Our Father who art not a man…
The language in the Lord’s Prayer might be “problematic” for some people, the archbishop of York said Friday during his address to a meeting of the Church of England’s ruling body.
The Most Rev. Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, was specifically referring to the words “Our Father,” which opens the prayer that Jesus taught when his disciples asked him how they should pray.
“I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have labored rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life,” Cottrell said in his address.We were discussing this in seminary 30 years ago. 40 years ago inclusive language Bibles were re-writing the “Our Father.” It made the news; it faded. Now the creaking machinery of the C of E brings it back to the headlines.
I had church members bringing this problem to me, because of their family experiences. This is not an abstract argument of “woke.” This is a pastoral care issue. This is a theological issue.
And it’s been around long enough it’s finally getting noticed. Again. Change comes slowly; but it comes.
(And I went looking for images of The Lord’s Prayer for this post. Every one of them was the KJV. Which makes this very much a cultural issue. Or underlines that fact.)
I say "Father" half the time and "Mother" half the time because none of the neutral language proposals I've seen sounds right in English. The same is true for most languages. Esperanto could say " Nia Gepatro" which is gender inclusive and correct according to the rules.
ReplyDeleteI always had a problem with "Lead us not into temptation," and a few years back Pope Francis said he did too because it makes God tempt us to do evil. The Bishops in France came up with "Let us not go into temptation," which is better though I don't know of any others who followed on with that. The US Catholic Conference of Bishops will need most of its current members to die off before there's any hope of it being changed here.
I have an inclusive Bible but the print is so small I can't see it anymore.