He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard; no one is father as God id father ( McGrath 267 ).
Julian of Norwich writes: I saw that God rejoices to be our father, and also that he rejoices to be our mother;and yet again, that he rejoices to be our true husband, with our soul as his beloved bride. He is the foundation, substance and the thing itself, what it is by nature. He is the true father and mother of what things are by nature. ( McGrath 267).
The spectrum of views is sometimes startling: Elizabeth Achemeier denounces women for divinizing the human when they use female language for God, whereas Hopko holds that deification of human is a positive outcome of relationship with the triune God.
The question asked my many is "Is speaking the Christian God an example of backlash against the feminist movement? .
Twenty years have passed since the first inclusive approaches to faith and worship resources were published; most North American denominational hymnals or books of worship make some attempt at language revision. A significant body of material exists to merit reflection and critique as churches continue to inch their way toward more inclusive language. Provisional solutions ( such as "Father, Son, Spirit-) must be questioned and replaced or augmented by better alternatives. Is Jesus Christ mainly to be remembered as the one who commanded his disciples to call God "Father-? One author after another, in more or less sophisticated ways, advances that because Jesus called God-Father-, Christians must qalways call God "Father-, at least when doing something important like baptizing or gathering around the table of the risen Christ. Under closer scrutiny, the argument that we must call God "Father- because Jesus did is open to question.
