i’ve had the title of this post sitting in my drafts for a long time — more than a half year. time to get around to writing it. it’s not much of a stake in the ground if i don’t actually put the stake in the ground!
so…
phase one of marko’s thinking about male pronouns for god (1963 through, roughly, the late 80s):
it’s a stupid waste of time to even consider our use or lack of use of male pronouns for god. only liberals who might not even be actual christians care about such a silly argument. and they’re not actually interested in god; they’re only interested in social issues and feminism. besides, the bible uses male pronouns for god all the time! and, come on, it’s god the father, not god the mother.
phase two of marko’s thinking about male pronouns for god (roughly, the late 80s through the mid-90s):
ok, i’ll admit this much, god — as spirit — doesn’t have a “gender” per se. i mean, i can agree that god doesn’t have male genitalia. so i can understand, a little bit, trying to be sensitive to our projections of a male personification onto god. but bother with the whole pronoun thing still seems to be aligning oneself with a liberal church issue that’s not really important. remember, the bible does use male pronouns.
phase three of marko’s thinking about male pronouns for god (roughly, the mid-90s through the end of the 90s):
(sigh). ok, now i can agree to the notion that using exclusively male pronouns for god is, in many ways, actually damaging to our understanding of god. it’s limiting. how come no one, in all my wonderful church upbringing and christian college classes ever showed me the feminine metaphors for god (the mother hen, the mother eagle, others), or that wisdom is a feminine word. but it’s way too much of a hassle to try to use more neutral words. we don’t have a neutral pronoun, so we’re stuck with what we’ve got.
phase four of marko’s thinking about male pronouns for god (roughly, end of the 90s through about a year ago):
i’m going to try to be a bit more sensitive to this issue, and use “God” in my speaking and writing a bit more. but there are still awkward sentence constructions — like saying “Godself” — that are too much of a pain and way too weird. i’ll still use “him” and “he” some, but try to cut down a bit.
phase five of marko’s thinking about male pronouns for god (roughly, a year ago until now):
i did some reading, and talked to a bunch of women about how — for some of them — male pronoun use for god, no matter how much we might try to admit that god doesn’t have a human gender like we do, is a struggle for them. i understand that, no matter now much we try, it’s impossible for us to fully separate our understanding of god from our experience in life, and that metaphors and history both speak loudly into our psyches, worship, theology and practice. and while it is much more work to avoid male pronouns — at least for me, as i’ve used them for more than 40 years, and hear them in most of the contexts i live in — i’ve also seen (in writing) and heard (in speaking) people who artfully craft sentences to avoid the awkwardness of structure i previously thought was occasionally necessary (when this is done well, i don’t notice it at all). i’ve put a stake in the ground: i’m trying to excise the use of male pronouns for god when speaking and writing.
the result, so far:
it’s a pain. awareness of this has led to a few subsequent awarenesses…
first, i tend to notice every single use of a male pronoun for god. it’s distracting. i wish there were a way to separate my attempt from my listening to others — i wish i could turn it on and off. but the awareness has brought a relentless noticing. i really notice it when i use a male pronoun for god while i’m speaking, and it’s extremely distracting to me! i’m even distracted by my intention to not use them. sometimes i wish i weren’t in this place, that i didn’t have this awareness.
second, i still think the “father” metaphor in scripture is helpful and good. of course, i understand it’s a metaphor (i think there are lots of christians who don’t see it as a metaphor): certainly god the father didn’t give birth to jesus. the father metaphor still works for me. but, while i can cognitively assent to the mother metaphors being just as valid, they don’t quite work for me in my thinking and worship. i don’t find it easy to meditate — for example — on god as caring, nurturing mother, like i do on the image of god as loving father. i have searched for images that work for me, but haven’t really found one yet. part of this is that i’ve lived a life with a humanized father image. and while the images of god in scripture — male and female — include lots of non-human images (rocks, hens, eagles, wind, water, light, bread, lamb), the only scriptural metaphors i have to work with that are decidedly feminine are non-human. there are also a ton of human metaphors for god in scripture (best friend, guide, potter, servant, judge) — which don’t have to be male, i’ve spent a lifetime thinking of them as male. even the feminine “sophia” — the scriptural word for wisdom, often associated with the holy spirit — has all kinds of hurdles for me at an experience level.
