Lovely People aka 'the bunny comic'

[Miragia]

Oh, I think we may have a bit of a misunderstanding here. Minna changed the text in the bible in the context of her comic from "father" I presume to "father/mother/universe," which is not a direct jab at God or Jesus, just a jab at when a lot of texts (NOT the bible, the bible just happens to be the only book mentioned in the bunny comic) went from using exclusively EITHER he or she to using inclusive pronouns like he/she/they. Now most people can just use "they" in speech, so the he/she/they part is not totally accurate.

I don't think anyone actually cares to revise the bible to the point where "Father" is actually changed to "Father/Mother/Universe," the bunny comic itself was just a hypothetical situation. I've read parts of the bible and I have always liked learning about history, so I value its many testaments as they are despite not really having a faith. But I am talking about how the way Minna chose to alter it in her comic is a jab at inclusive pronoun use.

Overall, this is a relatively small part of the text that I did not think many people would discuss, considering the other, bigger problems people have pointed out. I still hope my explanation helps.

I agree that we may have a misunderstanding, but I suspect it might be on both sides of this one. Even if I don't talk to a lot of other Christians and thus have never seen it in person, I do occasionally look at a Christian news site along with the more secular one I usually follow. While the Bible wasn't directly involved, this is a topic I have seen under debate there, some advocating that it is more inclusive to refer to God as female/insert-other-term, while others disagree. So that conflict likely isn't something that Minna just made up out of the blue, and chances are she wasn't aiming a jab at inclusivity as a whole with it, but rather at those who speak of inclusivity while behaving like hypocrites.

As an aside not directly related to the comic, but perhaps still of interest... As for whether anyone cares to revise the Bible, it's being done right now in several places in the world. Though of course not with the goal to change the message, but rather to make it clearer to readers as understanding of ancient languages and cultures have improved, while modern languages have evolved. One of those places is the country I live in, and one of the goals with the new translation is actually to make it more inclusive. However, that is as far as the original text allows, and where the original uses a specific type of pronoun, it will remain. The new translation will not auto-slap male pronouns where the original does not have them, though. This I see as a good change, and I don't think the majority of Christians here would be opposed to it either seeing as lots of various churches are involved in this process and have already given the okay for it to be done. Of course I can't speak for translations in other places that I know little about, but still. Things are changing.

Miragia - I appreciate you coming on this thread and giving your perspective as a Christian, as I'm sure it can't be an easy thing to read through so much content where the faith that brought you comfort has caused harm to others. I have huge respect for people who are willing to admit they were wrong and try to understand and grow from the experience (one of the reasons why I'm so disappointed in Minna tbh). Please continue to talk with us I've been a bit worried that the content of this thread as a whole might make our Christian Minnions feel unwelcome or defensive, but this forum is for them as well, and the many posts by Christians on this thread have given me a much better understanding of the message as they read it, and as Minna (possibly) intended, which is something I would have had difficulty with by myself.

Thank you, Gwenno! You're right that it's not an easy read. But I don't think it should be. The pain reading it causes me is nothing compared to the pain of the people writing, after all.

Warning, I'm about to speak of theology.

Spoiler: show

And as someone who believes that forgiveness is even for serpents and fallen angels, I kind of see this as a training session. Just in case God will ever want me to speak with any of them, I'll have to be ready to face a lot of pain, though I don't expect that to happen in this life. But to that end, being the one in need of forgiveness is a valuable experience. Since, humanity's first sin was eating the forbidden fruit, but I think the second one might have been when Adam pointed at Eve and Eve pointed at the snake.

I'll admit I've had the urge to just drop all this a few times, but I'd attribute that more to being about 100% introvert than to my faith. But it wouldn't have been fair to leave when I got people hurt and was asked to stay rather than to go. Anyway, it makes me happy if I can contribute to other people understanding better, too. ^^

[hollow]

Contrasting her recent behaviour with her earlier writing, on the CoH blog for instance, I can't help but feel that she's ended up in a very dark place mentally, particularly since the pandemic really took hold.

Despite recognizing that there's a limit to speculation, I went off the deep end a bit in the post below.

