Should Christians be Apologetic about God?

I am going to raise a dangerous topic here.  I am going to touch upon the political correctness of God.

 

To start off with, let me give you an understanding of my personal mindset.  I am a conservative person, including in my language.  I believe that we should still write as indicated in "The Elements of Style" and "The Elements of Grammar", which, when I got my copies, both included instructions to utilize the masculine pronouns when referencing a non-specific individual.  These days we have clouded the readability of our language with "he/she" and "his/her", or worse, switch gender willy-nilly in attempts to not offend anyone.

 

But here I am talking about how we reference God.  Last time I looked, all of the references to God in the major Bible translations also utilize the masculine pronouns where needed.  Further, God is described as "Father", another male reference.

 

I am not suggesting that this makes God purely male.  But, for the simplicity of language (and conformity with language standards), God is referenced this way.

 

So, this came to a head in my mind when the Senior Pastor at my church gave a sermon on "God's Family" this week.  He started with what came across to me as an apology for the fact that God is referred to as "Father".  Then he repeated the apology.  Then he got into what a relationship with God means in terms of a connection to God, the church, and the world, the real meat of his message.

 

Now, I do not intend to criticize my Pastor.  I respect him greatly, and I understand that he has to be concerned about the receptivity of all those in attendance, not just my hard-headed, conservative, stick-in-the-mud self.

 

But do we as Christians need to be apologetic about the way that we refer to God, or worse, about the way the Bible refers to God?  Personally I am not.  I proudly refer to God as "Father" and reference Him with masculine pronouns.  This has been the tradition of the church since ... well, forever as far as I can tell from my Bible.  And both the Old and New Testaments refer to God as Father.  Why shouldn't I? 

 

As if I wasn't deep enough in my own mind about how we should refer to God after the sermon Sunday, we then proceeded to close the service with a hymn which I have always loved - "Let there be Peace on Earth".  The traditional second verse of the hymn is:

With God as our Father

Brothers all are we

Let me walk with my brother

In perfect harmony

However, our hymnals had replaced this verse with what I have since learned is a common alternative.  It reads:

With God our creator

Children all are we

Let us walk with each other

In perfect harmony

I was so taken by surprise, that I literally had to stop singing.  I couldn't follow along after this.

 

I could maybe see removing the references to "brother", as this could make some of the congregants feel excluded.  But changing the "Father"?

 

Do not get me wrong, I am sympathetic to those who have had difficult childhoods and who have not had the benefit of a loving earthly father.  However, as a radio DJ (whom I deeply respect) here in Houston openly discusses, she looks at the opportunity to call God "Father" as the opportunity to fill in what was missing previously in her life.  And to those who complain that some do not have the "Father" reference in their personal experience, she is quick to point out that everyone should have that reference, whether it is personal or not.  And to those who do not have that personal experience, they should imagine the best father possible.  Take that love, and multiply it infinitely.  That is the love offered by our "Father" God.

 

So, should we hide references to Father?  Should we change some to "Mother"?  Should we never use any reference to God except just "God"?  What is your opinion?

 

God Bless,

JAy.