finally, i’m choosing to live in this tension. i’m not peppering my prayer, sermons or writing with female metaphors for god. while i can understand the democratic impulse to do this, i think it only complicates the problem. for me, that would be adding to the problem, not solving it. instead, i’ve been working to learn how to change sentences to use the name of god without a gender-specific pronoun. and i’m praying for deeper understanding and revelation from god.
i’m sure some will see this as some kind of horrible, liberal proof of my slip from orthodoxy. nothing could be further from the truth, actually. i deeply desire to know my creator, the one who breathes life into me, the revealed and revealing one (see, that was one of those phrases i had to work on — it would have been my first instinct to say, “the one who reveals himself), the one who is active in scripture, in the church, in the world, in my life.
clarifications and further thoughts
interesting comments so far. i’ve mostly really enjoyed reading them. mostly.
i couldn’t get my laptop to work with the wireless at this resort in mexico, but i had to jump on and respond a bit; so i finally paid for an hour at the internet cafe. a few things…
first, please understand that my whole point was about MALE PRONOUNS for god, NOT the metaphor of father. i tried to be clear about this, but the quantity of comments that said or implied that i was dumping or dumping on the scriptural father metaphor leads me to believe i wasn’t clear enough. i’m talking about the constant use of him and he and his when referring to god.
second, i love the father metaphor, and think it is totally scriptural – obviously so. i have no intention of moving away from or discarding that wonderful metaphor. and i will still talk about the trinity in terms of father, son and holy spirit. that said, i think we have a tendancy – i know i have – to worship the metaphor, rather than worshipping through the metaphor. this is a major portion of my shift — i want to know god better and deeper, and don’t want to be limited by charicatures of my own making or my culture’s making.
third, many of said to major on the majors, and that this is a minor issue. first of all, i find that highly dismissive. wow. i was — i have to admit — a bit aghast at how many times that was suggested. limiting our understanding of god is a minor thing? worshipping a metaphor rather than god is a minor thing? i think not. and, the quick assumption that this is a minor thing may reveal an arrogance or some other issue that allows this to be dismissed in such a manner. i’ll tell you this — this is a major thing for me for two reasons: a. i want to know god more; and b. i know so many women who have really struggled to understand themselves as created in god’s image because they only had a male concept of god.
fourth, and finally, i appreciate that lars commented that this is my journey, not a ys mandate. this is true. i’ve had this discussion with tic and jeanne stevens (my two convention co-emcees), as i would love to see us be more cautious on stage. but tic thinks i’m making a big deal out of nothing, and i’m not about to send a memo or make a policy enforcing my journey. i’ve not suggested to our publishing team that we take this direction, or talked about it anywhere else. really, this is experimental for me, and it’s as much about honoring my wife in her journey as it is anything else.
so, there you have it — for now. hope that clarifies some stuff. and i hope more people will comment.
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the father metaphor is powerful… i’m not sure we should backpedal from it because it causes discomfort – there may be some deep-seated pain there (a broad generalization, but you get the gist). And that’s not to suggest we should abandon maternal or non-anthropomorphic metaphors for the divine… just that we would probably do better to celebrate all of them in their grand variety, rather than cherry-pick for what makes us most comfortable.
Two not very though through points:
1) I think that perhaps the thinking of God as Father as a metaphor is the wrong way around. Earthly fatherhood is the fake / metaphory fatherhood in comparison to God’s real fatherhood.
