Others have chimed in upstream before I could reply, but in that vain, I would question whether this is the kind of growth the ELCA needs, if it based on the goddess stuff being peddled by their website. They certainly seem more centered on imagining a feminine God than in the saving grace of Jesus.
Do you believe that women are created in the image of God?
Why would you ask that question? Again, besides the point, as I did not raise that issue. I don't think God (excluding the special case of Jesus' incarnation) has gender or sex (I use the terms interchangeable, though I recognize you have identified an academic distinction) as we humans know or understand it. Why should I have to defend myself? I'm not the one on the cutting edge of faith.
This congregation seems to appeal to people who want to imagine a God which conforms to their own idea of self, in a New-Age idolaterous sort of way. Their website seems more focused on imaging a feminine God then His savings action through Jesus, or
the need to be saved, for that matter. If the only way you can make the Gospel palatable to some people is to sweeten it with the honey of a feminine-imagined god, then to me that's not preaching the Gospel in its purity. Because the Gospel is not about gender identity.
But then, I have a long-standing pep peeve about people who inject secular gender agendas into Church ordering. As the recent upstream web link demonstrated, the whole ELCA can be tarred with this stuff, so it is more than a local matter.
Sterling Spatz
