Snap, Crackle, Pop

update, 5:30 pm - I'm bumping my thanks to the Coalition of the Swilling for the story - and the conversation is really rolling over there. Go see!

And why not? It makes as much sense as this proposal.

LOUISVILLE, March 22 (UPI) — Participants at this summer's national meeting of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will be asked to ratify a paper that says the Trinity is female.

The 217th General Assembly will be asked to ratify the 40-page report, "God's Love Overflowing," which suggests "Mother, Child and Womb" as terms equally appropriate to "Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

We've all seen this sort of thing before, only from the other end. It's really much more of a reflection of the Spirit of the Age than the Spirit of God. One need not be a man (or a priest) to be in the Kingdom, any more than one needs to be a prophet or an interpreter of tongues. This much, the social upheavers got right - but they've gone on from the true observation to one of two errors:

1. Because men and women are equal, they are also the same.
2. One need not be a man to be worth anything, therefore men themselves are not worth anything.

From whence we get silliness: for example, we now need studies to demonstrate that men are actually useful in the family. Now, I don't agree with the author's assertion that these studies are a waste of time: some people apparently need the reassurance, and for those who are inclined to disagree on principle, it's good to be able to show them some hard data to support a rebuttal. But I understand his frustration. Since men and women are equals, why do some insist that the only way to prove it is to eradicate the distinctions between them? What is gained by making women and men identical?

And now, it's not enough to do that on Earth - some are insisting that we extend our own peculiarities into the heavens. From a true observation - "no figures of speech can describe God's extraordinary affection towards us; for it is infinite and various" (John Calvin, as quoted in the report) - comes the false conclusion that therefore any figure of speech is as good as another.

Some people have a great deal of trouble relating to a divine Father, just as they have trouble relating to the earthly variety. Scrapping either model isn't a solution - it just avoids the whole problem.