{"id":26197,"date":"2018-07-04T09:23:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T13:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=26197"},"modified":"2018-07-04T09:23:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T13:23:00","slug":"tec-questions-gods-gender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/tec-questions-gods-gender\/","title":{"rendered":"TEC questions God\u2019s gender"},"content":{"rendered":"

After decades of diligent searching, The Episcopal Church has finally found a sentient being who is not entitled to self-identify as the gender of his choice: God. Even though God repeatedly refers to himself as \u201cFather\u201d in his autobiography, TEC is having none of it.<\/p>\n

If we let God have its way in this, \u201cour work toward equity will not just be incomplete, I honestly think it won\u2019t matter in some ways\u201d, said Rev. Wil Gafney, a Hebrew Bible professor who currently self-identifies as a woman.<\/p>\n

When Gafney preaches ne sometimes refers to God as \u201cShe\u201d rather than \u201cHe\u201d; pretty offensive, since ne should be using the gender neutral \u201cNe\u201d \u201cZe\u201d or \u201cVe\u201d.<\/p>\n

I like to do my bit for the work toward equity.<\/p>\n

\"\"From here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The terms for God, in the poetic language of the prayers written for centuries, have almost always been male: Father. King. Lord.<\/p>\n

And in the Episcopal Church, the language of prayer matters. The Book of Common Prayer, the text used in every Episcopal congregation, is cherished as a core element of Episcopal identity.<\/p>\n

This week, the church is debating whether to overhaul that prayer book \u2014 in large part\u00a0 to make clear that God doesn\u2019t have a gender.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as \u2018men\u2019 and \u2018God\u2019 are in the same category, our work toward equity will not just be incomplete. I honestly think it won\u2019t matter in some ways,\u201d said the Rev. Wil Gafney, a professor of the Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School in Texas who is on the committee recommending a change to the gendered language in the prayer book.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After decades of diligent searching, The Episcopal Church has finally found a sentient being who is not entitled to self-identify as the gender of his choice: God. Even though God repeatedly refers to himself as \u201cFather\u201d in his autobiography, TEC … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[302],"tags":[2529],"class_list":["post-26197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tec","tag-rev-wil-gafney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}