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PantlessBadger posted:I am Canadian and a member of the Anglican Church of Canada, so everything in the United States so far has really only served to encourage the folks who want the same thing done in Canada. I don't want to start sexism chat (burned at least one thread down once with it), but I'm kind of angry that the replacing masculine with the feminine is seen as a good, non-gendered alternative. Can't wait for Jesus Christ, Daughter of God, Her will be done. Just rename yourself the Chantry, it will be easier. Another joke could be about moving towards "oh, non-denominational diety, surpassing all and any gendered pronouns, we submit to your non-specific, entirely optional will..."
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Jul 19, 2015 10:24
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JcDent posted:I don't want to start sexism chat (burned at least one thread down once with it), but I'm kind of angry that the replacing masculine with the feminine is seen as a good, non-gendered alternative. Can't wait for Jesus Christ, Daughter of God, Her will be done.
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Jul 19, 2015 10:40
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HEY GAL posted:Christ is male, but the First Person of the Trinity is definitely both/neither. And to people who've been told that they weren't made in the full image of God all their lives, this isn't as funny a joke as it might seem to others. Well, yes, God isn't a sexual being in any way, so you can use whatever pronoun. ED: But, uh, I have never could have even thought that women are made less in the image of God. JcDent fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 10:48
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PantlessBadger posted:I am Canadian and a member of the Anglican Church of Canada, so everything in the United States so far has really only served to encourage the folks who want the same thing done in Canada. JcDent posted:Another joke could be about moving towards "oh, non-denominational diety, surpassing all and any gendered pronouns, we submit to your non-specific, entirely optional will..." HEY GAL posted:Christ is male, but the First Person of the Trinity is definitely both/neither. And to people who've been told that they weren't made in the full image of God all their lives, this isn't as funny a joke as it might seem to others.
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Jul 19, 2015 11:11
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Paladinus posted:Unitarian Universalism is already a thing. Oh, I know, I have an active UU relative (and I read the start of the thread). It's just strange for Christian movement.
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Jul 19, 2015 11:37
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HEY GAL posted:Christ is male, but the First Person of the Trinity is definitely both/neither. And to people who've been told that they weren't made in the full image of God all their lives, this isn't as funny a joke as it might seem to others. There are still people who are being told that today?  (...Shows how much I know.) I was never told that, and therefore I agree wholeheartedly with this post, especially the first part. I don't get why some of the people we've talked about are averse to the idea that when God was incarnated, it was as a male human. I can deal with that, and don't feel any less loved or less included.
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Jul 19, 2015 16:18
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PurpleButterfly posted:There are still people who are being told that today? I had not been reading that much historical literature, so I might have missed the times where women were told that they're inferior, because they're supposedly not the 100% spitting image of God. And while the first woman might come from the first man, all subsequent men came from women, so that's that  Reading page 7 of this thread, I didn't even realize that the question of Trinity, well, exists. Here I always imagined that explaining Trinity as AI and its secondary minds was terribly clever.
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Jul 19, 2015 18:33
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JcDent posted:I had not been reading that much historical literature, so I might have missed the times where women were told that they're inferior, because they're supposedly not the 100% spitting image of God. Trinitarianism is one of the hardest concepts to grasp. I've heard many an atheist say that they quit believing because the Trinity made no sense
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Jul 19, 2015 19:03
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Smoking Crow posted:Trinitarianism is one of the hardest concepts to grasp. I've heard many an atheist say that they quit believing because the Trinity made no sense I did my undergraduate thesis on an Asian perspective on the Trinity. I was selected to present at our school's Student Research Conference and presented under the title "Can Christians Speak Both Chinese and Greek: a Yin and Yang Trinitarian Theology." When I had finished my presentation, an old (and I mean OLD) man raised his hand and said, "I just finished my STB [for those who don't know that's a bachelors in sacred theology, a pontifical degree] and I can't believe you just spent 15 talking about the Trinity and didn't once use the word 'mystery'!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that not only was the theologian I was researching a post-modern Protestant, he was also technically a modalist and couldn't care less about "mystery" in a post Kantian epistemological setting. Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 19:26
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Smoking Crow posted:Trinitarianism is one of the hardest concepts to grasp. I've heard many an atheist say that they quit believing because the Trinity made no sense I don't know how that makes sense - and I always understood Holy Spirit to be the soul of God, if that makes sense.