2) Jesus Christ is male.
hey man, first… I love to see the wrestling with this. As someone raised in “liberal PCUSA” corners my progression has been from the other angle to your position. Second, slippery slope! slippery slope! Can’t wait to see the reaction to this one. :)
Unorthodox? Possibly. Blasphemy? Nah.
as a female, male pronouns for God do not bother me one bit. i quite honestly had never even thought about it until it became a big deal. why is it so important to be gender-neutral? i don’t understand this at all.
your point is well taken that God transcends gender. But I find it dishonest to change the original greek ad hebrew text when it uses the male pronoun, especially when Jesus uses it. let’s read the text, understanding the cultural context of course, and always remember that God transcends gender.
I would ask, are you doing this to accommodate others or your own conscience? I understand the points, but if you are trying to accommodate, then that is probably a fruitless effort. I think most people can wade through their own biases. Anything more seems like making it an issue about themselves.
I guess Paul was right.
2 Tim 4:3-4
* For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
If this is where YS is headed then maybe after 8 year my wife and I will need to find another youth conference to go to. Last time I checked Jesus said my father not mother. What next if word sin starts offending people are not being “inclusive” then do we through that out too?
To bounce off of Ben P. and Paul, this sounds less like a spiritual process than a cultural one. The timeline of your arrival on this conclusion rather closely matches the wave of political correctness in America. Is it possible this is the natural response to somebody trying to be PC in most areas of their life, only to have it finally carry over into how they read the Bible?
Mark,
Thank you.
Your post really touched a deep part of my heart. Maybe because it mirrors in some ways my own process in this. Except, as a woman, I was so afriad (and unaware of my fear) to get upset over this for fear of being labeled.
I really used to think that wanting to change the pronouns really was just a cultural adjustment – until I really looked at all the ways God really does show both – mother and father. I dont want to loose either.
One of my first big eye openers (and a breath of real freedom) was learning the fact that the word for “Spirit” in Hebrew is a feminine word. As in, “The Spirit hovered over the water…” It could be read “SHE hovered over the waters…”
I am just so blessed to see your courage in saying this. Thank you!
Excellent stuff, marko. I made the mistake, many years ago while doing a summer study week at a conservative ECUSA seminary, of saying much of what you said. Especially the parts about God not having male genitalia. That got me slapped down very quickly.
Didn’t change my mind though. We need words, which are finite, to describe God, who is infinite. All such words are metaphor they can be nothing else.
I agree with Ben that we need to be more honest and deeper in our reading of the Bible.
I would also ask the question of why is it that the “culture” issue only seems to be an issue now? Somehow I guess we’re supposed to assume that ancient culture was immune to having their understanding of the divine afffected by their culture. Silly.
thanks for this!
I think your post and some of the responses so far show how deeply our theology is ‘located’ in our humanness.
the convenient handholds of human experience (gender, ethnicity, agency) often lead us to crippling reductions of the fullness of truth. In many ways I compare this phenomenon to a babies soother. We stick it in the kids mouth to make them shut up then fight for years afterward to make them give it up. and according to Freud people who can’t get past the oral stage – well you know the drill…
I appreciate the struggle. i think the only warning for me at least is that the process itself does not become the activity of making and remaking God in our own image.
thanks again
Wow – I was probably nuts to have this timed to post while I’m on vacation. Some good questions so far, and a few strong reactions I’d like to respond to (like, call me crazy, but wouldn’t you rather have the president of the youth ministry serving organization you give your patronage to be honest and forthcoming about his seeking of god, even if it’s going to ruffle some feathers, rather than only provide the marketing copy you want to hear, only presenting a masked public self?). I’m typing this comment on my phone. But I’ll get to the resort lobby sometime today, where they have wireless, and add some clarifications and responses.
This post has roused my curiosity…
If Christians started using female pronouns for God, how would that negatively affect their walk with Christ?
Marko – I never shy from (or shame) honest searching. If anything, wrestling with God seems to be celebrated by Him (intentional use).
