The Battle to Make God Gender-Neutral

The Church of England is a shell of itself. England was once the most Christian nation on earth. Today 80% of the youth have no connection to any religion. Many churches that once were full of worshippers are now museums. The US is a few decades behind England, but we are rapidly catching up to the UK’s sad state.

For decades, the gender of God has prompted debate within the church, with many calling for male pronouns He and Him, as well as a reference to Our Father, to be scrapped in favor of either gender-neutral or female alternatives. If labeling God as a male is bad, it doesn’t make sense to give Him a female name.

Having no interest in preaching the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, the Church of England thinks some of its problems are the result of the Bible’s lack of inclusive language. It is absolutely absurd to say a God that refers to Himself as our Father and we are his children is lacking in inclusive language. It is clearly an attack on the male reference to our Creator by reducing Him to the “It God.”

The move has been criticized by conservatives, who have warned that “male and female imagery is not interchangeable. However, liberal Christians have welcomed it, claiming that “a theological misreading of God as exclusively male is a driver of much-continuing discrimination and sexism against women.

The Rev Joanna Stobart, from the Diocese of Bath and Wells, asked what steps were being taken to offer congregants alternatives to referring to God with male pronouns and if there was any update “to develop more inclusive language in our authorized liturgy.”

She also asked bishops “to provide more options for those who wish to use authorized liturgy and speak of God in a non-gendered way, particularly in authorized absolutions where many of the prayers offered for use refer to God using male pronouns.”

The Bible uses feminine imagery and metaphors of God but primarily identifies God using masculine pronouns, names, and imagery. Male and female imagery is not interchangeable.

The fact that God is called ‘Father’ can’t be substituted by ‘Mother’ without changing meaning, nor can it be gender-neutralized to ‘Parent’ without loss of meaning. Fathers and mothers are not interchangeable but relate to their offspring in different ways.

Show me a church that refers to God as a woman, and I’ll show you a church that is overrun with homosexuality, that sides with the left’s political agenda, and believes environmentalism is a way to achieve your eternal salvation. It also has no impact on the world around it. The church used to be a beacon of light to the lost. Now they just reflect the religious fads and trends of the day.

Changing the gender of God in the Bible is an admission that the Word of God is full of errors. Scripture contains approximately 170 references to God as the “Father.” By necessity, one cannot be a father unless one is male. The New Testament Epistles (from Acts to Revelation) also contain nearly 900 verses where the word theos—a masculine noun in the Greek—is used in direct reference to God.

It is blasphemy on the highest level for the Church of England’s General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council to think that they can simply vote to change the Holy word of God. The Bible itself warns that you can’t make edits to the word God. If you do, you’re on your way to hell (Rev 22:18-19).

I’m sure the writers of the four gospels and Paul the apostle would be very surprised to find that 2,000 years later, a church body decided that God’s gender was wrong all this time. With the church age rapidly coming to a close, the leaders of the Church of England will soon find themselves face to face with a Being that reflects his image as He originally intended.

Genesis 1:26-27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

–Todd

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This Rapture Generation

My commentary title this week will likely be construed by some as audacious. “This Rapture Generation” implies that people of earth alive now are those who will, without doubt, be the generation of believers who go to Christ in the Rapture, doesn’t it?

Those who have named specific dates for that stupendous event have earned consternation down through the years, and deservedly so. Jesus Himself declared that no one but the Father knows the day or hour when it will occur. And certainly, to date, that truth has played out exactly as the Son of God—who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life—said.

Yet, at the same time, the Apostle Paul implied himself to be part of the generation that would be raptured:

“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18).

Paul obviously expected to be part of those who would be living when Christ calls believers to Himself in the Rapture. The pronouns used are pretty clear, aren’t they? Yet Paul has been dead for 2,000 years or so, and the Rapture is still future, as we are all too aware.

So is God’s Word (the “Word” who, in fact, is the Lord Jesus Christ, according to John 1:1) less than truthful with us through the prophecy given Paul regarding the Rapture? We know the answer to that is a resounding “no.” God cannot lie; therefore, we are to think through Paul’s words with our born-again, Holy Spirit-influenced discernment to understand the apparently audacious statement. Paul’s declaration was as audacious as my title for this commentary, I think.

So, what is this seeming contradiction all about?

