Notices and Prayer site for St James Road Methodist Church, Southampton.
The King is dead – long live the monarch!
In Unit 6 of Faith & Worship, I am invited to consider “how do [I] picture God?” This question comes in the context of a taped reflection that, in turn, uses a poem by “M Rienstra” titled, “To Weavers Everywhere”. The poem starts with this verse:
The poem uses exclusively feminine imagery and “genderisation” of God to express some of the female characteristics of God.
It made me quite uncomfortable as I read it. But, what is it that troubles me so much about the projection of God as “she”?
Am I simply bigoted and intolerant? Am I somehow threatened – is my masculine “authority” somehow diminished by this? Is this deep discomfort I feel a reflection of the unspoken uncertainties that lie within me (and probably all of is) because I cannot know and experience a full picture of God? Am I simply a chauvenist that doesn’t want to face up to that?
These are not all intended as simply rhetorical questions – me smugly sat here, knowing how right I am about the unspoken answers. BUT, I can say this much:
I AM concerned about the idea that just replacing one image of God with another will somehow ‘put things right’.
If God cannot be ‘He’ then why is it any more right to describe God as ‘She’.
The Rabbit
Imagine, for a moment, that you have never seen a rabbit. (Perhaps you are from another world!) Rather than describe it, I might try to draw one for you.
It has to be said that I am particularly poor at drawing anything straight from my imagination. If I draw a rabbit, it is just as likely to end up looking like a dog! So, my helpful friend might say, “that’s nothing like a rabbit”, and proceed to draw her own rabbit; and in the event it looks more like a cat. How is the viewer, who has never seen a rabbit, to know which of these images is correct, or that neither of them is correct?
Does it matter?
It is tempting, perhaps, to say that it doesn’t really matter whether our God looks like a dog or a cat. And, to a degree, this is true. But dogs and cats have very different characteristics. For some people, dogs are big, scary, potentially vicious carnivores, capable of turning on you at any moment. For others, they are cute cuddly puppies cavorting about on the lawn on a beautiful summer’s day.
One person’s liberating female or gender0-free image of God may be someone else’s confusion and worry.
One person’s traditional, masculine image of God may be another’s terrifying, angry, intolerant abuser. And one person’s feminine image of God may be another’s terrifying, angry and intolerant abuser.
I do have another concern, though. It is this…
We appear to be extending the view that it is fie for us each to have whatever image of God suits us best.
There is even a phrase used in the tape that accompanies F&W Unit 6 that states:
‘The important thing is – never to deny other people their picture of God’.
For me, this goes too far. It says, inasmuch, that God can be whoever or whatever we want.
This is a slippery road to walk down. This is the road to the multi-identity God. The God with so many faces, that we can no longer identify God at all. A God with so many conflicting characteristics that there is nothing left to identify with.
This is one of the great paradoxes that the Church faces. It seems to lie at the very heart of the liberal/conservative theological debate.
It matters because we can each end up worshipping and believing in a very different kind of God. That in allowing such a multi-faceted range of images of God (perhaps holding to any image at all), in allowing such theological freedoms, we risk creating a faith that ceases to be mono-theistic at all.
We create a whole now multi-mono-theistic faith; where we all believe in one God, but everyone’s God is different… and “that’s OK”.
If you are reading this and thinking that Nigel Bailey is therefore “outing himself” as an anti-feminist, you’d be wrong. I absolutely approve of and encourage female leadership within the Church. Jesus himself was a great defender of and supporter of women. Women were the first to witness the risen Christ, and the first to believe His resurrection. There were clearly, strong women leaders in the early church.
I also have no problem in accepting “feminine characteristics” of God.
What I believe we must be careful of, however, is allowing more liberal expressions of how we organise, practice and apply or “religion” to lead to the creation of new versions of ‘God’; images of God that we cannot recognise in scripture.
We should also be careful not to presume that one person’s ‘masculine’ view of God is the same as every other person’s ‘masculine’ view of God.
We should equally not assume the same of the ‘feminine’ image of God. Not everyone has exclusively positive and benign experiences of their mother, sister or daughter or wife, female colleague etc..
Ultimately, our faith is based on scripture as the revelation of God’s Word and of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. If we want a good picture of God to relate to – we need only read and reflect on our Bibles! If our “picture’ of God is not deeply rooted in scripture, then we risk creating new ‘Gods’ simply to suit our religious or secular preferences.
Tradition is inescapable - That is the title of a section of Unit 6 of the Faith & Worship study course. It is part of a unit that explores the role which The Bible, Experience, Tradition and Reason all have to play in shaping our idea of who God is – our “picture” of God.
In this context “Tradition” is a belief or practice handed down from generation to generation.
We are invited to consider, in the very first study unit, how these “building blocks of faith” may be arranged to build a secure and steadfast faith. No single building block, on its own, would be adequate. So, for example, the Bible, on its own, without some Experience of God or attempt to understand its meaning through the application of Reason, might present us with difficulties:
· How do we reconcile two separate creation stories?
· How do we reconcile polygamous marriage in the early Patriarchal stories with later law that prohibits such practices?
· How do we reconcile Old Testament teachings about the Sabbath (and the very severe punishments for failing to observe it) with Jesus’ own practice and teachings?
In Mark 7:1-13 Jesus has harsh words for the Pharisees who have criticised him and his disciples for eating without first observing a ceremonial washing of their hands. Mark writes:
“He replied, Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“ ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”
These are harsh words. But I don’t believe that Jesus is condemning “Tradition” here. Jesus is condemning the Pharisees for putting Tradition before “the commands of God” – to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind – and to love your neighbour as yourself.
In Matthew 22:40 we read “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”.
Jesus reserves his harshest criticism for those who allowed the Law and the complex way in which it was being applied, to get in the way of a right relationship with God.
Jesus’ “way” was simple – love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. The Pharisees though, would “tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders”.
“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Jesus is telling us here that his Way (his Yoke) is so much simpler than the complex rules and regulations with which the Pharisees are confusing and trapping people. The application of the Law has become lost in tradition – the Pharisees have lost sight of their original purpose. They have built a religion that is now too reliant on Tradition.
Of course, not all “Tradition” is thus inherently bad. It often defines who we are as a Church. By Tradition the Catholic faith interprets the text in Matthew 16:18 (“…you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…”) as basis for the view that the Pope is the only legitimate head of the Church; by Tradition, we Methodists would apply a different interpretation.
What we must, however, guard against is allowing Tradition to become burdensome and obstructive; allowing it to imprison us in the past. In the words of “Faith & Worship” – Tradition which has gone bad is the kind which knows no other argument than ‘this is the way we have always done it…
Notices and Prayer site for St James Road Methodist Church, Southampton.
Notices and Prayer site for St James Road Methodist Church, Southampton.
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