Makes the heart…
20 May 2008 - 16 אייר 5768 by Huw
This article from Episcopal Cafe is either terribly amusing or terribly sad. God is a bloke.
A survey of 1,050 people carried out on behalf of the Movement for Reform Judaism in Britain, which speaks for around a quarter of Britain’s 266,740 Jews, found 62 per cent considered God to be male, with only 1 per cent thinking of God as female.
Mindful that, to official theology, God is not male - “we just call him that” - does this say that most people didn’t learn the right lesson from all the male imagery? Or does this say that most people, not going to church, have lapsed into some sort of default folk religion? Or that even those going to church have so lapsed? Or does this say, in fact, that most people - not caring to learn the deeper, mystical theology, have fallen for the surface images: the wood and the paint on the icons, as it were. Most people could care less.
“Dumbing down” the theology, in this case - allowing for more female imagery to appeal to non-theologians - might mean making the masses smarter.
Maybe.
Added later - tie it in here, with Deirdre’s post, “one is responsible for what is perceived as well as what is preached.”
