A Biblical Perspective on the Church.(imagery of Christianity)

My fascination with language is not an interest in analysis and syntax and etymology. Mine is the sort of fascination that leads one to savour every figure of speech, metaphor, proverb, simile, folk-tale, legend and myth. What is going on here? That is what I always ask myself. After years of re-reading the language about women in my own culture, and reflecting on the language of other cultures, I have come to the conclusion that we need new myths, new metaphors, new language if we are to calm the troubled waters of the relations between women and men or -- better still -- to make the troubled waters become a source of healing for the unhealthy relations foisted upon us by patriarchy and androcentrism.

We have a good biblical precedent for this approach: Ezekiel had cause to say to Israel, "No longer shall this proverb be heard among you." He was referring to the proverb, "The parents have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezek. 18:3) which, I think, is related to the "jealous God" of the second commandment who said, "You shall not make for yourself an idol" (NRSV Ex. 20:4-6). It is God who said through Ezekiel, "This proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. It is only the person who sins who shall die" (Ezek. 18:2-4), and this is repeated in Ezekiel 18:20.

"The person who sins shall die": there is indeed good reason to keep on revising our images and so-called "normative" concepts.

In preparing this article I picked up Maureen Aggeler's Mind Your Metaphors: A Critique of Language in the [US] Bishop's Pastoral Letters on the Role of Women.(1) "After all," I said to myself, "both these bishops, and the personalities who shaped the church of the Bible, had certain images of what the church…