Should we address God as ‘she’ (like in Sweden)?
By Ian Paul, Psephizo.
A minor theological news storm has blown up about the apparent decision of the Lutheran Church of Sweden to stop using masculine terms (the pronoun ‘he’ and the title ‘Lord’) in reference to God. The main article appeared in the Telegraph but was also reported in the Independent—though this second version appeared to be entirely dependent on the first, which both offers an interesting exercise in source criticism and warns us against giving weight to a story just because it is in more than one paper. (Journalists do read other newspapers!) Some would see the move as significant, though it was actually slightly more modest than the headline suggested:
Priests can now open their services by referring to the traditional “Father, son and Holy Ghost” or the gender-neutral phrase “in the name of God and the Holy Trinity”. Other gender-neutral options are available for other parts of the Church of Sweden liturgy…
“We talk about Jesus Christ, but in a few places we have changed it to say ‘God’ instead of ‘he’,” Church of Sweden spokesperson Sofija Pedersen Videke told The Telegraph. “We have some prayer options that are more gender-neutral than others.”
There were three interesting aspects to the story.
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