What are your thoughts on the 'gender-inclusive' Trinity?

Question

From: http://www.bible.com/community/news_details.php?id=745§ion=community&areaid=140&type=News
"Presbyterians Consider 'Gender-Inclusive' Trinity"

Presbyterians have stopped short of approving gender-inclusive language for worship of the Trinity, along with the traditional "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Leaders of the Presbyterian Church USA decided to "receive" a policy paper on the subject rather than approve it....church officials can propose experimental liturgies with alternative phrasings for the Trinity, but congregations will not be required to use them. One of the proposed alternatives is "Mother, Child, and Womb." Supporters of the variations argue that language limited to the Father and Son "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women." But Presbyterian conservatives say the church should stick close to the way God is named in the Bible and note that Jesus' most famous prayer was addressed to "Our Father."

I'm shocked!

My thoughts are that its an attack from the devil. It's his way of trying to take focus off Jesus.

Answer 1

I think it's crazy, There is only one Jesus, and to take and change the trinity to Mother Child and womb that to me is taking and changing words from the bible and the bible says not to change or take away anything from the word of God.

Answer 2

I don't think it is an attack of the devil. I think by only "receiving" it instead of "approving" it, they are trying not to unnecessarily exclude anyone from exploring religion enough to achieve salvation.

I seriously doubt any church would use the "Mother, Child, Womb" alternative. But it's actually kind of interesting.

The parent (creator and discipliner),
the child who suffered to save the unworthy siblings that the parent also loved,
the means by which we can be saved.

God is not biological and therefore does not need a gender. So God is neither male nor female. No one in Jesus' time would have accepted a god that was thought of in the feminine (for goodness sake, that area of the world STILL can't handle the idea that women are worthy of anything), so Jesus used the "father" concept. So us ignorant mortals would "get" that God was our creator, our protector, yet would also have to discipline us so that we could grow to be worthy children that God could be proud of.

Don't sweat the minutia. Look at the big picture.

Answer 3

In 1895, Robert Green Ingersoll said:

Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten -- just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say, before he existed, but he is of the same age of the other two.

So, it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God, and that these three Gods make one God.

According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity. -00-

I suggest that he was wrong; the boundaries of absurdity have now been stretched even further, by throwing poltical correctness into the mix. Taking a really stupid concept and making it politically correct makes it more stupid, not less.

Answer 4

I think its sweet that theyre trying to take the sexism out of it

but mother, child and womb is just as sexist as father son and spirit

how bout parent, child and spirit?
thats gender neutral
hell, new terms might get some new thoughts out of believers on the subject
change is a good thing :)

Answer 5

wow. I think that sounds pretty crazy! Mother, Child, and Womb is nothing like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! What does womb and Holy Spirit have to do with eachother!

Answer 6

Mainline Christianity tried this 25 years ago. It didn't work then and I can't really see it working now. And it wasn't just the older folks having issues with it. We took a look at it while I was at university, and we didn't care for it. And if you can't get the young folk on board... just forget it!
They even managed to rework the entire Bible with the new wording. Other than some pastors who wanted to see it and check it our, really don't know of anyone who bought it. Even a ultra feminist friend of mine called it horrid!

Answer 7

Presby. USA is primarilly a homosexual denominated group.

But if still wondering, consider an egg called God, with the white and yolk inside, i.e. Logos and Holy Spirit.

Answer 8

Women are the mothers of the future. If we are ever to be a society based upon intelligence, logic, and reason, then we should be encouraging them to reject religion and to come to their rational senses. Changing the gender of any of the fictional characters that populate the world of the superstitious will not help our world one bit.

Think for yourself. Religion is a big con.

Answer 9

I think the Presbys have finally lost it...and have left the whole program. Mother, Child and Womb...????

Why not just call them "Huey, Dewey and Louie" and be done with it....???

That's not just bad theology....it's pure craziness!!

Answer 10

That is absurd...what a waste of time and energy...