The Church of England finds Our Father problematic

Archbishop protrays Jesus Christ as transphobic

Remember back in February when the Guardian published a whacky story with the headline, “Church of England to consider use of gender-neutral terms for God”? They quoted the Bishop of Lichfield, who sits as the vice-chair of the Church of England’s liturgical commission, saying the Church has been “exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years”.

Today, on the opening day of General Synod - the Church of England’s governing body - the Archbishop of York has said that the Lord’s Pray is “problematic”.

Stephen Cottrell said, “I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life”

An interesting position for the second most senior church leader in the country to take.

We call it the “Lord’s Prayer” because it is the prayer the Lord gave us. He taught us to pray it. We call God “Our Father” because that is how he instructed us to address him.

In the Gospel according to St Matthew (chapter 6, verse 9), we read Jesus’ words, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven...” and in the Gospel according to St Luke (chapter 11, verse 2), we read the same, “And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven…” Even in the Gospel according to St Mark, there is an abridged version (chapter 11, verse 25) reading, “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven…”

This raises an important question, is the Archbishop saying Christ was wrong? Is he implying that God made a mistake?

The Reverend Canon Chris Sugden made a good point, asking, “Is the archbishop of York saying… that Jesus was not pastorally aware?” After all, if God told us his preferred pronouns, should we not respect them? The Rev’d Sugden went on to hit the nail on the head, “It seems to be emblematic of the approach of some church leaders to take their cues from culture rather than scripture.” Thank God there are still Bible-reading Christians like the Rev’d Sugden around to challenge the leadership of the CofE. The Archbishop of York appears lost. We should pray for him. And in the meantime, he should step down. He is in no position to lead the Church; he is leading the flock astray. The Bible has grave warnings against such people.

All this in the week the Archbishop of Canterbury backed the horrendous anti-free-speech legislation, the so-called ‘hate crime bill’, in what he describes as a way to back trans students. Any good Christian would say there is no such thing as trans students because we are either male or female, made in the image of God, and that we should encourage young people to read the Bible and come to understand that it’s a logical fallacy to be in the wrong body because we are our bodies - we are our bodies, and our souls. Instead of encouraging the use of harmful chemical castration drugs relabelled as puberty blockers and pushing for the mutilation of young people’s bodies, we should be loving them as they are, as God made them, and leading them away from sin and toward Christ.

To make matters worse, the Archbishop of Canterbury conflated ‘trans students’ with Jews, as if to imply all minorities are the same in his eyes. Comparing a mental disorder to an ethnic and religious group would have been considered highly offensive had it been any mental illness other than gender dysphoria.

Why is the Church leadership pushing a harmful trans ideology when it is clearly so counter-Scriptural? Why is the Church leadership seemingly more afraid of the world than they are of God?

The trans ideology is one strand of the new ‘woke’ religion. There are many branches, including queer theory, gender theory and critical race theory. They’re all from the same neo-Marxist framework of looking at the world through a particular lens and perceiving injustices where they might not exist in order to create division through imaginary power dynamics. I’ll write a separate piece on this new woke cult another time, but I’m sure you have already noticed they have vestments, liturgies, creeds, and their virtues are what Christians call vices (i.e. pride).

These branches of the woke cult all share the same mottos/taglines, too. They’re obvious because they seem out of place. There’s an odd juxtaposition when you read the Black Lives Matter manifesto and see “smash heteronormativity” What has sexuality to do with race? The most common chant, though, is “destroy the patriarchy” or “down with the patriarchy” Why do they want to destroy the patriarchy? Because this entire movement is an affront to God.

God the Father is the ultimate patriarch. He is our creator. God loves us in a paternal way - a maternal way at times, too - but he asked us to call him Father. God sets boundaries for us; he gave us a law to follow in his commandments. He is firm but fair, or to put it another way, he is wrathful but just. The only true justice is God’s justice. He is also loving, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That is the sacrificial love of a father.

The woke cult is obsessed with attacking the patriarchy because they are launching an attack on God. It seems the propaganda from that cult has spread its tendrils as far as the upper echelons of the State Church. The enemy has a vast grip, but the Lord is stronger. Woke will lose because it is not founded in truth. Gender theory will implode because men cannot become women, and vice-versa; Queer theory will disappear because we need to promote a normative in order to survive as a species; Critical race theory will not last because the colour of our skin does not determine who we are. The lies these ideologies are based on will crumble away in the wake of the truth. God’s truth.

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. His way is the only true way, and his way is the only way to everlasting life. Let us pray the Established Church remembers this vital fact and that its leaders put aside this false gospel of woke and return to the true gospel of the Scriptures.

If you see the Archbishops at General Synod, pray for the Our Father for them, and hand them a copy of the Bible.

[Update]

I don’t want to add too much to this already fairly long article, but I just cannot get over this. What is the Church leadership suggesting here, that we change a prayer taken directly from the Scriptures? It seems that they believe they have the authority to change Scripture because of the modern concept that feelings trump the truth. It is a flawed idea. Man has no authority to alter the word of God, not even an Archbishop, “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2)

It is not the Our Father which is problematic; it is the Archbishop.

I can appreciate people may have issues with their earthly fathers, but to project that into God is a problem in ourselves, not Him. We are at fault, not God. It takes a strange level of arrogance to assume we know more than God. The implication here is that Christ did not anticipate the woke problem of 2023. They forget God is all-knowing. We are not wiser today than Christ was 2,000 years ago because “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)

As Christians, we should appear different to the Pagans around us. If we do not, then we are surely no different and, therefore, not living Christ-like lives. Why does the Church seem so obsessed with chasing societal norms?

If someone suggests removing our Father from the Our Father, one has to ask the question, who else could they possibly be working for?