Calling God “our Father” is “problematic” for people who have suffered under “oppressive patriarchy”, the Archbishop of York has said. The Telegraph has the story.
The Most Rev Stephen Cottrell said the phrase is “problematic” for victims of abuse as well as people who have suffered under “oppressive patriarchy”.
The Archbishop waded into the controversial debate on God’s gender in his presidential welcome address to General Synod, the Church of England’s legislative body, which is convening in York.
The Lord’s Prayer, the Christian prayer which derives from when Jesus’s disciples asked him how they should pray, begins: “Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name”, and contains the male pronouns, ‘He’ and ‘Him’, in reference to God.
However, the Archbishop of York has suggested that the use of the term ‘Father’ is “problematic” for those who have suffered under abusive fathers, and those who have been abused by clergy, known as their fathers in God.
The Archbishop’s comments sparked a mixed reaction from a divided church.
Liberal, feminist clergy within the Church of England said just “because Jesus called God ‘daddy’, we think we have to call God ‘daddy’”, and agreed with his intervention on the controversial subject.
In contrast, conservative Christians criticised the Archbishop for taking his “cue from culture rather than scripture”.
In a speech centred on themes of cooperation and collaboration, the Archbishop said that, for Christians, the “God to whom we pray is ‘Father’”.
He added: ”And, yes, 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 laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life.”
His comments come after the previous meeting of the Synod in February, in which the notion of a gender-neutral God was proposed.
Proposals were made to the Liturgical Commission, which prepares and promotes forms of religious worship and service within the Church, to consider launching a project “on gendered language” referencing God.
Why is God the only one these days not allowed his preferred pronouns?
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Another clueless nonce.
Imagine what we could achieve if they turned their intellects to problems that needed to be solved, rather than problems which don’t exist.
“Imagine what we could achieve…”
Given the parsity of intelligent thought displayed by this vapid and frankly insulting excuse for a clergyman I would conclude that what we might achieve would be the square root of F#ck All.
What intellects?
Cottrell has been misreported. What he said was:
“For if this God to whom we pray is ‘Father’ – and, yes, I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us have laboured rather too much from an oppressively, patriarchal grip on life – then those of us who say this prayer together, whether we like it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, even if we determinedly face away from each other, only turning round in order to put a knife in the back of the person standing behind us, are sisters and brothers, family members, the household of God.”
He was not factually stating that “our Father” was problematic, and if one reads the whole text, one will see that his emphasis was on “our”, not “Father”.
A fair point, although his recourse to the hard left’s weasel word “problematic” is itself fairly “problematic”, no? And doesn’t he give way rather too readily to a proneness among those who have suffered from paternal abuse to condemning all dads – not to mention fatherhood itself? Surely, he should assert that God’s fatherhood is an abiding sign of the male parent’s responsibility and authority; of the goodness and necessity of the fatherly state in spite of all twisted, inadequate or distorted instances. After all, the vast majority of dads are, for most the time, loving, giving, strong, kind hearted and exemplary. Only the left wants us to focus on the perverts because it wishes to condemn the family. Cottrell should be more aware of these points – and it is his subtle attempt to placate the left by using its language and indulging its emphasis on family corruption, which opens him to suspicion and censure.
He deserves an Almighty kick in the prelates for producing a single sentence of 106 words.
The term patriarchy dates back to Roman times where the pater familias had legal authority over the other members of his household. To various degrees, this stretched well into the 20th century but has been legally abolished a long time ago. Eg, the German constitution, dating back to 1949, prominently states
Männer und Frauen sind gleichberechtigt.
[Men and women shall have equal rights, 3/2]
Nobody who’s presently alive in the so-called West has ever experienced oppressive patriarchy, the term itself is already a loaded political statement because legal authority doesn’t imply abuse of this legal authority aka oppression. It can as well (and usually will) mean protection and support. At best, these people suffer from obsessive misandry. At worst, it’s just Lesbians at universities competing with men for the same prospective female sex partners. My guess would be it’s mostly the latter, as per the usual motto If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
People who have – somewhat nebulously defined – problems with the concept of father obviously cannot be Christians and whether or not they found it convenient to abuse the church as a source of a steady income is immaterial for that. The woketurds always try to attach themselves to businesses or organizations with no risk of economical failure because this enables risklessly diverting some of the resources of these businesses and organizations to their political pet causes.