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Jul 19, 2015 20:03
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A very close friend of mine left the Catholic Church (which he had converted to 3-4 years before) and became Muslim explicitly because of the dogma of the Trinity, saying that Jesus, as a Semite (in particular a Jew) would have preached and taught as a Semitic Jew, and that any concept of his being God, or that God could have "three divine persons, co-equal and co-eternal, while having one Godhead" is antithetical to Semitic thought and was instead a Greek Hellenist invention. He therefore considers the revelation from Muhammed to be an uncorrupted revelation, because it retains the essential nature of a Semitic religion, arguing that the God of Revelation, is a God from the Semites.
Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jul 19, 2015 |
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Jul 19, 2015 20:14
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I once had the opportunity to talk about religion with two Muslim girls which even though it was way too short (90 minutes tops, I guess) was illuminating in a large number of aspects: I learned a ton about Islamn from them, and I also realised that even though the two had been living in Austria for a long time (one for 8 years, the other her whole life) they were just as clueless about Christianity as I was about Islam - according to them they had literally never before the chance to talk with a practising Christian who also talked openly about his beliefs. Trying to explain the Trinity to the only got me confused looks though, as the concept was utterly foreign to them. It was also quite interesting that I had to explain what I meant when I said that Jesus had risen from the dead - I always had thought that the Christian idea of the resurrection was self-evident, but of course it's not.Lutha Mahtin posted:Even with a government checkbox, membership is not going to be effectively counted. This is because you will have many people who are still on the rolls but never attend, and even people who don't consider themselves Christian but Ah, so you're differentiating between members and "members", gotcha The number of people officially leaving the Church probably doesn't have too much of an effect on the number of people actually participating and attending mass, that's true, but it still means that the dioceses and parishes will lose a lot of money because people are paying no matter whether they actually take part in the Church they formally belong to or not, and losing anyone means netting less money.While the logbook you mentioned is probably the best way to measure attendance, this would never fly with us, however - it smacks of surveillance and the parish controlling whether you were a "good Catholic" and had attended mass, whether that's true or not. And defining who was an active member of the parish also only works in smaller communities as well - my parish for example has ~6.800 Catholics, of which maybe 500-600 attend mass somewhat regularly, even if it's only once every two months or so. There is no way for one person or even a group of persons to keep an overview of who's coming and who's not. Also: where do you draw the line? Does "active membership" mean attending mass weekly and participating in the various parish groups? Or is it enough to come once a month and bring a salad for the after-mass meetup? And how about those who let their kids be baptised and confirmed in the Church and who marry there, but are never seen anytime else except for maybe Easter and Christmas - are they counted as well? Especially in an urban setting like Vienna where there are 167 parishes to choose from, it's not unusual to, say, spend one Sunday in a more traditional parish, attend mass next week in a more liberal one and then go to the Cathedral a couple of days later because it's Corpus Christi and you wanna see the fancy procession through the Inner City. They are active and practising Catholics, but it'd be pretty hard to narrow them down onto a single parish.
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Jul 19, 2015 22:56
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on filling out the paperwork. Similarly there are probably people who attend church semi-regularly but who are not actually on the books. This is going to be even more true in Europe than my observations as an American.
