Gelding God
The difference between a cult and a religion, some say, distills down to time and enrollment. Many cults piggyback existing religions, often with a charismatic personality putting forth some novel interpretation of existing scripture and/or shoehorning some new content therein, and cults that last long enough and gather enough followers can become stand-alone religions that garner some form of official recognition.
Can a religion, on the other hand, become a cult?
This popped into my head when I read the head-scratching announcement by the Church of England of plans to study adopting gender-neutral terms for God.
Folks not swept up in the insanity (oops, can't say that, it's ableist) stupidity (ditto...) social contagion that is the neutering (pun wholly intended, since it often involves gelding) of biological gender are agog, agape, pick-jaw-up-off-floor astonished that a religion whose Prayer opens with "Our Father" and whose entire structure is patriarchal (Adam, a male, in God's image, Eve from Adam, et cetera and so forth) could suddenly declare that the God it worships is un-gendered.
That the CofE was a creation of Henry VIII's pique carries a bit of irony. As I noted, Cult + Time = Religion. If this notion of gelding God came from some echo-chamber academics looking to out-woke their peers, we could add it to the dumpsters full of other such dreck. But, no, it's emerging from the Church itself, from bishop-level leaders that the Church's faithful trust for spiritual guidance.
Anyone is free to believe (or disbelieve) whatever they choose, at least in the West. Fact is, we are all disbelievers far more than we are believers - virtually no one believes in Zeus or Odin or Ra or Osiris or Quetzalcoatl or Kukulcán or Ashur or Ishtar or Mithra, and most Westerners dismiss the various non-Abrahamic religions out of hand. Anyone is free to start up a religion... excuse me, cult, and try to draw adherents.
However, individuals who profess belonging to a major, established, hierarchical and canonical religion don't get to rewrite it for their own purposes, or to pick and choose which parts of it they accept. Religions are not buffets or cafeterias or menus. Pro-choice Catholic is an oxymoron. Yes, you can believe in the God that the Catholic Church worships, but you don't get to rewrite Catholicism to suit your preferences. Unless you're the Pope, of course.
This is what makes the CofE's toe-dip into the "gender is a myth" wading pool that the loons on the Woke Left have somewhat troubling. The vast majority of religions are hierarchical to one degree or another, and their adherents are obligated to either accept and abide the rules, including new ones, or walk away. Some walk-aways can produce positive change (see: Martin Luther and indulgences), some can produce centuries of strife (see: the Shia-Sunni divide), and some can produce unfortunate structures (see: anyone who's left the Jehovah's Witnesses).
The exploration of de-gendering God, after millennia of masculinity, could easily be interpreted as an affirmation of "they're making it all up as they go along, anyway, so why not." That doesn't help the faithful, whose belief would be exploited into a coercive acceptance of this farcical notion that gender is simply a construct. Some sophists will no doubt find a rationalization for de-gendering the God that billions believe in, as well as a justification for imposing their will and agenda on those billions.
The Church of England has about 26 million adherents, but I have no doubt that this social contagion will continue to spread if left unchecked. Since it is as dogmatic as the religions its acolytes love to denounce, the de-gendering movement will continue to produce witch hunts (see: JK Rowling), with fact-free outcomes similar to those held in Salem 331 years ago this month. And, since people have a biological affinity for religious belief, the cult of degenderization fills a void for many.
Someone once offered the insight that 'woke without cancel culture is not a problem,' and woke's apologists continue to insist it's nothing more than being respectful of others. The two are, on the contrary, inextricably intertwined. Coercion is at the heart of being woke, as the demands of the antiracism scolds clearly illustrate. When our institutions embrace the de-gendering lunacy, we cannot simply choose not to participate or comply. I can reject the renaming of the Tappan Zee bridge after the father of a New York State governor I consider contemptible simply by refusing to call it the name that shall not be repeated, but were I a member of the CofE and the church leaders told me that I'd have to utter a gelded form of the Lord's Prayer, what would happen if I refused?
No matter your views on religion, no matter if you're a believer, indifferent, an atheist, or an anti-theist, institutional capture by social radicals should trouble you deeply. They're not asking, they're requiring, and they're finding that infiltrating our governmental and social structures is a good way to achieve their goals.
we just finished watching a British mini Series
Collateral
in it the female priest (CoE) say she prefers to call God a she...
I've seen this is some other shows as well
this raises the question is TV mirroring real life.
or is TV pushing a narrative that is being picked up by Church Leadership.
United Methodists are the latest mainline Protestant group to go this route - they've been "captured" by progressives over the past five years. There were plans to accommodate, tolerate and coexist, but the underlying issue is the church leadership won't enforce written doctrine (the Book of Discipline) on human sexuality and have given every indication of their intent to push "new orthodoxy" onto the faithful - so schism first, and now split.
Within Christianity we define "orthodoxy" as say, roughly 3000 years of accumulated practice. Roughly 1000 years of Hebrew law and custom reflected in the 24 books of the Tanakh, followed by the New Testament. If that orthodoxy isn't to your liking, choose another religion or start your own. But I would personally question staking my eternal soul on an "orthodoxy" which has only existed for roughly ten years, during which there's been no revelation from above that anything's changed.
Christianity is a voluntary religion - it isn't compelled by state sanction. We're all volunteers who practice our faith outside of state control, and in many cases throughout the world, despite state control (China, North Korea. numerous Middle East countries where Christianity is outlawed). This is a key distinction in one's "choice" of a belief system. It is also the main rubbing point modern progressives have with the Ancient Church - it doesn't fit with their aim that what you believe should be compelled.