I don’t care. ————-When you are confronted with a snake pit, you don’t jump in there because someone said “all snakes are not poisonous”. ———-You stay out of the pit.
I suggest another revision: The good Samaritan will obviously not pick up the sick other guy as that would be far to unhygienic. Instead, he’ll self-vaccinate a couple of times in front of him and then let him die because – as we still remember – getting vaccinated is the only proper way to Love thy neighbour.
Years ago, I used to consider myself a Christian. The obviously entirely unchristian church made me reconsider this position. I don’t claim to know whether or not God exists. But he’s certainly not the guiding force behind this organization.
You probably are a Christian, you just don’t want to be CofE or Catholic, both of which have left the Church. I’d suggest the Orthodox church.
Perhaps we should differentiate between those who take a traditional Christian approach to everyday life, which I like to think I do, despite being a lifelong atheist, and those who believe literally in the words of Jesus and submit to him in order to receive their rewards in heaven.
The church plumbs another record depth of stupidity! Are they trying to shed what little congregations they have left?
Oh no. A super fit and very nice guy by all accounts;
”Dutch football icon Edwin van der Sar will remain in intensive care for the time being. His condition is stable but still concerning, Amsterdam football club Ajax announced. The 52-year-old former goalkeeper suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage during his vacation in Croatia and was admitted to a hospital. Van der Sar was transported by helicopter to a hospital on Friday afternoon and is staying in the intensive care unit there, De Telegraaf reported.”
https://nltimes.nl/2023/07/08/former-football-star-edwin-van-der-sar-remains-intensive-care-cerebral-hemorrhage
Also Edwin van der Sar;
”Just got my first Covid vaccine today.” June 2021
https://twitter.com/vdsar1970/status/1399700069780238336
I fear for mankind.
I fear for ‘man-sized tissues’ because I don’t think the Trans Loon Brigade have gotten around to being offended by those yet. Have they?
I do prefer a decent man-sized one over a puny non-binary hanky personally.
Oh, they have already- about 10 yrs ago some clown was objecting to the adverts and they went after the Yorkie adds.
the man size is now called ‘extra large’- now if I was some penis toting woman I might be in need of them…….
Ah no! It’s cos I left the UK so perhaps I didn’t notice on my trips back since. Gutted. Mental that is.
Yep, these loons have infested everywhere here. Hope it is better where you are
Wherever you went, is it comparatively sane?
Actually yeah, they did. 2018, renamed Kleenex Extra Large
It’s People Kind, please! Come on, what did Uncle Trudeau say?
I presume you mean personkind.
Religion is the problematic problem. All of ‘em are just methods of social control. Faith is a different matter, but all religions are coercive.
What about other deities. Has the ArchBish thought of going to (say) Mecca or Tehran to tell them Allah is actually female or trans? Thought not. No courage these modern bishops.
I’d buy tickets for that show
Add in some Just Stop Oil activists for an entourage.
Indeed, just to blaspheme against that other major deity worshipped in the Middle £ast!
Speaking of which, you are possibly already aware of ”Korangate” over in Sweden, where an immigrant from Iraq burned a Koran with a piece of bacon in it in a one-person democratic protest. This *really* got the Pope’s back up. I don’t think he knows how much Christians ( in fact anyone who isn’t Muslim ) is reviled in that book.
”Pope Francis is “indignant and disgusted,” according to a Sunday news report, but not over what you might expect. The pontiff is not enraged over the industrial-scale clerical sex abuse that has plagued the Church, or about the escalating persecution of Christians worldwide, or about the wholesale abandonment of Christianity in Europe. Instead, he is furious because an Iraqi refugee in Sweden set fire to a copy of the Qur’an.
Pope Francis, on the other hand, has never lived in a majority-Muslim country, and has steadfastly refused to face the reality of Qur’an-inspired violence even amid the global jihad against Christians. Instead, he declared counterfactually in 2013 that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Qur’an are opposed to every form of violence.” And so he was duly upset with Salwan Momika, who is upsetting his kumbaya applecart. He declared: “I feel indignant and disgusted by these actions.” Why? Because “any book considered sacred by its authors must be respected out of respect for its believers, and freedom of expression must never be used as an excuse to despise others, and to allow this, must be rejected and condemned.”