That said, there are many reasons to stick with the pronouns (I’d love to discuss in a non-public forum if you’re interested) but let me limit to three…we ought never shy away from the parts of scripture that make us uncomfortable (and I’m not saying that’s what you are doing)…some of these masculine terms (or really all) probably need to be worked through such as father – it’s tragic that has a bad connotation, God doesn’t want that nor does He want us to change the term, He wants us to help everyone understand what Father ought to be and mean (and it isn’t an abusive step-dad or distant sperm donor who never puts down his newspaper to interact with the kids he created to use a few stereotypes that all too often ring true), but there are some very good step-dads and dads that help us understand, though through a glasss darkly, a little bit about God by the term He chose to use just as we understand something from the mother hen picture…thirdly, He chose such awkward terms, He could have picked different ones; we forget that just because English is limited (no plural you for instance) that not all languages are so, had He wanted to He could have chosen parent, etc. but He still chose Father, like it or not.
Honestly, if you want to stick with God and the more neutral names He has chosen in things you have written, I don’t know that I have much of a problem. If you’re going to add She and start talking about the Holy Mother Hen (a limited picture) or if you’re going to start manipulating scripture – which I don’t think you’re talking about – then I have a problem. But there is richness, even if we struggle with it, to the words God has chosen as is so often the case with the parts of scripture we struggle the most with.
One last thing, for Jennifer who posted earlier, there are lots of Hebrew and Greek “scholars” and very few Scholars. “Scholars” always seem to be loudest and most consulted. Scholars on the other hand have expertise and accuracy. I’m simply a rusty in the languages youth pastor but I caution you to check on the spirit as She translation because I am not sure that it is correct. Sometimes such translations are accurate but only when you ignore some or many of the grammatical rules that apply to the specific passage. Check it out with a Scholar and make sure you check their credentials – most people (especially on the radio) are not qualified to make such bold challenges to traditional translations.
Marko- Thanks for your post. I’ll be honest and say that this type of discussion is tough for me because I feel we are focusing on secondary theological issues. But, at the same time I’m glad that we are talking about it because too often in the church now we shy away from issues like this because they are not safe. I think your platform is a tricky one because your thoughts and YS’s positions are not necessarily the same thing. With that said I think it important that you use your position to encourage thinking about important issues.
The future of the church scares me because so much of it is a scary proposition of movement towards burdensome issues of irrelevance. But the future of the church is exciting too as I know that I get to play a part in helping shape it.
With all of that said I mostly just wanted to say thank you for encouraging wrestling. Like a great junior high pastor you have encouraged a bunch of theological dialogue which is not to different from a junior high boys wrestling match at camp. You’ve thrown the mattresses in the middle of the floor, created the time for the fight and encouraged everyone to jump in swinging. And like Junior High boys. We think we know a lot and have it all figured out but really we’re still in the 90lb wuss stage and are just growing up
Mark,
I struggle too. I do believe God is not gender specific and that we as humans have tried to put a face with name- so the speak.
Being raised in the South…and having worked in churches in the Northeast- my sense of who God is was given many more words to try to describe who God is to me. Sometimes motherly, and sometimes fatherly…but I always tell my kids that God is bigger than any name we can give God.
It also bothers me when my thinking about what word I use when speaking or praying (or hear when listening to others) distracts me from my worship.
Hang in there friend…it is worth the struggle and I think (like in any struggle) it just makes us stronger in our faith.
Peace,
Jay C.
remember, doxa in orthodoxy means “thinking” or “opinion”.
the tension is this: we must always be discontented with our portaits of orthodoxy, but we must never, in frustration, throw the Subject of our portrait out the window. otherwise, the revolution fails and falls, sprawling facedown in the dirt, and the whole whirling adventure is over.
brian mclaren- generous orthodoxy
what would happen in the moment mankind begins to pray to God as how “you know Yourself to be” rather than what we perceive him to be?
what does peoples’ being offended by giving God feminine attributes or pronouns tell you about their perceptions of the feminine? perhaps that applying feminine to God makes God weaker, or smaller, or less? rather than full, whole, complete? God saw man, and saw that he needed a companion. Thus, Eve. Both were made in his image.
so what now?
i’m sorry if i seem to have raised more questions than answers, but i think i’ll rejoice in the mystery of the divine.
blessings, marko. well said.