Spoiler: show

I totally agree with this. COVID has been really hard on everyone. But as several people pointed out earlier, it seems like Minna has been very isolated for a very long time. I recently re-read A Redtail's Dream, and some of her author's notes seemed a little lonely. It also had me wondering how much of herself Minna sees in Hannu. Hannu is an extremely isolated, misanthropic, young man who nevertheless is redeemed through his love of his dog Ville. Based on some of Minna's author's notes it seems that she spends most of her time alone, unless she is with family or her cat. I haven't seen any posts about her cat lately (although I don't follow her twitter). Maybe COVID exacerbated her previous isolation to the point of breaking?

[SkyWhalePod]

hollow imagine if the bunny comic was an artifact the SSSS crew uncovered in one of the old libraries they were trawling, and they read it from a historical/literary perspective. XD They would be asking the same sorts of questions, I think! (Also "why are these people rabbits" and "what is a toot" ) For better or worse, knowing a creator's biography is often useful when trying to understand their work long afterward. (Tolkien would disagree, but he can't stop us, he's dead. Sorry buddy.)

Sc0ut, I totally agree that Minna seems like the kind of person who thinks things through, and that the comic contains more than just an exploration of personal values -- there's definitely intentional criticism of political correctness in it as well. Adding two cents to two cents:

Spoiler: show

In fact, in writing my response to hollow just before seeing your comment, I was skimming back over Lovely People and started seeing that the story has armor built into it that protects it against criticism -- the government touts sensitivity, and the government is bad, therefore anybody who is upset by something is also bad. A religion-specific version of this happens on the talk show Marigold overhears in the Super-VIP lounge: the 'Christian' expert supports the sensitivity modifications made to the Bible, and dismisses the people who want to hold on to an older type of Christianity*. Presumably this older type is the type that Minna subscribes to, the almost fire-and-brimstone type. Later on (I think in the afterword), Minna implies that people whose faith is based on the idea that Jesus loves them, and not on the idea that they're irredeemably flawed, are vain and bad. Thus, if you don't believe in your own sinfulness, if your faith is based in love for yourself, if you think that there are issues with the Bible, if you're upset by someone's faith, then you're on the side of the oppressive government and you are part of the system. Particularly if you express your feelings on the Internet. And when Peony publicly denounces the entire repressive system, the system tells her to be sensitive, and offers her a chance to make a canned public apology.

And here Minna and we are. She has made a statement that, if one assumes it was indeed addressed to us and not just her thinking out loud, seems to accuse people of faiths other than hers to be self-centered and vain; if people are angered by this, and if they publicly tell her so, and call her faith insensitive, they fall into the trap the story set. They look like the oppressors, erasing truth because they don't like how it makes them feel, when in fact the reality is more complex than that.

If I were to put forth these ideas, knowing that some people would react negatively to them, why would I do it? I can't really talk about that without diving further down into speculation. I don't want to believe that it was done out of spite. I want to believe that she was looking elsewhere -- at her own experience, instead of at ours -- when she made it, and when she put it out there. You know, creating something in response to the void, and then throwing it back into the void? And what happened after that . . . I guess I want to believe that it's one of those "everything feels remote and I don't want to deal with it" situations. Again, I'm picturing myself here, knowing that both Minna and myself are hermits living internal lives, where the rest of the world can feel unreal if you experience most of it through screens.

Ah gosh, hollow just posted a comment sort of following the same line of thinking I'm edging around. I'm pretty sure a moderator warned us against speculating about somebody's mental state a little bit ago. Sorry, guys! I'm just trying to imagine myself in Minna's shoes. I don't want to see her turned into a dart board.

*That makes even more interesting the point that Miragia just brought up, about Christians being open to pronoun modifications being made in certain revisions of the Bible. From what I understand, even within the Christian community there's debate about what counts as 'truly Christian' -- I know some of my loved ones struggle with that, and it seems like in this bunny comic, claims are being made about what does and doesn't count as being 'truly Christian'.

[catbirds]

So that conflict likely isn't something that Minna just made up out of the blue, and chances are she wasn't aiming a jab at inclusivity as a whole with it, but rather at those who speak of inclusivity while behaving like hypocrites.

