So there is this piece of wisdom that leads off the confessional nature of our church. It asks a question “What is the chief end of man?” It was written five hundred years ago, during the Reformation, so the language is a little one-sided. What is interesting though is that this question was actually a part of British law, for a time.
Let me pause. This is how I remember the question. When I went to double check, the question is a little more involved. “What is the chief AND HIGHEST end of man?” Again, male dominant thinking, but that was the time. Yet it is more. The question is not simply what is the first thing that is our end, our purpose, but what is the most important! There is a qualitative and quantitative portion to this question.
British law (until it was repealed) tells us that “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and to fully enjoy him forever.” Again, we have issues here. It not only points to one gender, but it imposes gender terms on God. Welcome to the world of trying to understand our God, who is above gender-who is the creator of gender-in language that is dominated by gender vocabulary.
To bring this forward into more current language, we would say something like “Humanity’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and to fully enjoy God forever.” I will be honest, it took me a long time to get my mind around that language. I was raised with an understanding that the male gender terminology was either male or inclusive, depending on context. For example, “mankind”=everybody.
It was not until the Lord poked me a few times (that always seems to be the case) and I began to see that this was not the case. Theologically, in matters of church and belief, in a deliberate attempt to impose hierarchy on the Children of God, male gender terminology was more than just humanity’s attempt to describe God, it was definitive, it was defining God.
In the time of the Bible’s writing, this definition was a non-issue. Women were second-class, at best, property being the better metaphor. For our current sensibilities, it was wrong, as surely as slavery was wrong, but it was. That is what Paul writes out of. That is why we have some extraordinarily misogynist language coming from his letters as well as divinely enlightened statements like “In Jesus there is neither male nor female”. Paul was a product of his time, yet the Holy Spirit still gave him moments of insight into something greater.
It has taken the church nineteen centuries to begin to catch our ecclesiology (our theology of the church) up to this equality assumed among the Children of God.
We are at it again. This time, it is a struggle against the dual nature of gender theory. This definition divides people into male and female. For the longest time, this definition assumed biology to be the determining factor. But we have lived throughout our history with a segment of the population who defied the biological convention. A typical answer to dealing with individuals who upset our cultural gender conventions was the freak show. Some proponents of the biological definition of gender norms have proposed that sin itself has invaded the physical body and caused some to fall outside the ‘accepted’ boundaries of what-biologically-makes male and female. It does not fit our rules, so let us brand a Child of God as physically sin-laden. God forbid we accept them for who they are.
Now we live in a time where gender identification is far more fluid. Let me correct myself, it is fluid in some parts of our culture. In many places, including much of the Church, the biological conventions reign. We had a new value-based duality for quite some time when it came to gender. Heterosexuality was good, homosexuality was evil. Even that has begun to break down. Acceptance in the culture is outstripping acceptance in the church, but by God’s grace, the church can confess its sin of exclusion and catch up.
Where my learning curve has been is in understanding the ever-widening terminology for self-identification among God’s children. I remember LG, then LGBT, then LGBTQ, and now I have work at it to stay current. What has been the typical church response, when we respond at all? Sin, sin, sin, sin… Historically, that is the usual response of the church for something we don’t fully understand. We did it to Galileo when he was being all scientific and stuff back in the day.
What I see here however is a tremendous opportunity for us. I love the second part of our reason for being. We are to enjoy God fully and forever. All God’s children. And we are all God’s children. Maybe we are finally at a place where, as we wrestle for language that is going to transcend the boundaries of gender identification, we will find language that can more fully express our understanding of God.
Because I have to tell you, swapping male pronouns for “God” is something that I do now, but I lose something from my worship experience in translation. Using ‘God’ instead of ‘Father’ takes a step into the abstract for me. And I recognize the privilege and dominance that is built into my lineage as a cisgender white male, so I work to stay outside my comfort zone, to work with the abstract. And I also recognize that I can hide behind “tradition” when using ‘Father’ and male gender terminology in the worship service.
But I think we have an opportunity now to revolutionize our language about God. We are coming to a place where gender language is being replaced but without abstracting who we are as human beings. Let’s face it, we will always be limited to human vocabulary as we try to describe the divine. It will never be enough. But it now has the opportunity to be more.
It is going to be a powerful thing to see how the language we use for one another redefines the language we use for God. It will continue to break down the sin of hierarchy and dominance of humans over humans. It will bring us closer to understanding what it truly means that we are all God’s Children. May we who worship the Lord be able, through this, to enjoy God more fully.
Rev. Peter Hofstra
PS-almost forgot. This brief piece of British law is Question and Answer number one from the Westminster Larger Catechism.