Ben, in the Greek, do the male pronouns actually mean male or can they be generic? i don’t know about greek, but in spanish, you can use the male words and it can mean generically speaking, not necesarily male. So in that sense, it is a cultural thing.
I think Chuck is a little off base in his interpretation of this post.
I personally don’t feel the need to struggle over this issue when there are so many more important ones, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want anyone who does struggle over it to get hung up on anything that I say. So yes, there is a tension there, but in the end it is probably more important to be better communicators so people don’t hear our words as much as they hear our Message.
Chuck said:
“If this is where YS is headed then maybe after 8 year my wife and I will need to find another youth conference to go to. Last time I checked Jesus said my father not mother. What next if word sin starts offending people are not being “inclusive” then do we through that out too?”
Just one question. Does God not embody attributes that are both gender specific and gender neutral?
Marko –
I am thankful for your desire to struggle through this topic. I believe that you are attempting to faithfully contextualize the message of God in a new and very different world. And for that, I am grateful to you for leading the way.
I feel that it is important to hold ALL views of metaphor, parable, and pronouns together while, in the same breath, understanding that I must speak the message of Good News in a way in which it can be heard by a particular audience. Within youth ministry, we are keenly aware of the fact that a large percentage of our teenagers do not have healthy home lives. And because of that, we must use metaphors (i.e. mother hen) from scripture that faithfully bear witness to the Gospel. This does not demean or invalidate the other metaphors (i.e. Father); it is merely an effective use of placing the Good News within a proper context.
Thank you for your faithful struggling.
I’m just going to throw out there that as a woman, I am much more comfortable using the male pronouns for God than female or even gender-neutral pronouns. I would say that this is a product of both cultural implications and my own ideas about who God is, although I do realize that God has no explicit gender.
I would also like to point out that, grammatically speaking, it is always appropriate to use male pronouns to describe personable objects of an unknown gender.
Either way, I’m not really sure what’s “right” or “wrong,” perhaps just what people as a whole are willing to be comfortable with.
Interesting post.
There are a few things that cross my mind with this.
Do we miss the point by putting so much emphasis on the gender? Father is supposed to describe a loving, disciplined relationship. Unfortunately, too many people today don’t have this experience with their father and as a result can’t see the link. I would suggest that ‘Father’ in the Bible is to describe a type of relationship, one that’s different to that of the type of relationship that we should have with a mother.
What about the view of the church as His bride? Does that make all of us in the church female?
I think that sometimes we look too hard at individual words and miss the whole meaning of the message. That said, if you can come up with a non gender specific term for God that also illustrates His love for us I’d love to know what it is.
I think the language aspect is being overlooked. In Portuguese Males talk in male format and women talk in female. In Spanish you speak in the gender format you are speaking to (el/la or un/una). However, when you are speaking in general terms, you speak in male format. THis is the same for virtually all languages. So why is it any different that we would use male format for something as mysterious as God. Nobody decided to make God a male. It’s not an arguement of feminine or masculinity. It’s simply the art of language. Throughout time, the masculine form in language is what would dominate in a general conversation and that has been adapted by english. Really the only time we have to use gender specific talk is when we talk about God. It’s not an argument of if guys are cooler then girls. Guys and girls have nothing to do with this. It’s an argument over which gender language is more respectful for the God of the universe and my opinion is that it needs to be the dominant. I hope this got across okay through email….
PJB,
Yep, it checks out. I have been part of that discussion in at least 3 seminary classes so far.
Krista,
If you are talking about the word for Spirit, in Greek it is neuter. In Hebrew it is feminine. And in Latin it is male.