Alright, I think this is a good possibility to consider. As we know now, though, it's hard to speculate accurately on exactly what the author knew or did not know, what was an accident or what was deliberate in a story. It's good to hear about the possibility that maybe she does not hate inclusive language and that this might be an actual thing going on in Christian social spheres. In the context you mentioned, it seems Christians are considering it to help themselves through navigating faith, which is different from another group exerting pressure for change in a religion.

As for changing it to be a more accurate translation, that's a more literary topic. If our understanding of ancient language has improved, then I think it makes sense to rethink the translation you have. Obviously, old versions have had a significant effect on the world, but people can choose to study the new one if it resonates with them? I'm curious as to how they plan on making it more inclusive, though. Is it more accurate to translate the bible more inclusively? Would it just be better for followers of Christianity to do so?

Sorry if some of the phrasing is different from what would be an acceptable way to talk about religion, I've had few chances to do so in the past.

Spoiler: on a more negative note, also warning for mention of racism • show

I really want to cling to the possibility that maybe there were no bad intentions in the comic, but knowing what Minna has said back in the "Emil incident" and more recently on her stream yesterday and what she said last summer about BLM, I have a hard time believing that perspective. Especially since I'm not white, the words she used in responding to those incidents reminded me too much of whenever people dismissed my complaints and told me to just "suck it up" instead of feeling offended and insulted. That being said, I appreciate your proposition nonetheless.

Quote from under spoiler, sorry-

COVID has been really hard on everyone. But as several people pointed out earlier, it seems like Minna has been very isolated for a very long time.

Spoiler: show

I still feel like she should have tried to go out and learn about the world, even if it was on the internet, but I understand the whole introversion side of it. To me, she should have known better than to say a lot of the things she responded to incidents with, but I still hope she'll change her mind at some point. She always said on her twitch streams that she was fine (better off, even?) without any friends, but the prevailing evidence from most people is that being alone for too long isn't great.

[Kevin_Redcrow]

Oh man. The sheer volume of amazing discussion in this thread is overwhelming. I really wanted to process it into a whole and find some conclusive balance, so last night I sat down to try to write a summary post condensing all of the big ideas into sort of a opinion-free cheat sheet for anybody who is also feeling overwhelmed. . . . Turns out there's just too much.

In keeping with recent practice, I'm putting my gratitude/long story below the spoiler cut:

Well spoken, Good Human!

A side note: I had the same experience with being overwhelmed (it was a mere 16 pages when I attempted my first post). My first 2 post attempts failed, which frustrated me because I poured my heart and soul into them.  Then I found that the Quick Post option did what I wanted anyway.

[SkyWhalePod]

Shout out to Miragia, I'm super glad you're here. As somebody with a totally secular upbringing, it's helpful for me to see how people of certain faiths receive and understand their own text/language, compared to people like me who aren't of that faith. Really interesting point you brought up about multiple interpretations of inclusivity criticism. Thanks for continuing to stick with us and offer your perspective!

(This post brought to you by the Quick Post option  )

[SkyWhalePod]

If anybody is interested in hearing Minna talk a little more about her perspective on her current faith, you should check out the Twitch stream she did last week -- it's going to expire in a week or so, just as a warning:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/956736534

Her tone is less intolerant and self-abusive than the afterword of Lovely People comes across.

Re, punishing herself: "Don't worry, I don't exactly have a lack of self-confidence or any of those things. Low self-esteem is never an issue I have had."

Re, being a smug atheist when she was younger: "[Back then] I had no respect for anyone who had not arrived at the same conclusion as I had. That's the thing -- I, I'm not being like, oh, I was such a butthead because I didn't believe in God. That's not a choice you can make. If you don't believe, you don't believe. Like, for a while I really wanted to believe in something, it's just, you can't do it if you don't, well, [something sort of incoherent that might be "believe in that form of God"]. And I could not obviously force myself to do it, and I know nobody else can just conjure belief out of nothing."

I know that there are a number of issues that Lovely People raises beyond Minna's relationship with her faith and with people not of her faith, but if you've read my handful of posts today, you know I'm always looking for something human to connect to, to help me make sense of what's going on. So it sounds like at least the part about calling everybody sinners in the afterword isn't quite reflective of what Minna really believes.

