Posted on 06/12/2018 11:40:41 AM PDT by Gamecock
The Minnesota Conference of the United Methodist Church has removed the term, ‘Father,’ from the Apostle’s Creed in an attempt to be more gender inclusive to God.
The ancient creed of the Christian Church reads:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.
However, United Methodists in the Minnesota Conference decided that referring to God as “Father” wasn’t inclusive enough for the 21st century United Methodist Church. At the conference, held May 30 through June 1, conference organizers omitted reference to God the Father. Instead, they changed the phrase “God the Father Almighty” to “God the Creator Almighty.” The creed passed out to attendees also removed the phrase, “Jesus Christ, His only Son” to “Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.”
One attendee, Keith Mcilwain, posted a screenshot of their newly revised creed via social media:
McIlwain is currently the pastor of Slippery Rock United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania. Mcilwain said, “No United Methodist individual or body has the authority to edit those creeds which were formulated by the early Church and have helped define orthodox Christianity for the better part of 2000 years.”
The United Methodist Church has repeatedly become more egalitarian in the early twenty-first and latter twentieth century, beginning with the ordaining of female clergy with full ordination rights in 1956. The roots of the egalitarian movement among Methodists began, however, with the 18th century female preacher, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, convincing John Wesley that some women should be given limited preaching abilities. In most recent days, the United Methodist Church has been drained of male clergy, with more than 10,300 female clergy members nationwide.
A United Methodist Church website provides a blog explaining the concept behind removing the “Father” understanding of God (taught by Jesus and the rest of Scripture). In the following quotiation, their use of the term, “God language,” means language used by people to refer to God:
Leaders need to establish the ground rules: Everybody’s God language is appropriate. People’s God language signifies a relationship that you can’t interfere with. You can raise questions and offer additional perspectives, but you can’t dictate. You can’t prohibit anybody from using any language about God. Whether they want to call God “Jehovah” or “Big Dog,” you can’t judge the validity of how that name connects them with God. People just need to get used to that.
Pastors and other leaders should give attention to teaching people what the church’s traditional images mean and what they don’t mean. For instance, the “fatherhood” of God is about relationship, not biology. Our people won’t know how to reflect theologically about these things — instead of just reacting emotionally — unless we give them the tools.
Pastors and other worship leaders should expose people to a variety of images of God, both familiar and new, both comforting and provocative. People should regularly hear God referred to in public worship with images that are male, female, and gender neutral. In a worship service the choir may sing an anthem with thickly sexist, male-dominated language, while the prayers are full of feminine imagery. People can sing their own words, with their personal substitutions, if they wish. People should be encouraged to take responsibility for their own faith.
In the meantime, Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”
??
If God refers to himself as the Father, I assume that’s his preference. I think to do otherwise is disrespectful to God. It’s also placing the feelings of the creation as more important than God’s preference.
On the basis, why is the word “Son” allowed?
The wide road to the wide gate is inclusive indeed.
Just another example when you stray from the scriptures to support your own traditions.
They might as well go full modalism, and refer to the creator, and the redeemer, and the sanctifies.
No sense doing heresy by half-measures.
Oh good grief!
Idiots.
It’s been good enough for most people since about 390 AD. But I guess these know-it-alls think it needs fixing up, and they’re just the ones who can get it right this time!
PS: Actually to be fair. In the NT whenever Father is mentioned it’s actually Creator. Just saying, however .....
"According to original and genuine Theosophy – i.e. the writings and teachings of the Masters of the Wisdom and the one they called their “Direct Agent” and their Messenger, H.P. Blavatsky – Christ is not a being or an entity of any kind. Christ is not another name for Maitreya. Christ is not the “Master of the Masters.” Christ is not the so-called “World Teacher.” And there is no such thing as the “Second Coming” or “Reappearance” of Christ. Christ never had a first coming and has never appeared, nor can ever appear. Why? Because Christ – from the Greek “Christos” – is simply a symbolic term and name for the purely impersonal and universal Divine Principle of Spirit which is present in everything in the Universe."
Accommodating their “itching ears”. . . not putting up with sound doctrine . . . it was foretold that this kind of thing would happen
The original idea the ass clowns thought of was “our Fabulous Father..”
I knew the butt pirates would come up with another sick idea to spit at our religion.
Psalm 103:13
Just as a father has compassion on his children, So the
Something tells me God is not impressed.
This is how communists work. They infiltrate and destroy from within.
The church is the bride of Christ, who is masculine, and the relationship is deliberately described as being like that of a bride.
Good luck changing that...
So they don’t know the Old Testament, eh?
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