There is a blog out there by a minister in the Scottish Episcopal Church which has picked up on my article about the latter's introduction of 'inclusive language' in relation to God.
One poster says they are, "glad to see you have a different toake [sic] to that of the Ugley Vicar" and asks, "What d’you make of his perspective?", to which the author of the blog in question, Revruth, replies, "it wasn’t Ugleyvicar’s views but an article he pinched from John Richardson."
Much as I've tried, I can't post in the comments section, but for the record we are still one and the same person.
The other comments are worth reading, though, as they back up my hunch that this is all about revising our outward language about God in ways that conform to people's inward feelings - as I said before, basically idolatry in the sense that 'I' become the arbiter of God's nature, and wind up with a God fashioned by myself (see Isaiah 44:12-20 for the same process using the hands and wood, not the mind and mental images).
The battle to come here is related to that over sexuality but is, if anything, bigger.
BTW she disagrees, but doesn't say why.
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"as I said before, basically idolatry in the sense that 'I' become the arbiter of God's nature, and wind up with a God fashioned by myself"
ReplyDeleteOh I think we've all done that from time to time - perhaps even you? The disproportionate attention you give to a handful of Scripture verses and the fact you seem blind to the fact other people are just as qualified to interpret the Bible as you are - even if they come to different conclusions,suggests that there could be a degree of making God in one's own image. Or at least burdening him with one's own hang-ups and preoccupations (an unhealthy interest in people's sexuality being a salient example - look at the Torah and the Gospels, the basic preoccupation with the former is the building up of community and the latter condemnation of those who although they live to the letter of the Law and Scripture are blinded by their love power over people, their knowledge of the Scriptures and condemning others when there is a good deal within themselves they could turn their attention to.
Ken Simpson, Manchester
Like Dick Lucas used to say, as soon as you hear someone say "I like to think of God this way..." you know you are dealing with an idolater.
ReplyDeleteThe only way we can think of God is in the way in which He revealed himself through the Bible, and no other way. You say that to people nowadays and it really gets their goat. They just don't want to hear it. It doesn'thelp matters that they don't read the bible so they don't even know what God has revealed about himself.
I once casually commented to a unbelieving friend about the fact that God knows everything that will happen in our future and knows every choice we will make as well as every possible choice we won't make, and every variable in between, and he was incredulous to that...and I'm like 'what part of 'all-knowing' don't you understand? (apparently most parts).
Oh, by the way, to the poster above me, you're an ignoramus. Yes, you are a fool, and I don't care what you have to say about it.
ReplyDeleteTerribly sorry for my mistake. There is another John Richardson in our little church and I thought that this piece had been written by him. My mistake.
ReplyDeleteOh Jacob, you make it sound so easy. God is revealed in many different ways in the Bible. Sometimes he is presented in really quite confusing ways. For example, before the great flood, it is revealed that God regretted ever having created mankind. Regretted? How can you be omniscient and yet have regrets? It doesn't seem to make sense.
ReplyDeleteI think that if you can read from the Bible and not once encounter anything that leaves you asking questions, then you must be blessed with an extraordinary gift from the Spirit for theological understanding. Most of us ignoramuses are left with the feeling that we're destined to study the Bible for the rest of our lives and still only catch but a glimpse of the full nature of God, and then still be left with many, many questions.
"language about God in ways that conform to people's inward feelings ... basically idolatry in the sense that 'I' become the arbiter of God's nature, and wind up with a God fashioned by myself" - absolutely right, John; what I've oft thought (and written, see: http://www.affirmingthefaith.com/oughtism.htm - Oughtism), but which few seem to realise. The "I couldn't possibly believe in a god who ... I could only believe in a god who ..." - is of precisely this nature; people seem to have no trouble whatever devising their own god, and this actually means the god created by the prevailing secular materialist culture.
ReplyDelete