[Gwenno]

Ah gosh, hollow just posted a comment sort of following the same line of thinking I'm edging around. I'm pretty sure a moderator warned us against speculating about somebody's mental state a little bit ago. Sorry, guys! I'm just trying to imagine myself in Minna's shoes. I don't want to see her turned into a dart board.

Thank you for being self-aware while posting Don't worry, I wouldn't consider what has been written so far as part of this discussion as harmful, and I understand that it isn't really possible for many to separate Minna and her thoughts and intentions from her work. Please be mindful, however, about making assumptions about Minna's mental health when discussing this topic. The discussion is okay so far, but I'm about to go to bed and just want to make sure that it continues to be thoughtful and without reverting to "armchair diagnoses" (Wave described the far better than I could)

Armchair diagnoses of mental illness and psychological issues in others, are deeply offensive and not acceptable.  (In this context, 'crazy', 'narcissistic', 'manipulative', and the like)  This is especially true in light of the spaces we maintain to enable people to talk about their own struggles with mental health and personal crises, in a supportive and non-judgemental environment.

[pinkysaxton]

*That makes even more interesting the point that Miragia just brought up, about Christians being open to pronoun modifications being made in certain revisions of the Bible. From what I understand, even within the Christian community there's debate about what counts as 'truly Christian' -- I know some of my loved ones struggle with that, and it seems like in this bunny comic, claims are being made about what does and doesn't count as being 'truly Christian'.

I remember struggling with this back in my Lutheran school (before my Methodist church started considering even allowing same-sex marriage by the pastor). We were taking our final for Confirmation class, and I had learned that being a true Christian meant a) accepting the Lord as your Saviour (and therefor believing in his existance), b) repenting your sins, and c) offering your life (and deeds) to him. This was made specifically about Jesus, but I understood from my grandmother's Unitarian church that leaving it open-ended allowed other groups of protestants to be included. I turned in the test, with that final question written. The teacher (a soon-to-be vicar in the church we were based at) handed it back after looking through it. He said my last answer was wrong.
Now, I had a Methodist church AND Tim LaHaye behind me. So I was confused. We went back-and-forth a bit, and eventually he handed me the paper of another student (who happened to be the Republican governor's daughter). Her answer was a) read your Bible every day, b) go to church every Sunday, and C) try to be a good person. At the time I was so surprised, that I told him maybe she was Catholic. (We had a VERY heavy-handed dose of Catholics suck at the school, in the actual curriculum.) I told him he could fail me if he wanted, but my answer was right. And I lost points on it.
My mom always said Christians argue about the little things, but I can see even in Minna's comment that she thought she was a Christian but really wasn't that she's been through this struggle herself. This has been a large issue surrounding Christianity. Does changing pronouns change the message? Does allowing women to be pastors change the gender roles God assigned? We can go around for days, as people have. That's what makes the echo chamber of sticking to your own fellowship so refreshing. You don't have anyone telling you how lost you are for trying to update or hold onto an old narritive.

[Miragia]

Alright, I think this is a good possibility to consider. As we know now, though, it's hard to speculate accurately on exactly what the author knew or did not know, what was an accident or what was deliberate in a story. It's good to hear about the possibility that maybe she does not hate inclusive language and that this might be an actual thing going on in Christian social spheres. In the context you mentioned, it seems Christians are considering it to help themselves through navigating faith, which is different from another group exerting pressure for change in a religion.

As for changing it to be a more accurate translation, that's a more literary topic. If our understanding of ancient language has improved, then I think it makes sense to rethink the translation you have. Obviously, old versions have had a significant effect on the world, but people can choose to study the new one if it resonates with them? I'm curious as to how they plan on making it more inclusive, though. Is it more accurate to translate the bible more inclusively? Would it just be better for followers of Christianity to do so?

Sorry if some of the phrasing is different from what would be an acceptable way to talk about religion, I've had few chances to do so in the past.

Spoiler: on a more negative note, also warning for mention of racism • show

I really want to cling to the possibility that maybe there were no bad intentions in the comic, but knowing what Minna has said back in the "Emil incident" and more recently on her stream yesterday and what she said last summer about BLM, I have a hard time believing that perspective. Especially since I'm not white, the words she used in responding to those incidents reminded me too much of whenever people dismissed my complaints and told me to just "suck it up" instead of feeling offended and insulted. That being said, I appreciate your proposition nonetheless.