But, I think we can look back at something much more fundamental. God created humans in his image – male and female he created them. Some people believe men are created in God’s image alone, and women are created in man’s image. I cant buy that. For both men and women to “come out of” God, there had to be something of both masculine and feminine in God to begin with.
1) Language-wise – God (Elohim in Hebrew and Theos is Greek) is masculine in both (with a plural ending in Hebrew…), the Spirit (Ruah in Hebrew and Nooma in Greek) is feminine in Hebrew and neuter in Greek (which begins the tricky question of how the Spirit of God impregnated Mary… but I digress.) Jesus is obviously a Jewish male.
Thus, the God-head encompasses all major categories of gender differentiation within the context of the two predominant Biblical languages.
2) Youth minister joke: Psalms says that God knit me in my mother’s womb… And, dudes don’t knit!
3) I hope everyone has read “The Shack” (except Chuck…)
4) Why should the nature of God be expressed in the dominate role? Is not the witness of scripture that God is most fully manifested in the “weak servant” role? Or at the least, is not the claim of scripture that power and authority does not come from title, genitalia, or position, but it comes from humility, love, and sacrifice?
Jennifer (& others)
Thanks for the info/correction.
Nice to hear the language explanations.
Like showing the work in math and not just the answer. We all hate it but sometimes showing the work is important.
I hate to show my ignorance.
Roberto – what’s The Shack?
It is a book by William Young that has been heralded as this generation’s Pilgrim’s Progress. It is theology wrapped in a story. I highly recommend it. Obviously, no one is going to agree with everything in it, but it starts conversations on the important questions.
It also addresses this topic. (And, it is not ignorance… I am just a book geek.)
My kindergarten Sunday School teacher showed me a picture of God once. He was an old man with long white hair and a beard. He was wearing a long blue robe and sitting on a throne.
I think the answer (as best as I can ponder) is two parts.
1. Whatever God is, God is a being beyond our comprehension. Disney and Steve Jobs and Seth McFarlene on thier best most creative day could not come up with anything even close to what God actually is. All our senses are actually built in limitations. God is so far beyond our understanding that we should not even try. Our Jewish brothers and sisters understood this. We believe but we don’t have to conceive.
Point number 2: We could not understand or accept number 1 unless we have the old white man on the throne.
For my personal relationship with God and the spiritual life that revolves around it, I notice two things about this argument.
1. People who are looking for inclusivity are usually coming from a standpoint of grace.
2. People who are looking for specificity are usually coming from a standpoint of law.
I don’t know who is right, but I do know who appears more “Christ-like”.
Marko, thanks again for sharing what you’re wrestling with. My mother gets quite offended when the words to hymns get rearranged to make them gender-neutral, and more so when it’s the Bible, so I avoided the question for a lot of years, but it’s been on my mind for the last couple of years. A couple of thoughts to contribute:
Since God is so far beyond our understanding, applying a male or female word to God is a case of applying an idea we can understand to a being we can’t understand.
It’s unfortunate that our society has so many poor examples of fatherhood, and more unfortunate that those examples have kept people away from faith in God because the word we’ve used most often has been “Father.” With that said, I don’t think it’s strictly a case of political correctness to include female descriptions for God. I think it’s a case of recognizing deep pain in people who need God, and making a way to create a Christian relationship with them.
Finally, I think one of the most important things we can ponder about God is how he creates relationships– the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Trinity, the relationship between God and people, and the relationship between people and each other. Since a relationship requires many different attributes from each person in it, I think it’s very appropriate to look for metaphors and descriptions that show God with female as well as male qualities.
Those are my rough thoughts; thanks for posting and giving me the opportunity to start writing them down!
With the amount of masculinity that has been removed from the church (even if it is mostly male led) has ruined church for men…me included. Use He please.
Here I am really dealing with complementarian vs. egalitarian for pretty much the first time (and I even went to seminary for a year), and now I have even more to think about in terms of the language and use of gender in Scripture and the Church.
