I am a struggling Christian, raised in a lovely high Southern Baptist church that is no more. I became an Anglophile at age 12, have lived in England, and find great peace in the C of E. I went through RCIA in my 20s after marrying a Catholic (he's long gone), but that scene became more hypocritical than today's Baptists. I am currently an "official" Episcopal who doesn't attend church at the moment due to a fear of those who don't "respect" COVID (I'm one of the vulnerable). I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the wobbling denomination that prefers blanket inclusivity to biblical teachings, continually tells me God is female . . . and on it goes. I don't feel at home there any longer. There are Anglican churches in my region but they are quite a drive for me. Thus, I feel isolated, with no one to discuss Anglican theology, and found this forum. I hope I'm in the right place. We'll see....
Pull up a chair and stay awhile! You'll find that there is a microcosm of Anglicanism here; some lean one way, some the other, and a smattering in the middle. All we can do is eat the fruit and spit out the seeds!
Greetings and welcome. You will see and read a very diverse difference of opinions and discussion. God bless.
Sounds like you're in a progressive church. You could look for a a more biblical church, either Episcopalian or ACNA. Alternatively you might need to hang in there and quietly resist the progressive views. My own church in Australia is going down the same path but not yet as extreme as it appears to be in your case. There are others in your situation. I've recently started listening to Anglican Unscripted which is a webcast by a coupe of Biblical Anglicans who are part of the Episcopalian church.
This is a subject on which I got into trouble in this forum, so I'll need to be careful what I say. I can certainly understand your increasing frustration with churches which continually feed questionable theological concepts implying that GOD has human gender and the gender of The Trinity is FEMALE, (though I have never yet experienced being in a church where this has actually happened and suspect that none exist which could be so theologically inept as to actually suggest such a thing). Jesus Christ on earth was fully human and presumably had to be either male or female if the incarnation could take place at all. Since the messiah was always assumed to be male in all the Old Testament prophesies, one must conclude that in order for scripture to be fulfilled rather than contradicted, Christ would by necessity have had to be male. On the other hand God (himself) is not human or therefore 'male'. God is Holy, unique, indescribable and unlike anything created or conceived, except in some way, Jesus Christ, who was definitely male. God however is not male or female. God is probably both since, according to scripture, in a spiritual sense, (and God IS Spirit), both man and woman were made in God's image by God. (The name Adam means mankind). The entire concept of God The Holy Trinity being exclusively male results from inept understandings of the nature of the incarnation, the nature of God and misunderstandings of what Jesus Christ meant by saying "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father" and "I and the Father are ONE". John 1:18, John 5:37, John 6:46, John 14:9. .
I can understand why someone might say "God is both," but we can be fairly confident that God the Father has no physical reproductive organs of the male/female types since He is Spirit. Even so, we should respect the example Jesus set forth in referring to the Father as "He" and "Him." Indeed, the very word "father" indicates masculinity. We are told to be like Jesus, to imitate Christ. So we should follow His example, and speak of God as a male figure. I don't know why that is so hard for some people!
I have no problem with referring to God as 'Father'. Jesus always did so it is appropriate. What I object to is people insisting that God, (i.e. The Holy Trinity) must be male, because all 'Fathers' are obviously men. The only reason we refer to God as 'Father' is because God is LIKE a good Father should be, to all of us, (including Jesus when he was a man). .