Yeah, of course I can't tell for sure what Minna's intent was or if the topic is being debated where she is or whether or not she ran into it somewhere else. But the possibility exists, and that's how I interpreted it reading the comic, anyhow.

As for whether it is more accurate to translate the Bible more inclusively, well, as far as past translations have just defaulted to male pronouns without reflecting over it, even when the original text did not specify gender, yes, it is more accurate to stick with the original, isn't it? As said though, where the original text does use a male pronoun, it will remain as such in the translation. Jesus is still a he, but some people in his parables might not necessarily be men, for example. Whether or not it's better, well, personally I think accuracy is a good thing, and chances are everyone behind the new translation does too. Of course some people are going to complain about it as with anything, but old versions will still exist for those who want to be traditional, and for young people it may be easier to understand what they're reading if the text isn't full of outdated words. And indeed, where ancient languages and cultures are concerned, I'd say understanding is better than ignorance. And no worries, I don't find anything you said to be upsetting. ^^

I wasn't around for any of those events, so I can't say anything about them. People being rude and dismissive like you describe is not okay though. I won't pass any judgement on Minna since I don't know enough, nor is it my place to judge anyone, but like you I hope that she will eventually find the words to heal what has been broken.

Shout out to Miragia, I'm super glad you're here. As somebody with a totally secular upbringing, it's helpful for me to see how people of certain faiths receive and understand their own text/language, compared to people like me who aren't of that faith. Really interesting point you brought up about multiple interpretations of inclusivity criticism. Thanks for continuing to stick with us and offer your perspective!

(This post brought to you by the Quick Post option  )

Thank you, SkyWhalePod! I'm very happy that there are people here willing to see other perspectives. ^^

[thorny]

[ . . . ] While the Bible wasn't directly involved, this is a topic I have seen under debate there, some advocating that it is more inclusive to refer to God as female/insert-other-term, while others disagree. So that conflict likely isn't something that Minna just made up out of the blue, and chances are she wasn't aiming a jab at inclusivity as a whole with it, but rather at those who speak of inclusivity while behaving like hypocrites.

As an aside not directly related to the comic, but perhaps still of interest... As for whether anyone cares to revise the Bible, it's being done right now in several places in the world. Though of course not with the goal to change the message, but rather to make it clearer to readers as understanding of ancient languages and cultures have improved, while modern languages have evolved. One of those places is the country I live in, and one of the goals with the new translation is actually to make it more inclusive. However, that is as far as the original text allows, and where the original uses a specific type of pronoun, it will remain. The new translation will not auto-slap male pronouns where the original does not have them, though. This I see as a good change, and I don't think the majority of Christians here would be opposed to it either seeing as lots of various churches are involved in this process and have already given the okay for it to be done. [ . . . ]

That's interesting; thanks for bringing that into the discussion.

Minna in the comic depicts the language change as being imposed by the secular society, though. Plus which -- wherever she thinks it's coming from, she's clearly against it. I can see being against it while having no animus against such changes in secular use if the argument is that the original used the masculine; but I have some trouble imagining being against it even when there's clear evidence that it's a better translation, without having any such animus against the inclusivity in general.

Do you know what reasons are given by those objecting to the changes? (I'm not asking about arguing over whether the translation's actually better in a specific passage, I'm sure that's bound to happen; but about those objecting to the entire idea.)

I'll admit I've had the urge to just drop all this a few times, but I'd attribute that more to being about 100% introvert than to my faith. But it wouldn't have been fair to leave when I got people hurt and was asked to stay rather than to go. Anyway, it makes me happy if I can contribute to other people understanding better, too.

Please do stay if you've got the time; I think your perspective is valuable here.

Spoiler: on a more negative note, also warning for mention of racism • show

I really want to cling to the possibility that maybe there were no bad intentions in the comic, but knowing what Minna has said back in the "Emil incident" and more recently on her stream yesterday and what she said last summer about BLM, I have a hard time believing that perspective. Especially since I'm not white, the words she used in responding to those incidents reminded me too much of whenever people dismissed my complaints and told me to just "suck it up" instead of feeling offended and insulted. That being said, I appreciate your proposition nonetheless.

