The Rebranding of God

I read in my morning paper that the Presbyterians have decided to rebrand their product. They will continue to use "Father," "Son," and "The Holy Spirit," of course, but will also allow "Mother," "Child," and "Womb" in order to rid the "triune God" of sexist connotations that have supported the idea that males are superior to females, something which any thinking person knows is false. We also have for those who love mixed categories, "Rock," "Redeemer," and "Friend." Later on in this news story, it is said, the Presbyterians will also allow people to use "Lover," "Beloved," and "Love," which is a little surprising since "lover" has a very clear primary reference to someone engaged in illicit sex. We also have "Creator," Savior," and "Sanctifier," which goes, perhaps, to the triune roles of God. Finally, for those of a royalist bent of brain like the English, "King of Glory," "Prince of Peace," and "Spirit of Love" will be allowed.

What we have here is some people who have gone mad, possibly due to rabble rousing feminists and fuzzy headed liberals whipping the committee that made all these proposals into some sort of creative frenzy. The clearest inference of all this is that Presbyterians have absolutely no idea as to what/who they are worshiping/selling and why. Of course, no other group of Christians do either. The Presbyterians are just more honest.

Our Presbyterian friends suggest that congregations should seek "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God." This opens up the rebranding of the product they are selling to everyone -- at least all Presbyterians. And, there seem to be no semantic rules that govern the process. Any set of three words or phrases will do the job.

How about, "The Internet," "Google," and "Search Result." I like this because I have found that Google answers all of my questions, which one can think of as prayers for information. Google certainly has a better track record answering my prayers than God ever did. This is a much clearer set of notions than the Presbyterians have. Praise the Internet! We can explain the Biblical names as pretechnological efforts to understand the connectivity of our lives.

Interestingly, they left out "God," "Jesus," and "The Holy Ghost." The term "God" has no sexist connotations so it must surely satisfy angry feminists, and there seems to be no controversy over the gender/sex of Jesus. And I always liked "The Holy Ghost' for it has great appeal to children who seem universally to like ghost stories. It is a way for children to get a picture of just how mysterious all this Christianity stuff is. They also left out "The Lord" and "Christ."

The really amazing thing is that the committee that came up with all this stuff has been working on it since 2000 -- six years. I guess it was some millennium project, updating Christianity for the next 1,000 years. I could have done this all by myself in a few days and I work cheap.

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Tags: Presbyterians, Names for the Trinity