What does one do with a doctrine, for Pete's sake? Especially the Trinity? And Fathers day. We're all busy trying to undo the patriarchy. What do we do with creedal statements such as, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit . . ."?
I never had a particular problem with that--but that's because I grew up in a liberal home where we didn't interpret things literally.
When the church says, "I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth . . ."
I hear: "I live in God, the all-embracing, wonderfully caring, source of life and all that is . . ." I experience creeds as poetic songs of faith. I understand the language as evocative, expansive--a vessel to hold an ever blossoming, constantly expanding experience of the divine.
Others hear: "You must believe that God is Father (dominant, powerful, controlling). Not some weak little pansy goddess who sat by while evolution made things--God the Father did it all and you must believe he did it in seven literal days." Creeds mostly get used to define how bad of an unbeliever an individual is--not so much to say what we believe but as a yardstick by which to measure how "unbelieving you are you miserable doubter."
I'm not sure why the patriarchy has been so insistent on God the Father language. Yes, it's nice to be equated with God I suppose. But it has its down side. In essence, Christendom steps up to every new father and says, " "Congratulations, you are this child's metaphor for God. If you mess up, the kid'll lose his or her faith and it will be your fault!"
You'd think the patriarchy would have done what bad psychology had a tendency to do a while back--blame everything on the mother.
Nevertheless, given Christian history, it is not really possible to completely disentangle our images of God and our images of father. I have been part of discussions that have illustrated the complexity of the issue. On the one hand were people whose experience of their fathers was so negative that they could only relate to God once they'd exorcised the father in God. The proposal to kill the father God or emasculate him was seen as very radical but I've known people for whom it was spiritually critical.
One the other hand, I have known people for whom God the Father was an anchor. Even some people who were abused by their fathers have clung to God the Father precisely because God was the only loving father they could know.
And what of the absent father or the lost father?
But for some reason, we always seem to have focused on the dominant, controlling, power-over aspects of fatherhood when referring to God. I can remember as a very small child screaming at my father, "You think you're the king of the world!" I don't remember what made me so mad, but I obviously resented the sense I had of being controlled by someone more powerful than me.
On balance, my experience of "God the Father" has been of love and acceptance. That is inextricably intertwined with my experience of my human father. During my college years, in fact, I considered my human father more trustworthy than my heavenly one. My image of God omnipotent and all controlling combined with my experience of life's struggle and sense of things that were wrong in my life. That gave me the sense that God was just sadistically enjoying watching me suffer, while my human father could embrace me and understand.
What made the church bring that controlling, power image of God to the fore? If we were going to worship God the Father, why not a whimsical father horsing around with his son or daughter? Why don't we think of Jay Burkholder kidding around with Grace? Why don't we think of Charlie, playing his exaggerated cords of music and getting total joy from watching Willem dance to the music? I suggest that perhaps we need a broader image of fathers and God than the church has been willing to put together to date.
Not as a replacement for inclusive language. Not as a way to rescue patriarchal language. But rather because, just as we need mother, goddess, lover, friend, debater, and even darkness as well as light for images of God, we need expanded images of father for God.
Our biblical tradition has used a great many more metaphors for God than the three the church bound together in the Trinity. We have Trinity Sunday precisely because the church had to come up with a way to explain that it encountered God in the human person Jesus, and in the God he called Abba, as well as in the numinous presence that transcended such imagery and that I grew up calling "Holy Ghost." Isaiah saw God sitting on a throne; so expansive that just the hem of God's garment filled the Temple. The Psalmist compared God to a mighty earthquake that makes the hills skip like young cattle.
Ironically, the Hebrew Scripture warned against images of God and then proceeded to multiply them by the hundreds. King, Rock, Wind, Spirit. Breath. People kept adopting more and more images as they discovered what the Ten Commandments said--no image can adequately hold God. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking we have God neatly tied up in our definitions and under control--even if we are Mennonites.
In fact, God needs to be--and we need God to be--a little out of control from time to time.
We need God to be a little chaotic and unpredictable now and then. Maybe we need to see beyond our tame images of God as all loving and all forgiving. Maybe we need to see a little judgment and chaos in God from time to time to keep the spirit alive and growing. Maybe we need to see God sitting on a throne in the Temple and be convinced we are utterly lost. Maybe we need to feel that nothing but burning coals will cleanse us and be so overwhelmed that we volunteer immediately when God asks, "Whom shall I send?"
Maybe we need a God who is weak sometimes. Did I suggest earlier that Christendom was setting fathers up by comparing God to them? Well, maybe there is a little wisdom in the comparison after all. Maybe a father who "messes up" doesn't warp his child's understanding of God so much as expands it. Maybe such a father sets the stage for his son or daughter to experience God as Mother, Son, Wisdom, Spirit, Maker, Lover, . . . .
A God beyond definition may awaken creative impulses in us as we encounter God in unexpected places. Perhaps we don't have to just recite the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ his only son, our Lord. Who was conceived . . . .
Maybe we also need to begin making our own creeds. Not like definitions, but like poems. In poetry, the words are always loaded with more meaning than even the author can control. They are similar to impressionist paintings. Impressionist paintings aren't attempts to be photographic. The impressionists were trying to capture the essence of experiencing light. They weren't trying to take a photo. They wanted the viewer to experience the constantly changing reality of light.
How would one paint God? The Michelangelo God on the Sistine ceiling just doesn't embrace my experience and encounters with God. How does one summarize God in a creed? Is the summary intended to keep our own control or to liberate us to experience God more fully? What words are necessary? I believe in God the Father? The Mother? I live in God? I root myself in God? I grow from God?
If you were to write the creed--or your version of the creed--what would it say? Is it closed to new experience or open to the Spirit?