Maybe I should leave that spoiled and reply under a spoiler as well:

Spoiler: show

 I did catch the Emil incident. But I have no idea either what she said about BLM or what she said on the stream yesterday; I don't watch the streams, and would rather not start now, even if they'll actually work on a very slow connection. Could you summarize?

If anybody is interested in hearing Minna talk a little more about her perspective on her current faith, you should check out the Twitch stream she did last week -- it's going to expire in a week or so, just as a warning:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/956736534

Her tone is less intolerant and self-abusive than the afterword of Lovely People comes across.

Re, punishing herself: "Don't worry, I don't exactly have a lack of self-confidence or any of those things. Low self-esteem is never an issue I have had."

Re, being a smug atheist when she was younger: "[Back then] I had no respect for anyone who had not arrived at the same conclusion as I had. That's the thing -- I, I'm not being like, oh, I was such a butthead because I didn't believe in God. That's not a choice you can make. If you don't believe, you don't believe. Like, for a while I really wanted to believe in something, it's just, you can't do it if you don't, well, [something sort of incoherent that might be "believe in that form of God"]. And I could not obviously force myself to do it, and I know nobody else can just conjure belief out of nothing."

I know that there are a number of issues that Lovely People raises beyond Minna's relationship with her faith and with people not of her faith, but if you've read my handful of posts today, you know I'm always looking for something human to connect to, to help me make sense of what's going on. So it sounds like at least the part about calling everybody sinners in the afterword isn't quite reflective of what Minna really believes.

I'm not going to try to watch her videos; even if they'll play on this very slow connection.

But if she didn't believe it, why did she say it?

And why did she then refuse to engage with any of the people hurt by it, and in that refusal show "no respect for anyone who had not arrived at the same conclusion as I had"? I have trouble getting that to match with 'I didn't mean it that way!' You might still close the comments; but wouldn't you say 'I didn't mean it that way' first?

If she's doing all of this because she believes it -- I don't like that, but I've got sympathy for her. If she's doing it despite not believing it because -- what? why would you do that if you didn't believe it? just to stir things up, or to make more money from a different audience, or why? I can't think of any reason for doing this, other than believing it, that isn't much worse.

-- she might, I suppose, believe that only believers in her particular God will be saved from damnation, but that it's not possible to believe in God unless God decides to allow you to, and therefore that the damned just can't do anything about being damned. I think I may have run into that as a theology somewhere.

[PyroDesu]

While we're on the topic of the bible itself, I should apologize, @Miragia. I was too harsh when you came into the discussion. Perhaps I'm too accustomed to seeing people quote-mining the bible - and to be fair, it's a collection of works by many people, translated through several languages by again, many people, and thus in my opinion, fairly susceptible to such quote-mining. It galls me when people do that - it's not even my religion anymore, but sometimes it feels as if I do know their holy book better than them because of the way things get taken out of context and twisted. Perhaps I'm a little touchy about Matthew in particular, too.

I stand by the feeling that coming in with chapter and verse as you did was a bit insensitive, and I think you've realized that too, but I was insensitive as well in my response.

Frankly, I think your beliefs, as you've expressed them in more detail, fit well with how I was taught a Christian should act - I've mentioned it before, I was raised in a Methodist church (and they liked Matthew's gospel). Pinky summed it up fairly well, I think.

Nothing really to contribute to the conversation, just thought I should put this out there.

-- she might, I suppose, believe that only believers in her particular God will be saved from damnation, but that it's not possible to believe in God unless God decides to allow you to, and therefore that the damned just can't do anything about being damned. I think I may have run into that as a theology somewhere.

Calvinists, I think.

[Speck]

Hi all -

Fascinating to read everyone’s comments!  I’m impressed with the thoughtfulness.

A note re: inclusive Bible translations, and why this might be an issue for Minna.  Inclusive translations have been around for a very long time - see for example the New Revised Standard Version, where inclusivity for people is the major difference from the Revised Standard Version.  But there are also inclusive for God translations, too - and those have been in development for quite some time.  They already existed (albeit uncommon) when I was doing my seminary training in the ‘90s.  (yes - I trained as a Lutheran pastor and served churches for a while).  Being Lutheran, I also knew people in the Finnish Lutheran diaspora in Canada - and this was a hot topic and a culture war issue.  There are a lot of varieties of Lutheran (indeed, of any denomination) and the conservatives hated that the more liberal folks actually cared about inclusivity.  If there are any Finnish Lutherans in Finland around, I’d be curious on their take! 

