Trinity Sunday, God and the Gender Binary

[lillyinmn]

This is me preparing for tomorrow.  I have been thinking of this for a year and still don't feel a lot more focused than when the idea first occurred to me last Trinity Sunday (after the service).  What a great opportunity Trinity Sunday is to talk about Gender, the image of God, and affirm the LGBTQ+ community.  I just found out this past week that some churches take the first Sunday of Pride month and make it Affirmation Sunday.  As affirming as I hope for my church to be, I wish I felt as affirmed in my own personal life.

[Vidanjali]

11 minutes ago, lillyinmn said:

I have been thinking of this for a year and still don't feel a lot more focused than when the idea first occurred to me last Trinity Sunday (after the service).  What a great opportunity Trinity Sunday is to talk about Gender, the image of God, and affirm the LGBTQ+ community.

 

Will you share your thoughts about how & why Trinity Sunday is a good opportunity to talk about & affirm such things? Have you talked to others about these thoughts? Sharing & exchanging thoughts may help sharpen your focus. 

 

11 minutes ago, lillyinmn said:

As affirming as I hope for my church to be, I wish I felt as affirmed in my own personal life.

 

How affirmed do you feel personally? I mean as distinct from your external personal life. I ask because for me personally, I did not begin to feel nearly as affirmed in my personal life as once I undertook to sincerely and concertedly work on self-acceptance - I'm suggesting the two are reflections of each other. I hope your church will be affirming too. Then, who knows - that may become a more significant portion of your personal life. 

 

11 minutes ago, lillyinmn said:

 

 

Love it 😍

[VickySGV]

Church is ONE part of affirming your True Self but is an important part for many people although it may not be a church within a specific building. 

 

Trinity Sunday, is a day that celebrates a totally NON Biblical concept that came into the church as a matter of doctrine.  Its relation to LGBTQ people is that it is a celebration of diversity in the identity of the deity that we hold central to Christianity.  Even though the original Trinity was , God The Father, God The Son, God The Holy Spirit, it is becoming better understood more as Creative Author who is without gender, or is all genders, Earthly Child who bore a male body, and The Spirit / Guider of mankind who, in the original Greek used the feminine form of spirit.  Each was different but still a manifestation of what all of mankind is. 

 

Back in 2015, my Episcopal Church publicly celebrated my changed name as I renewed my Baptismal Covenant using my now name , and my Bishop re Confirmed (Affirmed) my vows as an adult member (elder) of the church using my name a few minutes later.  I am loud and proud in the church and have been recognize in my leadership for the Trans community within it.   Back and Front of the shirt I will wear tomorrow, it is from my Diocesan LGBTQ Ministry.

[Ivy]

There is a local Pride group getting started up here.  I'm hoping to get more involved, but most of the people are a bit younger than myself.

 

Fun fact (at least I appreciate it)

Naturally this town is full of churches.  But there are only 2 groups listed on the Pride website as "Spiritually Safe" - The Episcopal Church, and the Church of Wicca.  

 

I have run into the idea of the Holy Spirit being female in the past, but most christians I know would consider it heresy at best.  It kinda made a little sense to me.  But of course, I'm an apostate these days, and going to hell.

[lillyinmn]

On 6/3/2023 at 2:33 PM, Vidanjali said:

Will you share your thoughts about how & why Trinity Sunday is a good opportunity to talk about & affirm such things?

I suppose it goes back to a comment I read last year about Trinity Sunday as a segway to talking about they/them pronouns for the divine, which is a good way to start thinking theologically about the same for people.  Maybe it was more of a brain fart than a brain storm.

 

Vicky is right.  Trinitarian theology is not very biblical, derived at best, if you piece together things written in the Bible by different authors using Thomistic syllogisms.

 

I guess I still embrace trinitarian theology because it is familiar language and traditional.  I like how you  can use different trinitarian formulas to embrace God's grace.  It also makes the divine more illusive--in that you cannot insist on a single image of God (like father, for example).  I think a Wesleyan approach to trinity as three descriptions of Gods grace is quite helpful, and not limited by gender constructs.  They are Prevenient grace which I equate to God's creative initiative, redemptive grace which I see in the incarnation, and sanctifying grace which I see in the Holy Spirit.  Marcy, when you read this, you will know I am not a very good Calvinist!

 

I like Vicky's characterization of Trinity and Trinity Sunday...

 

On 6/3/2023 at 6:17 PM, VickySGV said:

Its relation to LGBTQ people is that it is a celebration of diversity in the identity of the deity that we hold central to Christianity.

 

Vicky, maybe there are some different constructs of the words for spirit, but the one in the final discourse in John's gospel is  neuter.  I recently took the liberties to read it as feminine since people had been (incorrectly) reading it as masculine for so long.

 

I also took the approach for Trinity Sunday that since the biblical writers evolved and adapted, so should we.  So we should also be willing to embrace marginalized people as we discover the error of our ways.

 

I recently watched Jesus Revolution, which is an evangelical whitewash of the hippie Jesus People movement.  I thought it was interesting how evangelicals were quick to embrace and assimilate hippies yet slam the door shut on Gay and Lesbian people.  Only recently was it commonly known that the central figure of that movement, Lonnie Frisbee, was gay.  As far as I know, trans people weren't even on the radar then---wasn't it only recently widely recognized that the Stonewall protest was started by trans women of color?

 

As for the recent Evangelical bait and switch attempt to paint Jesus as a radical to attract young people:  Their interest isn't in Jesus' radical hospitality.  Their selective storytelling in Jesus Revolution and the Hobby Lobby sponsored "He Gets Us" campaign is more about assimilating a new generation to Christian Nationalism---like what happened after the Jesus People movement--they are not about any radical notions about the incarnation and not about God's radical hospitality.  They are about marketing.