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System Metternich posted:While the logbook you mentioned is probably the best way to measure attendance, this would never fly with us, however - it smacks of surveillance and the parish controlling whether you were a "good Catholic" and had attended mass, whether that's true or not. And defining who was an active member of the parish also only works in smaller communities as well - my parish for example has ~6.800 Catholics, of which maybe 500-600 attend mass somewhat regularly, even if it's only once every two months or so. There is no way for one person or even a group of persons to keep an overview of who's coming and who's not. Also: where do you draw the line? Does "active membership" mean attending mass weekly and participating in the various parish groups? Or is it enough to come once a month and bring a salad for the after-mass meetup? And how about those who let their kids be baptised and confirmed in the Church and who marry there, but are never seen anytime else except for maybe Easter and Christmas - are they counted as well? Especially in an urban setting like Vienna where there are 167 parishes to choose from, it's not unusual to, say, spend one Sunday in a more traditional parish, attend mass next week in a more liberal one and then go to the Cathedral a couple of days later because it's Corpus Christi and you wanna see the fancy procession through the Inner City. They are active and practising Catholics, but it'd be pretty hard to narrow them down onto a single parish. I honestly don't understand where this line of conversation is going. I was trying to explain the challenge of collecting useful data in a church and now the goalposts have been moved so that the only acceptable methods are those which tiptoe around Catholic guilt and paranoia.
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Jul 20, 2015 01:21
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Smoking Crow posted:Trinitarianism is one of the hardest concepts to grasp. I've heard many an atheist say that they quit believing because the Trinity made no sense It doesn't make sense, full stop; it wouldn't be one of the Mysteries of the church if it did. And that's why it's important.
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Jul 20, 2015 07:06
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Lutha Mahtin posted:I honestly don't understand where this line of conversation is going. I was trying to explain the challenge of collecting useful data in a church and now the goalposts have been moved so that the only acceptable methods are those which tiptoe around Catholic guilt and paranoia. And I was trying to explain why I thought the alternatives you mentioned probably weren't feasible for the specific circumstances of the parishes I know - I wasn't intending to move my goalposts, so sorry I guess?  This doesn't have anything to do with "Catholic guilt and paranoia" btw - I wouldn't want the state to have detailed data on when I visited what church and with whom, so why would I voluntarily give it to the Church instead? (And it's not like my priest wouldn't already have a pretty good knowledge on that just by looking for familiar faces) Maybe this isn't a problem for where you live, but I'm 100% sure that trying this would cause a major shitstorm over here.
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Jul 20, 2015 09:24
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Paladinus posted:There are probably ways to convey that without deeming Our Father or Glory Be offensive. PurpleButterfly posted:There are still people who are being told that today?
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Jul 20, 2015 10:32
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HEY GAL posted:I've heard people say we can't be priests because we can't grow beards and thereby look like Christ. I'm a guy. I can't grow a beard despite a few attempts. Does this mean I can't be a priest?
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Jul 20, 2015 14:45
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the miracles of modern hormone therapy are there to help you for all your ecclesiastic beard-growing needs
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Jul 20, 2015 15:05
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HEY GAL posted:I've heard people say we can't be priests because we can't grow beards and thereby look like Christ. It's not just about beards though, is it? Or is it something someone you know actually thinks?
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Jul 20, 2015 15:40
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Paladinus posted:It's not just about beards though, is it? Or is it something someone you know actually thinks? No matter how theologically retarded it is somebody somewhere will believe it
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Jul 20, 2015 15:44
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HEY GAL posted:This is why I call God It. You can also start seriously thinking about apophatic theology, too. It is very impersonal, and given the limitations and imprecision of language opening spaces for misinterpretation and false teaching, as the points about beards suggest, then surely any changes will simply create new problems? Rather than deeming language offensive and trying to change it, wouldn't it be more productive to focus on correcting the kinds of false teaching that creates the idea that women are somehow made leas in the image and likeness of God than men simply because God's identity had been revealed as our Father?
