This exclusion has had a decided effect on how we do-and do not-speak about God. The women's movement in civil society and the church has spotlighted the exclusion of women from public discourse and decision making, and their resulting absence from the formation of cultural and theological symbols. In our day interest in how to address and speak about God is alive and well again thanks to a sizable company of bakers, namely, women who throughout history have borne responsibility for lighting the cooking fires and feeding the world. "Even the baker," wrote Gregory, "does not cease from discussing this, for if you ask the price of bread he will tell you that the Father is greater and the Son subject to him.” The question engaged not only theologians or bishops but just about everybody. Their issue, in a culture awash with Greek philosophical notions, was whether Jesus Christ was truly divine or simply a creature subordinate to God the Father. In the late fourth century Saint Gregory of Nyssa recorded how his contemporaries, high and low, seriously engaged the question of how to speak about God. God is moving back to the center of attention, accompanied by vigorous debate over the right way to speak about the divine mystery. A remarkable thing is happening in contemporary theology.
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