Taking Away the Fatherhood of God

So one way that this whole circle of analogical predication has practical consequences is in the names of God. There's a movement in some parts of Christianity to take away the name "Father" from God. After all, there's lots of people with 'daddy-baggage' out there and so when they hear us call God "Father" it's a pretty big obstacle.

I actually have lots of sympathy for this issue. The gospel is offensive enough. I'm all for removing any barriers that hinder people from coming to Christ. And I certainly agree that God is not a 'man.' He is both masculine and feminine. He transcends gender in a way that incorporates all conceivable aspects of masculine and feminine and then goes beyond them as well. There is certainly a case to be made for the 'motherhood' of God as well--there is nothing foreign to God about the love of a mother for her child. Motherhood was his idea and in him "in the beginning."

But Jesus, in the two words heard 'round the world, invites us to pray thusly: "Our Father." If you grew up in the church, you probably were done the disservice of never actually thinking about the wonder of the Lord's Prayer, but those two words are pretty astounding. Jesus lives Sonship and calls God, Father; then he extends this radically ridiculous invitation to us to join him in calling God Father. He shares his Sonship with us, for no other reason than because he delights to do so.

I have a hard time sharing pens from my backpack--I know that I lose them that way. Jesus has the most precious and infinitely most priceless thing in the whole universe, and he gladly shares it with us.

The point is two-fold. One, Father is the deeply relational name that Jesus has given us to call God. You can call God just about anything you want, I suppose, but most of us want to be called what we introduce ourselves by to others. But secondly and more importantly, Jesus is not at a loss as to what name to give God for us. It is not as if he's scratching his head, trying to find something that we can understand to call God by; it's not like he looks around and shrugs and says, "I guess the closest thing is Father."

God has always been Father from before the beginning. Our human experience of fatherhood is an echo, however distant or faint, of God's perfect Fatherhood from before all time. We were all made for a Good Father. If someone has had a bad father take fatherhood away from them, do not take it from God. All fathers fall short of reflecting the True Fatherhood of God. And so again we see our need for God to intervene and redeem life in the Land of the Ruins.

And so we're learning to think around the circle in the right way.