Any book? Really, Frank? Good thing Hitler wasn’t savvy enough to declare Mein Kampf a sacred book, so that we don’t have to endure the spectacle of the Bishop of Rome telling us that it must be respected. Yet even in the present case, the pope is busy painting himself into a corner. The Qur’an says that “the unbelievers among the people of the book,” that is, Jews and Christians who don’t become Muslims, are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6). It says that unbelievers are “the worst of animals in Allah’s sight” (8:55). It calls on Muslims to “wage jihad against the unbelievers and the hypocrites” and adds: “Be harsh with them” (9:73). It says: “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are ruthless against the unbelievers and merciful among themselves” (48:29). These verses and numerous others like them make it clear that while Pope Francis is calling upon non-Muslims to respect the Qur’an, the Qur’an doesn’t return the favor. The pope is demanding respect for a book that is filled with nothing but disrespect for those who, like the pope himself, are considered to be outside the circle of believers.”
https://pjmedia.com/culture/robert-spencer/2023/07/04/pope-gets-angry-over-the-burning-of-a-book-that-calls-christians-vile-n1708212
Given Allah another name for the same God as Christians and Jews worship, the Archbishop should watch what he says!
It’s time we reopened lunatic asylums.
Well those who have suffered can avoid saying it.
Sorry but what is this “Church of England” ? They certainly aren’t part of the Christian church so why are we paying these heretics any notice?
So much for “Sola scriptura”
Are we the only same ones left on this Planet along with a couple of other sites of sanity like Conservative Woman? I genuinely believe the entire world has had a mass attack of insanity.
I often feel we have suffered an invasion of triffids.
Right. Excuse me everyone. I have decided that I identify as God. My husband says he identifies as Satan. I’m afraid that puts US in charge of EVERYTHING from this moment of self-declaration onwards. Most Rev Stephen Cottrell – I never knew you.
Are you a Goddess or a TransGod?
…or should it be TransGoddess… I am soooo confused
I’m offended. I shall smite thee down and cancel thee.
Three others who identify as God: Boris Johnson, Tony Bliar, Margaret Thatcher. And probably a few other world leaders.
So billions of Christians have been wrong for centuries. That is hubris on steroids.
We hear so much abuse of Christians these days and the idiots like the Archbishop of York are part of the wider problem. How can a church like the CofE be taken seriously when godless, neo-Marxist weirdos spout this nonsense?
As a Catholic, going to the occasional mass in Westminster Cathedral down the years, especially ones in side chapels, if there was to be a concert in the main cathedral, I was struck by the sheer mix of people – East Asian, Asians, Africans, Caribbeans, Americans and Europeans, men and women – in one small place. It was incredibly friendly, with people who have never met each other, all smiling and chatting away before the mass, because whatever our other backgrounds, we were all united. Obviously everyone shook hands for the sign of peace.
The warmth between human beings of many backgrounds – suited city types in their lunchbreaks, women in floral African dresses or in professional skirts or trouser suits, me in my media boy jeans and t-shirt – was palpable and I saw the very best of the modern incarnation of this country in there. After the mass, we all went on our ways to our different lives. I have concerns about the upper echelons of the Roman Church, but I have no concerns about ordinary churchgoers.
The CofE, with its progressivist, left wing, state-appointed high officials, has lost its way. The CoE has put helter skelters and crazy golf courses in its cathedrals. The people who run it, who spout their morally-repugnant, modern left wing dogma are Satanic. Their views do not reflect the views of the majority of their parishioners, especially outside of a rarified element of Islingtonite London and a couple of other major cities. The more they foist this ideology on nice ordinary people who just want to go to a normal service once a week, the more they drive them away. I can’t see how the CofE will survive now that it’s openly undermining the basis of the Christian faith. The wider Anglican communion is apparently planning on cutting it off and removing the CofE’s (and Canterbury’s) authority over the communion.
What this latest story reflects is how the upper elements of the CofE now worship Marx, not God. There’s no issue about ‘God the Father’, except in the minds of the Marxist ideologue clerics, who are like rats being being shoved up the Church’s arsehole, chewing their way through its body, leaving a ruined corpse.
Well, it is difficult to disagree with any of this, although your last paragraph is perhaps a trifle extravagant. Yes, the C of E has lost its way. I know this as an intermittent Anglican of some fifty years experience, years which have offered a spectacle of decline and spiritual impoverishment. The local vicar here, back in the eighties, was a learned fellow who translated the medieval missal into modern English to show the changes and continuities of historic religious practice. Our current incumbent shows no such interest. The hymns which once we sang were old, sturdy and joyous; the happy clappy numbers we endure today are lachrymose and manipulative. And so on. As for the sermons, well – one just tunes out. Such a pity. Such a loss!
