Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Denise Askin <DAskin AT Anselm.Edu>]

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Denise T. Askin

[Denise Askin]  -----Original Message-----
From: Mike Frentz [mailto:mfrentz AT bbn.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 5:47 PM
To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
Subject: Re: [percy-l] God's Gender and Ham Sandwiches

> Hi Karey,
>
> A few minor observations on what you 
>   wrote:
>  
> > As humans we 
> >     anthropomorphize God.  It's the only way we can get our minds around 
> >     God.  Both versions (male and female views) are inadequate reflections 
> >     of God, who transcends anything we can conceptualize or imagine.  In 
> >     Jewish tradition, to say that God is only male and not female is blasphemy 
> >     because it is limiting God.
>
> Amen.  I know of 
>   people who are aetheists, sadly, because they can't deal with the symbolism of 
>   a male God, but I also agree entirely with Steve's characterization that with 
>   respect to God, we are all female.  It doesn't bother me at all to be 
>   spiritually female, that is the role of Church (and no, Jim, I'm not a 
>   homophobe that I know of.. )
>
> > Jesus was male 
> >     because in the culture he lived in, he could do nothing as female.  
> >     Whatever other reasons theologians might have hypothesized or discovered for 
> >     Jesus being a male, the fact remains that he HAD to be a male to do anything 
> >     in his time and culture.  Remember, theology, religion, etc., has been 
> >     taught and propagated by men only (and even recently, still primarily) in a 
> >     patriarchal culture for centuries.  
>
> Check out who 
>   are the majority of daily communicants (especially in Europe, so I'm 
>   told).  It is the mother who has traditionally taught and propagated 
>   religion in the family.  Maybe you're implicitly "dissing" the lack of a 
>   paying position, as is common in "feminist" thinking, but the role of mother 
>   is by far the most important job in stabilizing/maintaining any culture.  
>   I believe (literally) that men would still be hitting each other with rocks 
>   (rather than blowing each other up with missiles..) if it weren't for the 
>   *critical* socializing effect of females on a culture.  A exclusively 
>   male culture would not survive a single generation by my take (lack of 
>   reproductive capability being totally irrelevant..).
>  
> > And I firmly 
> >     believe not only should we not judge, but we accomplish nothing (only harm) 
> >     by judging.  People are where they are, and the only thing that changes 
> >     them is life.  Often we may think we are judging by a higher authority 
> >     - the church's or God's laws - but the church is fallible human institution 
> >     (whatever Percy's opinion on the matter was), and who has infallible insight 
> >     into the mind of God? 
>
> The "judging" arguments being 
>   presented in this whole series of emails, I believe are more semantically 
>   overloaded than any word could possibly bear.  Truth is, by virtue of our 
>   being intelligent creatures, we make judgments continually about 
>   *everything*.  No one could function without making implicit decisions in 
>   terms of what is good, what is bad, what is food, what is poison, etc.  
>   There is nothing wrong with this type of judgment -- it would be wrong *not* 
>   to do this natural thing; the actions taken as a result of it are something 
>   else.  That is where love comes into play, and here you are totally 
>   right.
>
> Your second statement shocks me (because I recall that you are 
>   Catholic).  The Church may be run by fallible human beings, but if it 
>   were truly a human institution, we all would be truly Lost in the Cosmos (to 
>   the point where *no one* would be able to write about it).  Being raised 
>   in American Protestant culture does make one think by default that all is 
>   relative, and that the Church was apostate through all of those centuries 
>   before 1500, but once you discover that there is an unbroken line of writings 
>   dating back to Christ which are unerringly consistent in their basic teachings 
>   (e.g. the Early Fathers writings, pardon my genderality) -- catholic in time 
>   as well as space, it's kind of hard to seriously argue that it is "only 
>   human".  It has an amazing record for consistency.  The Church may 
>   be fallible in its execution, but *not* in its fundamental beliefs.  It 
>   is guided by the Holy Spirit.  Christianity is not a "religion of the 
>   Book" (sola Scriptura sadly misbegotten), it is a religion of the 
>   Spirit.  The answer to your question is "the Church" -- Christ never left 
>   us to fend for 
> ourselves.
>
> Best,
> Mike