exists typically becomes formalized. Division becomes unavoidable when there is a failure on the part of some to adhere to basic Christian doctrine, such as the Trinity.

Hi Dick,

Perhaps that might be necessary, but I would start with education.  Remember we are living in a post-Christian society.  Or some would even say a pre-Christian society as the up and coming generation was not even raised in the Church at all.  They have no idea about the basics of the Christian faith.  However, they do know that if someone says, “Well, that’s tradition.” or “That’s what the Bible says”, then they are going to turn a deaf ear.  That’s just not a good enough reason any more.

In Christ,
Shawn

Shawn, I agree that the approach to people with nonchurch backgrounds should be through education or more specifically preevangelism. In 1968 Francis Schaeffer described the role of Christian apologetics in preevangelism as not only “defense of the faith” but also “communication of the faith.” “No man [or today we would say person],” he wrote, “can become a Christian unless he understands what Christianity is saying…. The positive side of apologetics is the communication of the Gospel to the present generation in terms that they can understand…. Before a man is ready to become a Christian, he must have a proper understanding of truth” in the sense of “a concept of truth” as well as its “content.” [Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, pp. 169, 171-173, 175]

Since Anglican liturgy is saturated with Scripture and tradition, the educational or Christian formation process needs to begin with “milk” and then proceed to “meat” or “solid food,” as Paul explained to the Corinthians.

Thanks for the exchange of views coming out of this post.

Dick