Mike,
I really feel the weight and sadness of what you’re saying. I dont want that experience for you – but I dont want it for women either. Why not try to use both pronouns at times so everyone can avoid the bad spot you are in?
Here is my 2 cents worth. Jesus, who was God and a male, taught us to pray to God as Father. So that is how I pray, to God as my Father.
Hi Mark. I’ll try to keep it short -like me :)
Your honesty in wrestling is a good thing and shows your desire to relate in love to people. Thanks for putting it out there.
Re “sophia/ruach” as “feminine”:
I have a degree in German, I get around ok in Italian and I understand the gist of conversational Spanish. Just because a word is grammatically gendered “masculine” or “feminine” in a particular language does not mean that its referent is male or female. That’s not how language works. See today’s post, March 19, here for a discussion of this:
http://www.englishbibles.blogspot.com/
Did you hear Richard Twiss’ presentation last year at the NPC? I remember so much of it, particularly this: God created Man- that is, God created male Man and female Man, and all of us are Man(kind).
*Humanity* is what is created in the image of God, not “males” and “females” or even “males+females”. Therefore, whatever is “image of God” about people must be common to all humanity and not based on a gendered body (’cause God don’t have one…).
I agree with M. Volf in his explanation that all our gendered language about God is a reflection back onto God of *our own ideas* about what constitutes “masculine” and “feminine”, and therefore isn’t really about God at all, but it sure says a lot about us! See ch 4 of “Exclusion and Embrace”, worth the price of the book if you haven’t read it yet. (This is not to discount or dismiss the language of scripture, but rather to put it into perspective.)
Finally, if you’re up for a very good book-length treatment of the matter, see “Our Father in Heaven: Christian Faith and Inclusive Language for God” by John W. Cooper, Baker 1998. It helped me a lot.
Dana, the “vinegar” lady :)
Mark,
Over and over again in the New Testament, Jesus refers to God as Father. These aren’t the parts of the New Testament where a neutral pronoun is translated as a male pronoun. Jesus very specifically uses “Father.” It’s Holy Week. In just a couple days we celebrate Good Friday. On the cross, in His agony, Jesus called out to his Father in the most tender of terms. He cried, “Abba Father,” literally, “Daddy.”
That’s not gender neutral. That’s pretty specific. I can’t support where you are going on this one.
wow
just wow
reading the post was a true revelation – the comments reflect the rich complexity of the parade of Jesus followers
grappling with this is the point, right ? there is no answer, no place to end up – only the mystery and our stretching for it
Brian,
I wonder where you go with Jesus’ own comments about being having a mother (hen’s) instincts. Or about groaning in childbirth. Or the many places in the Bible that describe God as a mother of some kind (mother bear, mother eagel).
Let’s accept all of scripture. Doing away with Jesus calling God, Father would be a terrible loss. But (knowing that God isnt actually either male or female) isnt it also a loss to deny other parts of scripture where the Motherhood of God is affirmed?
There is something quite wonderful about living in the tension of God, isn’t there….
And it’s kinda nice to think about God during Holy Week instead of planning for services and figuring out if everyone has vestments and how many times to swing the Holy Smoke!
Gracias my escalator friend!
I find it very interesting as to the number of comments you got on this one:)
CS Lewis can add another chapter to the screw tape letters with this topic.
does it really matter? 1/3 of God was definitely masculine so most people refer to God as masculine.
love God, love people.
i find it humorous that someone would boycott YS because they disagreed with this comment from marko’s blog or post how many years they have been going as if that gives them some sort of weight.
let’s not get bogged down with semantics – love God love people.
I tend to lean toward Eric’s position: why get so wrapped up in something that, in the long run, doesn’t change God or His redemptive act of reconciliation through Jesus that we celebrate this week?