Sorry, I did go a bit theatrical there, I guess.
I just get tired of there being so much sneering about ordinary, nice people who go to church (I’m hardly frequent!) as if they’re all fundamentalist loonies – old grannies in the church hall polishing AK47s and stitching together suicide vests between digestives and cups of tea from an urn!! Meanwhile these Marxist nutter clerics seem to be going out of their way to try to undermine their own parishioners’ faith. I mean, would turning God into a transgender icon with a transsexual Jesus on a crucifix with LGBTQIA+ written above him surrounded by NHS flags really attract more people?
Our priest when I was a child in the 1980s was an Irish ex-boxer. Yes, he liked a few drinks, but he had a good heart. In 1981, my Grandad, who wasn’t even in our parish, collapsed with an aneurysm. Even though my Grandad wasn’t in his parish, the priest tore down to the hospital and delivered the Sacrament of the Sick, ultimately Last Rites as it turned out and stayed with my Dad, Mum and Granma for a while before Grandad died.
Even in the 80s, there was some ‘happy clappy’ slipping in, though. I hated it when a bloke played the guitar. The lady who played the organ wasn’t very good at it, but at least she was respectful. But the bloke was a happy clappy and played his guitar like he was in a pop gig. I’m very old school, which is why I’m increasingly thinking of becoming Orthodox.
Oh no! I was most taken with that last sentence, what a way with words! What imagery
There is nothing wrong with calling out corruption, and it exists everywhere there are humans and in every organisation. It just always feels worse when it is in an institution that for many provides comfort and guidance.
I’m not a believer, but I dislike the current pope and believe Ratzinger was crowbarred out to slide Francis in. Whether or not on a personal level he is a good person and a good Christian is aside from the fact that to my mind he seems to be a fifth columnist inside the Catholic church. One does not have to be affiliated with a particular institution in order to not want to see it insidiously undermined from within.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/can-you-blame-immigrants-for-feeling-no-allegiance-to-the-west/
The destruction of our country thanks to the immigrants.
You can also read “War on the West” by Douglas Murray.
If God exists, He/She/Ze almost certainly doesn’t in my opinion, their gender is one of the least problematic things about them. Telling Abraham to sacrifice his son or instructing the Israelites to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing in order to take possession of the promised land is a lot worse than being male.
As Richard Dawkins once said, what’s the difference between a non existent male and a non existent female? Or a none existent nonbinary/gender fluid/cat gender thing.
all those leaky rooves and this is how they choose to spend their time.
Does it really matter what you call someone who only exists in your own mind?
Stephen Cottrell is Satan’s acolyte doing Satan’s work in plain sight. Remove He/Him immediately
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Ok, it contains the word “Father”, but I can’t think of anywhere that gender-identification pronouns “he” or “him” are used in the prayer – only “thy” and “thine”.
The reference to God as male, or patriarchal, rather than alluding to oppressive, patriarchal dominance, resonates with other spiritual traditions, such as the theology of the native American Indians, who see the Sun as masculine – “Father Sun”, the giver, provider of sunlight, the sustenance for all life on Earth – and the Earth as feminine – “Mother Earth” , or Mother Nature, one who takes the sustenance provided by the “Father” and receives, nurtures and fertilizes the earth.
So the perennial truth underlying the expression of gender in religious scripture and and prayer tradition, is that the concepts of “male” and “female” refer to cosmological principles that transcend anything associated with gender divisions in the human realm. These ideas predate humans, and have always existed as part of the natural order of the universe.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Archbishop!
These people need a very fierce uppercut from Mike Tyson and counted out not just after 10 seconds, but for all time. Sometimes the only way to get rid of bluebottles is to batter them to a pulp. Wokes are just like the bluebottles that fly in the open windows in summer and should all end up down the loo and into the North Sea. But they are actually worse than bluebottles because we have to suffer them all winter as well.
This is So Disappointing. This Man ( I ought nOT to refer to him as an Archbishop any longer ) has become of other THEM!! The whole point of “Our Father in Heaven” is “Heaven” Zero to do with any abusive, absent, mad, crazy earthly father/s. That IS the whole point. The Church of England ( of which I am a Member ) is a Disappointment on this issue. HE ( this man ) does NOT in my view, speak for Christianity. NADA
So Mary can’t be referred to as female if someone had problems with their mother?