The answer, I believe, is found in another familiar statement by Paul, one we use frequently in studying the Rapture.

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

I believe that wrapped up in this profound statement of faith is an instruction to all believers. During this Age of Grace (Church Age), we’re always to be earnestly expecting Jesus to snatch us from this fallen sphere at any moment. This instruction—this commandment—has been in effect since the Church was born (as presented in Acts chapter 2). Every believer since that time should treat the promise of the Rapture as if it absolutely will take place while we are still living on earth.

As a matter of fact, all who love the prospect of Christ’s appearing are promised a crown of righteousness.

With this in mind, the title, “This Rapture Generation,” is appropriate for those of us who are believers now. Jesus will come for us in the Rapture at any moment—perhaps today!

I hope to go much deeper in expressing this certainty. And we do go deeper with each and every article presented. At least, that is our aim.

The signals are brilliantly projected for those with discerning spirits to understand. Our Lord is unfolding prophetic signals of such unmistakable significance that we would have to look in another direction to miss just how near we are to the Tribulation. The Rapture is thus right at the exit door of human history for believers in Jesus Christ.

Sadly, most who should be helping God’s children focus on the lateness of the hour continue to feed only pabulum about how to grow into Christian adulthood.

Such spiritual food isn’t bad, of course. The Scripture is necessary to spiritual growth. But there comes the time that requires us to take a deep look into just how late the hour is on God’s prophetic timeline. We are now very near that instant of Rapture about which we’re forewarning.

This is almost certainly the Rapture generation, and I cannot feel sheepish in declaring it.

Tell everyone you know, using your own words, the soul-saving truth encompassed by Paul’s Holy Spirit-given formula for going in the Rapture when Christ calls:

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

 

“Objectivity Has Got to Go”

For about as long as I’ve been operating RR, I’ve written many times about how the mainstream media has a leftist bias. For the vast majority of this time, the press has told the lie that they have no agenda and that they are fair in covering the news. In the past few years, the liberal media has become more open about their political views.

They have reached the point where they think it’s bad journalism to hold to the principles of objectivity. They have a monopoly on truth, so it’s harmful to listen to people that mainly have an opposing view. Now, former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward have released the results of their interviews with over 75 media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and dangerous. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”

Writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President Joe Biden and his key advisers. This movement includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll decried how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation. In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.”

He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”

Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

In a piece entitled, “Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust,” the Washington Post admits the concept of objectivity is dead. Not, curiously, because it’s a faulty one, but because the current practitioners of journalism are too stupid to understand why it was important in the first place.

The Post writes, “increasingly, reporters, editors, and media critics argue that the concept of journalistic objectivity is a distortion of reality. They point out that the standard was dictated over decades by male editors in predominantly White newsrooms and reinforced their own view of the world.”

The ban on objectivity means that Republicans are not going to be allowed to express their opinions in major newspapers controlled by the left. The staff of the New York Times went into riot mode when an opinion editor gave the green light for Senator Ted Cruz to write an opinion piece for the opinion page. The editor was fired for granting Cruz a voice in the leftist rag.

While the left is turning objectivity into a dirty word, it’s invented a new term, ‘bothsidesism.’ You cannot pursue the truth if you let the opposing side speak. They claim the only way to address issues of race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, and climate change is with the sole message from the leftist playbook. Any view that cannot stand up to any amount of criticism by nature must be a very weak one.

It is insane to have news organizations advocating that reports should be guided by their personal feelings or opinions. We don’t send people to prison because they look guilty. We convict people based on the weight of evidence placed on the scales of justice. The liberal media thinks we should place our thumbs on the scale to determine truth.

A century ago, many doctors thought that radium promoted good health. When the element decays, it gives off a huge amount of energy, and people assumed that energy could be applied to the human body. If people got sick from having been exposed to radium, some took more of the toxic drink. What killed the idea that radium was good for you is the objective truth of a guy’s jaw falling off from drinking several bottles laced with the element. Many of his bones developed holes, and he died a gruesome death.

I always had this thought experiment where I imagined going back in time and having conversations with myself about how things have changed. The Todd Strandberg of 2000 AD would not comprehend how the people of this time were able to make objectivity an evil practice. The Bible warns that mankind will become more depraved as we get closer to the rapture. The world has perverted the meaning of many words over the years. So when they add objectivity to the list, we know the end must be near.

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).