I’d also suggest that the “World Council” in the comic may be a reference to the World Council of Churches, which emphasizes ecumenism and has also been viscerally hated by conservatives.  And yes, conservatives for quite some time have had all sorts of nasty speculations about the WCC being some form of apocalyptic end-times organization, mark of the beast, yadda yadda yadda. 

Anyways, I’m grieving the harm done to this lovely community and the reopened wounds that this has had on so many readers.  I’m grateful to the mods for this operating this forum!

[thorny]

I’d also suggest that the “World Council” in the comic may be a reference to the World Council of Churches

That is a possibility I never would have thought of! Thanks for bringing it to the thread.

[Miragia]

That's interesting; thanks for bringing that into the discussion.

Minna in the comic depicts the language change as being imposed by the secular society, though. Plus which -- wherever she thinks it's coming from, she's clearly against it. I can see being against it while having no animus against such changes in secular use if the argument is that the original used the masculine; but I have some trouble imagining being against it even when there's clear evidence that it's a better translation, without having any such animus against the inclusivity in general.

Do you know what reasons are given by those objecting to the changes? (I'm not asking about arguing over whether the translation's actually better in a specific passage, I'm sure that's bound to happen; but about those objecting to the entire idea.)

Um, maybe I'm a little confused about what you're asking here, but using anything but the masculine when referring to God is not done in the original text as far as I know, at least when it's the Father or Jesus. The Holy Spirit on the other hand is sometimes referred to as female. (Not first-hand experience though, since I can't read ancient Hebrew or Greek.)

As for what reasons are given, well, I had to do some digging since that debate happened nearly a year ago, and I wasn't paying more than casual attention back then. The only one that stuck with me is the one I already gave in an earlier post:
- Since God chose to use the male pronouns about himself, why is that not good enough for the people advocating inclusivity?

That aside though, some other reasons I'm finding digging through this are...
- God does not need more names.
- God as a mother is incomprehensible, and being incomprehensible will turn away more people than it attracts.
- Trying to adapt God to suit individual tastes is the same as building a new Tower of Babel.
- Changing how God is referred to creates a dangerous alternate image of God.
- The people advocating this also advocate ideas that go against the core message of Christianity.
- The moralizing tone and tendencies of these people and how they attack everyone who does not agree with their opinions is a problem.
- Bonking each other in the head with human-created ideological slegdehammers distracts from the main message.

Mind that since this was a debate on the opinions page of a news site, not nearly as many voices made themselves heard as on this forum, and it's possible that these reasons are just individual opinions rather than something many people would agree with (I have no idea).

While we're on the topic of the bible itself, I should apologize, @Miragia. I was too harsh when you came into the discussion. Perhaps I'm too accustomed to seeing people quote-mining the bible - and to be fair, it's a collection of works by many people, translated through several languages by again, many people, and thus in my opinion, fairly susceptible to such quote-mining. It galls me when people do that - it's not even my religion anymore, but sometimes it feels as if I do know their holy book better than them because of the way things get taken out of context and twisted. Perhaps I'm a little touchy about Matthew in particular, too.

I stand by the feeling that coming in with chapter and verse as you did was a bit insensitive, and I think you've realized that too, but I was insensitive as well in my response.

Frankly, I think your beliefs, as you've expressed them in more detail, fit well with how I was taught a Christian should act - I've mentioned it before, I was raised in a Methodist church (and they liked Matthew's gospel). Pinky summed it up fairly well, I think.

Nothing really to contribute to the conversation, just thought I should put this out there.

PyroDesu, it's alright, you were already forgiven. ^^ Thanks though, and sorry for being insensitive as well. I do understand what you mean, those people who thought I wasn't Christian enough sure liked to cherry pick Bible quotes and twist them to suit their point regardless of context. It does get annoying. After all, if you take a text out of its context you're left with a con.