It appears some Baptist ministers are getting a bit angsty about the prayers included in the Spring 2019 edition of Baptists Together. The magazine, produced by the Baptist Union, has a focus on women in Baptist ministry, celebrating the contribution they have made in the last hundred years. Two of the prayers included at the end address God in fairly unfamiliar terms for the normal Baptist Sunday worship service. One prayer names God as the ‘Trinity of Maiden, Mother and Crone’ and another one is addressed to the ‘Risen Christa.’ Some are suggesting that these prayers are included demonstrates that the Baptist Union has ceased to be orthodox or evangelical! From the comments read most of those concerned claim to be supportive of women in ministry, but not of this kind of ‘liberal’ theology. It raises the question what are appropriate ways of naming God?
Kendall Soulen’s fascinating book Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity (WJK, 2011) suggests we can address God in three ways: theologically, christologically and pneumatologically. The first reminds us of the name God gives to Moses: ‘I am who I am.’ God is Lord and the confession of the New Testament is that the name of the God of Israel is also appropriate to give to Jesus of Nazareth and the Holy Spirit. The second way of naming God is to look at how Jesus addresses God and so we are given the language of ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’
The third way of naming God is that given by the Holy Spirit and here we discover an abundance of ways and metaphors to name God. The breath of languages and tongues, are enabled by the Spirit to praise God, to speak of God and to name God. We consider the ‘I AM’ sayings of Jesus which name God as bread, life, shepherd, gate, truth. Or the different names given to God in the Old Testament. Jesus is named as Word, Image, Imprint, firstborn of all creation. And the Holy Spirit is named as a dove, wind, tongues of fire, the Spirit of holiness, of life, of wisdom, of glory, of grace, as advocate, pledge and seal. No one image or name is enough. A study of the history of the church through history finds God spoken of in a range of diverse ways: Lover, beloved and love (Augustine); Source, wellspring, and living water (David Cunningham); Root, tree, and fruit (Tertullian); Glory, image and light (Basil of Caesarea); Sun, ray, radiance (John of Damascus); Speaker, word, meaning (Karl Barth); Revealer, Revelation, Revealedness (Karl Barth); Playwright, actor, and producer (Wesley Vander Lugt); Womb of life, word in flesh, brooding Spirit (Ruth Duck); Awesome judge, healer of souls, distributor of gifts (Armenian Orthodox); and Creator, redeemer, sustainer (Iona).
What all these different ways of speaking God’s name demonstrate is that God is beyond reduction, our grasp of God is inexhaustible. To speak of God, inspired by the Spirit, is, as Soulen says, ‘to gather up the language of the everyday, often meagre and unpromising in itself, and transform it into praise of the everlasting Trinity.’ Our songs and prayers are an opportunity to declare the breath and depth, the wonder and majesty, the joy and delight that is God. It is in this way that I recognise the prayers we find in the Baptists Together magazine.
If the first way of speaking of God in the name revealed to Moses is a reminder that God is God and so we are not. God is unique in that God alone is creator and all else is creation. God is beyond us. The second way of speaking of God as seen in how Jesus prays to the Father is to find ourselves, as those saved, sharing in this relationship. We have been adopted as God’s children through Jesus our brother. To be is to be in communion. God is with us. The third way of speaking of God in the multitude of words and images, under the Spirit’s inspiration, teach us a new language and to call others to join the song of praise. Not all of these third ways of naming God will be comfortable for all of us, but the playfulness of naming God in different ways is rooted in scripture and not necessarily harmful. What becomes dangerous perhaps is if we let go of the plurality of naming God. While it is appropriate to preference the first and second ways of naming God, there is something lost, something important, if we do not find a place for the third way of naming God.
There is no suggestion I can see that the prayers offered in the magazine are proposed as the only way of addressing God. There is no suggestion that anyone has to address God in these ways. There is equally no suggestion being made that Jesus was not born a Jewish male. The prayers remind me of the inadequacy of all language and they also push me to reflect on how I can inadvertently reduce God to the old man in the sky or speak of God in ways that imply God is a man. These prayers shake us awake, disturbing some and offering affirmation to others, if only more of our prayers would do that! I for one am grateful to see these prayers included, if only to start a conversation of how we name God.
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