 

–Todd

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Heaven’s Homecoming Highlights!

My friend Jonathan Brentner and I are set on a book project we call HEREAFTER. Its subtitle at this point is Heaven’s Children in Eternal Glory. Considering the lateness of the hour, prophetically speaking, we believe it will be an excitingly appropriate volume for believers—especially for those who view Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib perspective.

The title came to me upon remembering the late, great broadcaster Paul Harvey’s words regarding some dental product he promoted: “If you want to keep your pearly whites from here to hereafter, you need [whatever that product was].”

The older we get, perhaps the more we can understand what Paul was talking about in his own unique way of expressing a truth. The Bible tells us that, in old age, “the grinders are few” (Ecclesiastes 12:3). Our teeth—like the rest of us—fall victim to the accumulating years.

Paul Harvey professed to be a believer in Christ for salvation. Thus, by “hereafter,” he was referring to that magnificent sphere to which believers ascend instantaneously when we finish our work/journey in this foreign land we call “earth.”

“Hereafter,” therefore, is the one topic that should draw our attention. This life is but a vapor, as Scripture says. Eternity is, well, forever. Heaven is our real home.

With this in mind, I’d like us to think a bit on something. Jonathan and I both believe strongly that most believers alive now will experience the Rapture of the Church when Christ calls. So we could be transported into that realm at any moment—a thrilling prospect to consider!

It is sad that many pastors in churches today don’t dwell to any extent upon this thrilling prospect. Truly understanding our future in considering our “hereafter” can move us into life more abundant, as Jesus promised.

Those who are blessed to come to this understanding of the heavenly promises that await have many questions. I considered that, by researching those questions, we might get at least some small idea of that glorious future in the presence of our Lord. The following are a few attempts at answering some of the questions believers would like addressed.

1. Why won’t we be bored in Heaven?

As children, we sometimes view Heaven as a boring place. This is the view of many older believers as well. Some imagine Heaven as possibly an endless church service we’ll attend while checking our heavenly watches to see how much longer until we can go to lunch.

But things will be nothing like that. Worship will be action. We will explode with the desire to serve as we are expected to do as believers here in this temporal life. Our heavenly desires will be greatly magnified when we are in our eternal home.

This powerful drive to serve will involve love and work. We are told to love the Lord with all our heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We will spend eternity interacting with our brothers and sisters in ways that will no doubt involve love for each other and work that uplifts us and them with spectacular, ever-ascending positive results for our efforts. We will experience fulfillment individually and together in carrying out God’s holy will—dynamic activity that is beyond our imagination in the confines of our finite understanding.

2. Will we know family and friends like we do here on earth?

I like the way one teacher put it:

Just as Jesus on earth loved each person differently and specially—he did not love John as he loved Peter, because John was not Peter—so we are designed to love people specially. There is no reason why this specialness should be removed rather than added to in eternity. Our family and special friends will always be our family and special friends. In this life, a child begins to learn to love by loving mother, then father, then siblings, then pets. The concentric circles of love are then gradually expanded, but the beginning lessons are never abandoned. There is no reason to think God rips up this plan in Heaven. (Tough Questions Christians Ask, book by Christianity Today, author of comment Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy, Boston University)

3. How can I be happy in Heaven if someone I loved deeply on earth doesn’t make it there?

We know that the Bible tells us:

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

While some interpret this as occurring only after the new heavens and new earth have been created, the fact that Heaven is perfection no doubt applies the moment we leave this earth and are at home with our Lord.

From our perspective now, to lose anyone we love because they won’t believe for salvation is heart-wrenching. But we will have the mind of Christ at the moment we are with Him eternally. He tells us He will have to say to the unbeliever, “I never knew you.” This is not just a judicial advisory on the part of the Lord. It means He will forget for eternity the individual who has never come to Him.

Truly we can’t understand this at present, but when we have the mind of Christ and see Him as He is, we will be like Him. We, too, will have the ability to forget, just as God has that ability. This isn’t a pleasant thought right now, but we will understand it all by and by.

There are many questions we could address from Christians wanting to know about the hereafter. Jonathan and I are trying to touch on many in our upcoming book. Suffice it to say that Paul’s words, inspired by the Holy Spirit, should be a powerful stimulant for all believers while we look forward to Christ’s any-moment call to us in the Rapture.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).  

— Terry