Like most images of God, the Roman fresco “The Eternal in Glory,” painted by Luigi Garzi in 1685, shows God as a man. (iStock). The Muslim Times has the best collection of articles to promote interfaith tolerance among the Abrahamic faiths

Source: The Washington Post

By Julie Zauzmer

The terms for God, in the poetic language of the prayers written for centuries, have almost always been male: Father. King. Lord.

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.

This week, the church is debating whether to overhaul that prayer book — in large part to make clear that God doesn’t have a gender.

“As long as ‘men’ and ‘God’ are in the same category, our work toward equity will not just be incomplete. I honestly think it won’t matter in some ways,” 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.

Gafney says that when she preaches, she sometimes changes the words of the Book of Common Prayer, even though Episcopal priests aren’t formally allowed to do so. Sometime she switches a word like “King” to a gender-neutral term like “Ruler” or “Creator.” Sometimes she uses “She” instead of “He.” Sometimes, she sticks with the masculine tradition. ” ‘Our Father,’ I won’t fiddle with that,” she said, invoking the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to say in the book of Matthew.

Read more

Suggested reading and viewing

Video: How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Refuting William Lane Craig’s: ‘The Birth of God’‏

How Islam has Influenced Christian understanding of God