In keeping with true 2019 style — the year of the gender wars — a group of Catholic schools in Brisbane, Australia is aiming to reframe [S]cripture to depict God as “gender neutral.”
The all-girls schools, including Loreto College, All Hallows, and Stuartholme, are attempting to take a more feminist interpretation of the Bible by stripping our Lord of the pronoun “He” and insisting “Godself” is more appropriate.
“As we believe God is neither male or female, Stuartholme tries to use gender-neutral terms in prayers… so that our community deepens their understanding of who God is for them, how God reveals Godself through creation, our relationships with others and the person of Jesus,” said a spokesperson for the school.
Students at All Hallows school no longer recite the traditional “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” when doing the sign of the cross, but rather “the Creator, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.”
Loreto College has even gone as far as to remove “Lord” from their prayers since it is an overtly masculine reference.
Andrea Dean, the director of the Catholic Office for the Participation of Women, says she’s ecstatic about the new changes.
“It’s terrific that they’re sensitive to the implications of how God is named,” said Dean. “God is not of any gender. In the times the [S]cripture was written [Lord and Father] were terms of [honor] — most of the terms of [honor] were related to men.”
And this concerning push for a feminist interpretation of God is not an isolated incident, nor one limited to all-girls schools.
Various other Christian schools are also starting to jump on board by pushing for more “inclusive” language.
St Joseph’s College, the city’s most prominent Catholic boys’ school has now replaced “brotherhood” with “international community” and “brothers” with “sisters and brothers.” They’ve also reworded many of their prayers.
While many in the Christian community are calling it slanderous to rebrand God as gender neutral, a spokesman calls the new language changes an “area of growth for us in recent times.”