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Jul 20, 2015 15:53
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PantlessBadger posted:Rather than deeming language offensive and trying to change it, wouldn't it be more productive to focus on correcting the kinds of false teaching that creates the idea that women are somehow made leas in the image and likeness of God than men simply because God's identity had been revealed as our Father? The genesis of the movement to question gendered language does not begin with the argument "this text uses a gendered word, therefore it is 'offensive' and must be changed". And if anyone makes this argument you should probably ignore them, because either they do not understand the reasoning behind this movement, or they are bad at rhetoric and will end up alienating more people than they persuade. To understand what's going on here, we must go back to the beginning. This means, of course, Marx and Freud, whose techniques greatly influenced modern and postmodern academic thought. Not in the sense of ideology, necessarily, but in the method of looking at history and society through a specific lens in order to explain why things are the way they are. This idea of a critical lens with which to view history and society eventually made its way to feminist thinkers, who began to study the structural reasons why many societies throughout history have treated women badly. And one of the things they argue is that the use of gendered language, when words that are associated with a society's power structure are "male" words, affects the way people in that society think and behave, promoting men to positions of power and esteem, and relegating women to the margins. Interestingly, this is not just a bunch of sociologists sitting in their ivory tower jerking each other off. I don't have the citations on hand at the moment, but a lot of psychological research has been done in recent years looking at how language affects how people think, and has basically proved George Orwell correct. So there is a very real case to be made that people should be mindful, both individually and as a society, about what words we use and what connotations we give those words. And perhaps part of your effort to counter "false teachings" should consider these effects.
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Jul 20, 2015 16:36
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I personally think that a focus on non-gender language is a shame, as it implies that gender is inherently a flaw. What is wrong with "maleness"? As a male, I hope the answer is "nothing" (contrary to SA, I am not a porpoise. No, really.). If we are truly co-equal heirs in the promise of Christ, then it follows there is nothing wrong with "femaleness" either. To ignore gender is to ignore the blessings each brings, which is a loss.
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Jul 20, 2015 16:58
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Ynglaur posted:I personally think that a focus on non-gender language is a shame, as it implies that gender is inherently a flaw. quote:What is wrong with "maleness"? As a male, I hope the answer is "nothing" (contrary to SA, I am not a porpoise. No, really.) If we are truly co-equal heirs in the promise of Christ, then it follows there is nothing wrong with "femaleness" either. PantlessBadger posted:It is very impersonal...
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Jul 20, 2015 18:40
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Ynglaur posted:I personally think that a focus on non-gender language is a shame, as it implies that gender is inherently a flaw. What is wrong with "maleness"? As a male, I hope the answer is "nothing" (contrary to SA, I am not a porpoise. No, really.). If we are truly co-equal heirs in the promise of Christ, then it follows there is nothing wrong with "femaleness" either. To ignore gender is to ignore the blessings each brings, which is a loss. But Ynglaur-senpai, genders are social constructs, etc., etc., where you eventually end up with people saying that there are absolutely no differences between the sexes (genders don't even come into play), and at least one of those folks is prominent in my country. Also, my girlfriend tells me not to talk gender stuff on the Internet, so I'll stop there.
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Jul 20, 2015 18:41
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JcDent posted:But Ynglaur-senpai, genders are social constructs, etc., etc.,
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Jul 20, 2015 18:42
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I call God male because that's the gender in the original greek
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Jul 20, 2015 18:52
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Smoking Crow posted:I call God male because that's the gender in the original greek out of game, it's all indo-european sky gods anyway
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Jul 20, 2015 18:53
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HEY GAL posted:out of game, it's all indo-european sky gods anyway ...
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Jul 20, 2015 19:05
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HEY GAL posted:out of game, it's all indo-european sky gods anyway War god in Yahweh's case. 
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Jul 20, 2015 19:07
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YHVH is semetic anyway
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Jul 20, 2015 19:21
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Smoking Crow posted:YHVH is semetic anyway deus pater omnipotens has at least a handshaking relationship with *Dyēus ph2ter
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Jul 20, 2015 19:23
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HEY GAL posted:Didn't say there was anything wrong with maleness, but if we keep talking as though God were "male", you understand that that might make people who aren't male feel like there's something wrong with them, yes? I'm honest here, I don't understand you at all. If you feel like that, okay, I don't intend to judge and it's not a big deal since God is one and obviously isn't really of any gender. I just don't understand. For me it's all about Jesus himself calling God "Father" and I do think he didn't do that to make all non-males feel... something negative about their gender.
