The Archbishop of York caused something of a stir when he commented on the fact that some people found calling God father at the start of the Lord’s prayer difficult. He was referring to it in the context of many people having difficulties with a patriarchal images of God because of the experiences they have had at the hands of violent and abusive fathers and other men.
Some sections of the media have, as we might have expected, jumped on this as yet another example of how the church has given in to popular trends, wokeness and so on. That’s nonsense, of course, but it wasn’t my intention to jump into that particular debate, rather I want to reflect on why Jesus chooses a human parental term rather than something else.
In my arguments concerning the difference between a superstitious / mechanistic world view and a faith based one, I am making the distinction between relating to God in the rigid way one has, for example, to relate to a computer and the more flexible way that one relates to another human, especially one to whom one is close. So I suggest that what Jesus is actually doing is not saying that God is in fact a kindly old man with a beard but rather, emphasising that God is not an impersonal machine that needs to be controlled using correct procedures. Jesus is much more interested in suggesting that how God relates to us is with compassion, empathy, understanding and generosity and that when anger is expressed it is always therapeutic. This is a very long way from a mechanistic view that requires rituals and sacrifices to satisfy a required standard in order to gain approval and that failure is ultimately terminal.
The problem has been that once that original insight has become obscured and especially when the superstitious interpretation has gained any dominance, the original intention of the image of God as father is taken over by the mechanistic demand that it be accepted as literally accurate.
I would suggest that it was exactly this kind of issue that the gospels tell us Jesus confronted with the Pharisees of his day. The problem has never gone away and is with us still.
Thinking Aloud 