The Church of England is considering scrapping centuries of non secular teaching to offer God gender-neutral pronouns.
The church, which is headed by King Charles III, confirmed Wednesday that its Liturgical Commission has launched a special project to look at updating future teachings.
The potential shift away from referring to God as “Him” and “Our Father” — as used firstly of the Lord’s Prayer — was welcomed by woke worshippers, The Telegraph said.
An unidentified liberal Christian told the UK paper that “a theological misreading of God as exclusively male is a driver of much-continuing discrimination and sexism against women.”
Nonetheless, the Rev Ian Paul, a member of the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, was amongst those decrying it as a step too far.
“If the Liturgical Commission seeks to vary this, then in a very important way they will probably be moving the doctrine of the Church away from being grounded within the Scriptures,” he told the outlet.
He stressed that “female and male imagery will not be interchangeable,” while also claiming that critics were misreading the teachings.
“Using male pronouns for God mustn’t be understood as implying that God is male – which is a heresy. God will not be sexed, unlike humanity,” he stressed.
“The proven fact that God known as ‘Father’ can’t be substituted by ‘Mother’ without changing meaning, nor can or not it’s gender-neutralized to ‘Parent’ without lack of meaning. Fathers and moms usually are not interchangeable but relate to their offspring in alternative ways,” he stressed.
Prof. Helen King, the vice-chairman of the Synod’s gender and sexuality group, acknowledged that such “questions around gendered language and God have been around for a long time, if not centuries.”
Even so, they “still have the ability to bring out strong reactions,” she said.
“Clearly God will not be gendered, so why can we restrict our language for God in gendered ways?” she asked.
The plan first emerged after a female reverend asked the commission if there was an update “to develop more inclusive language” on condition that “lots of the prayers offered to be used discuss with God using male pronouns.”
The commission’s vice-chair, the Bishop of Lichfield Michael Ipgrave, replied that it had “been exploring the usage of gendered language in relation to God for several years.”
“After some dialogue … a recent joint project on gendered language will begin this spring,” Ipgrave wrote in a proper reply.
The bishop didn’t reply to Ther Telegraph’s request for more information on the project.
A spokesman for the Church of England told The Telegraph that the talk “is nothing recent.”
“Christians have recognized since precedent days that God is neither male nor female, yet the range of how of addressing and describing God present in scripture has not at all times been reflected in our worship,” the church rep said.
Still, the rep insisted that any changes would only apply to future teachings.
“There are absolutely no plans to abolish or substantially revise currently authorized liturgies, and no such changes could possibly be made without extensive laws,” the spokesperson said.
