C U R R E N T N E W S S U M M A R Y
by the Editors at ReligionToday.com

November 22, 1999

God is described as a mother in a new prayer used by the Church of England. Bishops, who rejected a similar prayer in 1996, overwhelmingly approved the prayer at the church’s General Synod Nov. 18, The Times of London said. The prayer reads: “As a mother tenderly gathers her children, you embraced a people as your own.” …Bishops denied a feminist influence. “Is it not vital to have, in at least one Eucharistic prayer today, some image of motherhood of feminine imagery,” Rt. Rev. Richard Harris, who proposed the prayer, said. Old Testament and New Testament writers used the image of motherhood to refer to God, advocates of the prayer said. Jesus said he longed to gather his people “even as a hen gathereth her chicken under her wings,” in the book of Matthew, they noted. In Isaiah, the image of a mother suckling her child is used to describe God’s compassion for His people. …The prayer is one of eight to be included in the church’s new book, Common Worship, a collection to be used on lap-top and palm-held computers. Church members can buy the book on software disks or download it off of the World Wide Web, and scroll along through the service from their pews.