Resurrecting God the Father

Cowardly preachers are afraid these days to use the male and fatherly metaphor as an appropriate image for God. Yes, it's true. While the abandonment of this image may not be responsible for the feminization of the church, it's time to bring back the Father. It's very un-PC, but it's also very NT, not to speak of OT.

It's Father's Day, and it's interesting - if not ironic - to note that the movers and shakers in most local churches are not fathers, but mothers; not men, but women.


Out-numbering men, 60 to 40 percent, women are the heart and soul of the church. The ratio in some cases may run as high as 7 to 1. Women constitute the majority party in Christianity, and some Presbyterian or Methodist congregations are now practically bereft of men. Even in churches that ordain only men, the inner circle of laypeople who actually run things is mostly female.


Is this late-breaking news? Not exactly. People who lament "the feminization of the church" have got to be careful. It's nothing new.


Leon Podles writes in his recent book, The Church Impotent, that "every sociologist, and indeed every observer, who has looked at the question has found that women are more religious than men." Men say they believe in God about as often as women do, but they attend church much less frequently than women, and they engage ...