 

How did I get so cynical?  I guess it is because I grew up in the middle of it all---Jesus People, Jesus freaks--their assimilation, and the fall of the evangelical churches into Christian Nationalism and the right wing social agenda--part of that agenda is to erase us and anyone who challenges the last vestiges of patriarchy.

 

Well I have rambled a little and ranted a little, so I should stop for now, and try to put the pin back into the grenade before I flip the spoon, as I am not sure everyone here will agree!

 

Love you all!

 

Lilly

[Ivy]

9 hours ago, lillyinmn said:

wasn't it only recently widely recognized that the Stonewall protest was started by trans women of color?

This is something I don't understand.  If it is so, why the "LGB" want to get rid of the "TQ+".  Trans people have always been involved.

[Vidanjali]

10 hours ago, lillyinmn said:

wasn't it only recently widely recognized that the Stonewall protest was started by trans women of color?

 

34 minutes ago, Ivy said:

This is something I don't understand.  If it is so, why the "LGB" want to get rid of the "TQ+".  Trans people have always been involved.

 

The film "The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson" documents this well. 

 

[awkward-yet-sweet]

Where I live, we have a lot of Pentecostals.  Some are of the "Oneness" variety and prefer not to think of God in terms of the Trinity.  For those who accept the Trinity, here is the text of the Athanasian Creed:

 

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/athanasian-creed

 

From what I have read, the Athanasian Creed is about the best way that there is to describe a concept that human beings can't put into words - that God is simultaneously both singular and plural.  God can declare in Deuteronomy, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One" but also in Genesis 1's Creation text say, "Let US make man in OUR image, according to OUR likeness..."  The idea of the Trinity shows that God is simply beyond our understanding or ability to explain.  

 

My personal belief and the belief of my faith community is that God is either all-gender or has no gender.  He can't create something that He is not, and he created male and female.  But God has requested in the Scripture that we address Him in the male form.  So we do this out of respect.  Since we can respect the desire of human beings to be addressed as their preferred gender, we ought to show even greater respect for God.  My personal belief is that how we address God, God's personality and identity, and similar aspects are so far beyond our human existence that it might be disrespectful to try to integrate that or link it to Pride Month. 

 

In my community, we believe that God has revealed Himself in the three persons of the Trinity, but has not described Himself as a Trinity specifically.  We can honor what has been revealed, but also speculate that it is likely that God is not limited to the Trinity and that His persons are likely to be infinite in the same way that He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present.  This is not polytheism, as God is still one.  We simply cannot describe how He can be simultaneously singular and plural.  Since we aren't a liturgical church in the way that Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians are, we don't have specific Sundays of the church year like Trinity Sunday.  Perhaps it is a good time to think about it, though. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ivy]

We have churches in this area sometimes referred to as "Jesus Only".  They say that baptizing "in the name of the Father,Son, and Holy Ghost" is wrong, because "God's name is Jesus."  

I don't see much point in trying to explain the trinity, I guess it just is.  In the end it all comes down to faith, you believe, or you don't (and burn in hell).

 

7 hours ago, awkward-yet-sweet said:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One"

I don't claim to be a Hebrew scholar, but I have heard that the "One"  in the shama (שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד) refers to a "unity" as much as a single thing.

I actually have a tattoo of it that I picked up in my spiritual journeying, although my understanding of it has evolved.

[awkward-yet-sweet]

2 hours ago, Ivy said:

We have churches in this area sometimes referred to as "Jesus Only".  They say that baptizing "in the name of the Father,Son, and Holy Ghost" is wrong, because "God's name is Jesus."  

I don't see much point in trying to explain the trinity, I guess it just is.  In the end it all comes down to faith, you believe, or you don't (and burn in hell).

 

I suppose we could have a spin-off thread related to baptism, as you bring up a good point.  The Oneness Pentecostals around here don't see infant baptism as valid, or a baptism in the Trinitarian Formula as valid.  They say that the Trinitarian Formula uses "titles" rather than names and the only a name has power.  Other denominations seem to accept both.  The Lutheran tradition is that either is acceptable and wording doesn't matter as much as the faith behind it.  In the Scripture, I see both ways described.  My husband has used a sort of combination when dedicating our family's newborn children.  For us, dedication involves a splash of water in a sort of infant baptism, which is completed later by full immersion baptism at the age of reason.  

 

We could probably have a thread about hell as well...what it is, where it is, and how folks stay out of there.  Especially since it is something that ultra-conservatives tend to threaten LGBTQ people with (and I suspect they don't understand much about it to talk about it in that way.)  

 

 

 

[lillyinmn]

16 hours ago, awkward-yet-sweet said:

But God has requested in the Scripture that we address Him in the male form.  So we do this out of respect.  Since we can respect the desire of human beings to be addressed as their preferred gender, we ought to show even greater respect for God.

That is an interesting perspective--addressing God according to God's preferred pronouns.  I can see how that might track if you have a certain view of scripture.  

 

Ultimately, I do not see scripture as being the limit of our understanding of God.  I certainly don't see it as a limit imposed by God.  I see it as stories of people seeking to understand God better, and as a unique and authoratative human account of God encountering humanity.

[awkward-yet-sweet]

3 hours ago, lillyinmn said:

That is an interesting perspective--addressing God according to God's preferred pronouns.  I can see how that might track if you have a certain view of scripture. 

 

According to my community's views, I tend to be a literalist.  The text says what it says, and doesn't say what it doesn't say.  It can be inconvenient to curious human beings 😆   God's Word is perfect, without error, and complete for the purposes He intended.  What He didn't explain, He chose to keep hidden for some reason.  I think God enjoys our minds, because we can speculate and use our logic to figure out puzzles.