Arguably the best-known prayer in the world is what we call “the Lord’s Prayer.” Even people who aren’t otherwise familiar with the Bible tend to know it, and often on movies and television, when we see someone praying, it’s the Lord’s Prayer.
We find the most familiar text of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 in the King James Version:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
But one leader in the Church of England has come to the conclusion that the Lord’s Prayer is “problematic,” and I bet you can guess why.
“The archbishop of York has suggested that opening words of the Lord’s Prayer, recited by Christians all over the world for 2,000 years, may be ‘problematic’ because of their patriarchal association,” the Guardian reports.
“I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life,” Stephen Cottrell said in his opening address to a meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod.
As you could probably expect, Cottrell’s offhand remark created some ripples. According to one female Anglican priest, Cottrell “put his finger on an issue that’s a really live issue for Christians and has been for many years.” She continued, “The big question is, do we really believe that God believes that male human beings bear his image more fully and accurately than women? The answer is absolutely not.”
Related: Sunday Thoughts: The Perfect Father
On the other hand, Dr. Chris Sugden, leader of a conservative faction in the Church of England, reminded the Guardian that the “our Father” language in the Lord’s Prayer is a scriptural command from Jesus Himself.
“Is the archbishop of York saying Jesus was wrong, or that Jesus was not pastorally aware?” Sugden asked. “It seems to be emblematic of the approach of some church leaders to take their cues from culture rather than scripture.”
“We call it the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ because it is the prayer the Lord gave us. He taught us to pray it. We call God ‘Our Father’ because that is how he instructed us to address him,” Rev. Calvin Robinson points out in his analysis of the issue.
Sugden and Robinson have a valid point. After all, the Church of England has already bowed to the culture when it comes to female and gay pastors and “blessing” homosexual marriages. Earlier this year, some Anglican priests even discussed the idea of using gender-neutral terminology for God.
But God calls Himself male, so who are we to question that? “After all, if God told us his preferred pronouns, should we not respect them?” Robinson adds.
On Father’s Day, I wrote about the truth that God is the perfect Father, regardless of what kind of relationship we had with our earthly fathers. When people try to project their own relationships with their earthly father onto their relationship with God, that’s a heart issue that the individual needs to work out as he grows in his relationship with God. But it doesn’t mean that we need to deny the reality of the Bible.
“I can appreciate people may have issues with their earthly fathers, but to project that into God is a problem in ourselves, not Him,” Robinson reminds his readers. “We are at fault, not God. It takes a strange level of arrogance to assume we know more than God. The implication here is that Christ did not anticipate the woke problem of 2023. They forget God is all-knowing. We are not wiser today than Christ was 2,000 years ago because ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever’ (Hebrews 13:8).”
The Church of England is increasingly growing farther from the truth of scripture as it caves to culture time and time again. Ceding ground to ever-changing culture leads to heresies like not calling God “our Father,” and as a result, the Church of England will continue to see declines as it continues to move away from God.
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