To me, this discussion focuses on people, not God. Have you been hurt by the male references to God because it has somehow “excluded” you because you’re not male? Does the image of a “heavenly Father” not work for you because of your own earthly father? Do the feminine characteristics of God mess with your perception and worship of God for some reason? Is it too hard to consider that God may be bigger than you’ve come to understand Him (whoops, I used a male pronoun!)?
I appreciate the sensitivity Marko is trying to practice in his communication with others. I also applaud his desire to expand our understanding of *all* that God is — *way* more than we’ll *ever* comprehend!
But please don’t major in the minors of gender descriptions. Whatever way we refer to God will never change the bottom line: God loves everyone and wants a personal relationship with everyone. If that relationship is enhanced by a deeper understanding of part of God’s character, then I’m happy to assist someone in understanding God in that way.
Remember the Good News: Jesus is risen!
I understand the hurt and I understand the controversy. I try to just call God….God and leave it at that. We will never truly understand or comprehend all of who God is! To quote the words to a song from several years ago. God is God and I am not. Thanks Marko for the thought provoking post!
I wanted to say thank you for posting this. Understanding how we shape our conceptions of God has been a long journey for me too. It is unfortunately still such a taboo subject that it is hard to move forward into a bigger (more accurate?) conception of God once one realizes that a male god is more of an idol than good theology.
For my communities sake I generally use gender neutral terms, but am aware of the male default of most people. I do embrace the female terms alongside the male terms because they are both valid ways to understand God that I don’t want to deny. It is awkward at times, but as with any discipline that serves to bring one closer to God, practice is needed.
Right on Marko-
If we think that God is gender specific, it limits his power. Also, to those that say this is some sort of “scriptural editing” I think you really need to look at scripture and realize that if God were only “God the Father” why would there be so many different metaphors for God?
Marko this is just a question. You said, “b. i know so many women who have really struggled to understand themselves as created in god’s image because they only had a male concept of god. ”
Do you think this has more to do with the fact that the culture back then looked down upon women so much. I mean it really was a male dominated culture and a lot of the things in the Bible referring to mankind I think are cultural things. I guess my question is do you think that this has rubbed off into how they view who they are in relationship to God and not the fact that the male pronoun is used so much in the Bible?
this is just a question….but I wonder if women would have been included more in their culture if this would even be an issue? What do you think?
It’s curious why so many people make a big deal out of holding on to a staunch view of God as male. It seems as though the rationale is a cultural leaning that we have received, that God is masculine, and then thinly veiled by saying that Scripture uses exclusively masculine pronouns for God (except for the neuter pronouns most often used for the Spirit. We are so accustomed to seeing God as male, that even for those who acknowledge that God has no gender, it is still easier to call God male than female – though many of us we would acknowledge that both are equally incorrect when referring to a God who has no ‘male genitalia.’
It makes sense from a linguistic point of view to use personal pronouns (he/she) for a being than impersonal (it). Could you imagine using the pronoun ‘it’ when referring to God? And, many people have pointed out that in an patriarchal society we tend to use masculine pronouns, probably because we’re culturally conditioned to think that masculine=strong, feminine=weak. God is obviously not weak, so the argument goes that it is male.
An even more curious line of thinking is that Jesus was a male, most likely had male genitalia (though as far as I know no one checked to be sure) therefore God is male. I can’t help but wonder how Jesus being male in his humanity must mean that he was male in his divinity. This is likely another cultural leaning, where God decided that its son would be born a male in an patriarchal society like Israel in the 1st century. Could Jesus have been born a girl? Would that have affected God’s gender, or lack thereof?
Finally, I want to say thank-you, Marko, for your post. I don’t see this as being accommodating to a PC society, or a heretical step toward some sort of slippery-slope into liberalism. I think this is an honest wrestling to uncreate God in our own image and to truly worship God as it is, unencumbered by our cultural understandings of being and, in this case, gender. I hope that such wrestlings are fruitful to develop a more balanced, fuller understanding of who God is and how to live according to its will.
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