Feminists try to push the envelope and dump the patriarchal language and call God “Mother” instead.
Here are twelve reasons why you can’t call God “Mother”
1. Jesus tells us to call God “Father” – The really big reason comes first. Jesus himself tells us to call God Father. Of course the feminist activists don’t take something like the Bible or even the words of Jesus seriously. They’ve stopped believing in something so “fundamentalist” as the authority of Scripture long ago. They regard the New Testament as “an interesting first century Jewish document” which was, of course, conditioned by the patriarchal culture of its time. Jesus–for all his beautiful teachings and fine example–was also hopelessly conditioned by his own time period. That was then. This is now. We can change all that.
2. The Old Testament refers to God as Father – From paragraph 238 of the Catechism: Many religions invoke God as “Father”. The deity is often considered the “father of gods and of men”. In Israel, God is called “Father” inasmuch as he is Creator of the world. Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, “his first-born son”. God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is “the Father of the poor”, of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection.
3. The Liturgy Calls God “Father” – We believe what we pray. We pray what we believe. To tinker with the liturgy is always to tinker with what we actually believe. When we start calling God “Mother” people will start believing God is their Mother not their Father. Of course, the feminists know this. That’s exactly why they want to change the liturgy. They want to change the Bible too. There is already an “Inclusive Bible” Go here.
4. The Catechism explains why we call God Father and how this includes the mothering attributes of God – By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father.
5. Calling God “Mother” and “Father” is confusing – Our world is confused enough about gender right now. Calling God both Mother and Father makes God some kind of transgendered being. Nope.
6. Gender identification enables a loving relationship – Think about it. You can’t love someone without sex being involved. I don’t mean by “sex” genital activity. What I mean is that we relate to others through gender. I relate to my mother as her son. I relate to my brother as my brother. I relate to my daughter as her father. I relate to every other person in a sexual way. I am male. They are either male or female. I cannot have a true relationship with someone who is neither male nor female. I can’t relate to an “it”. God wants us to love him and be in relationship with him. That is why he reveals himself as “Father” and why Jesus commands us to call God “Father” so that we can relate to him as his sons and daughters. We cannot be in a loving relationship with an abstract being who is sometimes Mother and sometimes Father.
7. Calling God “Father” helps to heal the father wound – All of us have a longing for perfect, unconditional everlasting love. We want to be loved and known by the greatest love. Our relationship with our earthly fathers–even with the best of fathers–falls short of that and leave us with what is called “the Father wound”. This empty space, this unfulfilled Father love can only be filled by the love of God the Father. Calling God “Mother” destroys that possibility.
8. Mary is our Mother in Heaven–Not God – It is no co incidence that Protestant Christians are wanting a Mother in heaven. They got rid of Blessed Mother Mary five hundred years ago and have been missing their heavenly mother ever since. Protestantism has had a mother deficit ever since they rejected the Mother Jesus gave them (remember from the cross he said, “Behold your mother”?) Now instead of venerating Blessed Mother Mary as they should their longing for a Mother in Heaven is leading them into the heresy of calling God their Mother.
9. The Bible and the Saints Never Refer to God as Mother – The most the feminists can dig up is one reference in the fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich who refers to “God is our Father and our Mother”. Hildegard of Bingen also says something similar, but this is no more than what the Catechism says above–that God is beyond human sexuality and his being “Father” includes the traits and strengths of mother. They also use Jesus’ line about Jerusalem, “I would gather you up as a hen gathers her chicks” But all of this is the symbolic language of mystics. God is never directly referred to as “Mother” and is never addressed as “Mother” in any liturgy anywhere.
10. Referring to God as “Mother” is part of an overall plan to eradicate any sign of patriarchy from Christianity – Depend on it. Calling God both “Mother” and “Father” is only the first step. God as “Father” must be removed completely. There is an agenda therefore, to alter the very foundation principles and theology of Christianity so that they worship another god altogether, and you only have to read the new age feminist theologians to understand that the goddess they want to worship is nothing like “Our Father in Heaven” instead it is “Earth Mother”. In other words, calling God “Mother” is not an alternative form of Christianity. It is not Christianity at all.
11. To Call God “Mother” is to worship a pagan Goddess – Why are women priests so afraid to be called “priestesses”? I asked one once. She said, “It sounds too pagan.” Indeed. Likewise, why are they so timid about calling the new god they worship a “Goddess”? Because it sounds too pagan. Don’t be deceived though. It won’t be long before they will embrace these terms. A new generation will not be so shy and will say, “Yes, you’re right. I am a priestess and I worship the goddess. So what?” And having accepted the goddess worshipping priestesses who will be able to say “Boo!”?
12. Calling God Mother opens the door to New Age Witchcraft – Why are people so dense about this? One only has to read the new age feminist theologians themselves to discover that the religion they are sympathetic to is none other than the worship of the Nature Goddess–the God of this world–aka Satan. Of course “enlightened” people will sneer at such an accusation, but feminist theologians themselves call for the complete abolition of the Father God and the embrace of the Mother Goddess. These feminist theologians have been very influential in the Anglican church. I was there. They were all over the place in the women’s ordination movement. That’s where it is headed, and the reason anyone who can’t see it is because they won’t see it.
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