According to the Arizona Daily Star, ‘Lord’ is fading at some churches, because they think it smacks of patriarchy.
When ideology has taken over to the point that you think it’s inappropriate to describe God almighty in terms that connote power (horrors!)… wow.
And then, what about Jesus?
For the faithful, that means God isn’t referred to as “him,” and references to “the Lord” are rare. “Lord” has become a loaded word conveying hierarchical power over things, “which in what we have recorded in our sacred texts, is not who Jesus understood himself to be,” St. Philip’s associate rector Susan Anderson-Smith said. (emphasis added)
Sure – no traces of “hierarchical power in Jesus’ view of himself – it isn’t like he ever said “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.! (Mt 26:24) Doh!
Add in a little son-modalism (whereby Jesus is a mode of God, or is numerically identical to God) and we have this kind of thinking: it’s wrong to describe God in male-sounding terms, Jesus is God, therefore it is wrong to describe Jesus in male-sounding terms.
Somehow, I don’t think Jesus appreciates having his maleness and masculinity ignored, downplayed, or denied. Remember, we’re talking about this guy.
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”[a] He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great.” (Rev 19)
I say these people can have their own wussified Jesus, imagined in their own image and likeness. The New Testament (i.e. real) one is a lot more interesting.
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