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Jul 20, 2015 19:54
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the sex of god really doesn't seem like an important theological question imo or rather, it doesn't seem like one where doctrine really needs to be enforced
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Jul 20, 2015 20:04
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sex of god is a pretty decent username
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Jul 20, 2015 20:13
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I think it's an issue of privilege; as a straight white male, I've won the world, so I don't understand the issues that people who are not straight, white or male have. And so do you two.
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Jul 20, 2015 20:15
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that said, i do think that fidelity of translation trumps theological content if we're talking about bible translation and composition, but getting mad at people calling God "her" or "it" seems to be missing the point
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Jul 20, 2015 20:19
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Paladinus posted:Thanks for the write-up. I assume that like in Church of England proper, parishes are allowed a lot of liturgical freedom and none of those changes can be enforced on everyone in the country. Is that right? Sorry I missed this before. Yes, there's a fair amount of flexibility. In the CoE the 1662 Book of Common Prayer remains the standard authorized service book, however the more recent Common Worship has revised language and servives for all occasions. They are basically starting the process of seeing the pressure for gender revision in liturgical texts, but despite basically dealing with the same pressures the CoE tends to move more slowly than the ACC/TEC just due to the differing rules over there on how revisions are made. In terms of Common Worship, it provides for a significant amount of latitude for the celebrant to altar the language by common use of the rubric "These or similar/other suitable words are to be said" Which basically means you can use bits of other authorized liturgical texts (generally from other parts of the Anglican Communion, so for instance I have actually used the Order for Night Prayer (Compline) when preparing the liturgies for parish retreats I am involved in, simply because they've done a decent job of it and there is no modern language version of compline available in official Canadian authorized texts (BAS only has morning and evening, though the BCP has mattins, vespers and compline). In the UK, this means that the latitude from Common Worship allows people to, for instance, use elements of the New Zealand Prayer Book (probably the most modernist prayer book I've ever seen). By way of example, this is the Lord's Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book: Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen. This contrasts with the more recognizable Lord's Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: OUR Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen. The Book of Alternative Services in Canada allows similar substitutions of "other suitable words" per the rubric and I know of at least one Parish in my diocese which has, and probably still does, use elements of the New Zealand Prayer Book. Also I should probably apologize. I doubt anyone in this thread is going to be convinced one way or the other on the issue of the permissibility of identifying God, Christ, etc using non-traditional terms. I didn't mean to start a debate on the point, I was just mentioning a few of the recent developments in Anglicanism as it seemed somewhat topical and a few folks were interested in hearing a bit more.
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Jul 20, 2015 20:21
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That is not the Lord's Prayer. It doesn't follow the Greek at all
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Jul 20, 2015 20:24
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Smoking Crow posted:That is not the Lord's Prayer. It doesn't follow the Greek at all I'm certainly not one to disagree. If I hadn't actually identified it, I suspect no one here (unless they were already familiar with the NZPB) would have been able to identify it. The NZPB has tonnes of syncretism as well, where they have adapted aboriginal prayers which seems somewhat animistic to me. It's something that you see a bit of in Canada as well. That type of text is what the end goal of these liturgical revisionist movements are for the Anglican Communion, though. While they aren't getting there yet--given the reaction against the proposed Affirmation of Faith causing it to be removed from the Trial Use liturgy--but they're taking an incremental approach to some of these changes. Review the piece on the Hymnal I posted earlier and you can see similar references to God as our mother and father, removal of references to humanity's sinful nature and so forth. It may bear no resemblance to traditional Christian liturgies/hymnody, but it isn't considered offensive in the way that reformers feel it needs to be revised under these principles of fairness.
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Jul 20, 2015 22:20
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