Gendered Language for God

I attended a mainline seminary to study for the ministry. I still consider that a good experience. I learned a lot from the diversity I experienced there. Since I took seriously the perspectives of students and teachers that profoundly differed from my own, I learned to a lot about what I believed and why I believed it. Sometimes the people I argued with the most (either within my own thought life or in the classroom) are the people I came to agree with more profoundly at a later date.

(For those of you not in on church labeling lingo, mainline seminaries are seminaries of "mainline" denominations. Mainline can be distinguished from evangelical and fundamental seminaries on the theological right(read Dallas Seminary), and liberal seminaries/religion schools on the left (read University of Chicago or Harvard). Mainline seminaries tend to have more diversity--socioeconomic and theological--than their evangelical counterparts. They can, at times, because of their lack of theological boundaries, be seen in a very negative light by people who are more conservative. Some ministers where my mom lives became worried about my soul when I went to a mainline seminary--referrring to seminaries as "cemetaries" for people's Christian faith.)

In my seminary, the language police were in full force. Part of this was just academic standards in all fields of study. Using the word "humankind" instead of "mankind" is standard in all academic disciplines. Very few people objected, and if they refused to use gender inclusive language their grades were docked.

Where people had a hard time was being strongly encouraged to use gender-bhalanced language for God. Some people encouraged doing this by alternating your "he's" and "she's" for God. Some others encouraged neutered language for God. (Creator God. God reveals Godself..... This has alwasys been more difficult for me.

Any theological student worth their salt knows that Scripture is full of female metaphors for God. Ruach Elohim--"The Spirit of God" in Hebrew, is a term for God that is written in the feminine form. El-Shaddai--translated the Lord Almighty--has at its root the word "shad"--which is a word for a female breast. But that root is also related to words for "mountain" (Jennifer was just saying yesterday how some of the San Juan Mountains in the distance appeared breastlike, so I can see the relationship of the two words), and destroyer. Both the prophets and the psalmist refer to God in maternal nurturing roles. In Genesis, it says that men and women are both equally the "image of God".

In the Gospels God gives birth (John 3), is like a woman baking in a kitchen (Matt 13) and like a woman looking for her lost coin (Luke 15). Jesus refers to himself as a "mother hen" wanting to gather his children under his wing. The Bible says that "in Christ there is no male or female".

As for all of the "he" language used in describing God throughout in Scripture, it speaks of a male form of the word. (Remember from French or Spanish that words have masculine and feminine forms). Yet, it can be convincingly argued that masculine form, much like our language in previous years, is meant to be inclusive. For instance, when we say "mankind" when mean men and women, but if we say "womankind" we are referring exclusively to women. Hebrew and Greek work like this--masculine forms are inclusive. Thus the "he" language cannot be convincingly argued as saying God language should be exclusively male.

The strongest argument for male language in Scripture is the revalation of God as Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three in one. God is most often spoken of in Scripture in male form in the Bible. And although I believe this language for God is limited (God is beyond gender), I believe it does MEAN SOMETHING. When we stop referring to God as Father, we lose a lot of what God is revealing about himself, as well as a clear understanding of what God has made us to be in relationship to him. And the use of feminine archetype often creates imagery of God that is unbiblical or anti-biblical.

So, as I processed through the issues, I maintained the importance of using the male language for God in worship. I did, however, head the language of African-American churches in services that I had attended. As I had heard multiple black preachers say from their pulpits. "If you need a father, God can be a father to you. If you need a mother, God will be a mother to you..."

Now, recent Christian communications into popular culture advocate for stronger use of the feminine metaphor for God. One is the book The Shack by William Paul Young who is based in the Portland suburbs. The other is the video She by Nooma and Rob Bell (out of Grand Rapids).

The Shack is throughly Christian and Trinitarian in its revelation of the God that heals, although the "Father" member of the Trinity is referred to as "Papa", a large black woman. "Papa" eventually morphs into a male for a different part of the story. The Holy Spirit is referred to as female, a woman's name that means "wind" in a Hindi dialect. Jesus is a stereotypical middle eastern man.

At the same time, Bell makes a strong emphasis on the feminine imagery for God in his Nooma video series. While The Shack uses this language for spiritual formation of an individual needing growth and healing, Bell uses this imagery to additionally address justice concerns. He does not want women to think that they are less in the image of God than they are. And he wants us to see Christlike behavior in women's lives and not value men above women.

I have sympathy with both Young and Bell, but wonder if they take things a little too far at times. Young is more understandable in his story--it is an extended parable after all. Bell's video seems to be aiming at something beyond what he communicated--though I am unsure what he is moving toward. I have sympathy with their way of communicating about God, and agree with much of what they have said. Yet, I believe the predominance of masculine metaphor for God is deeply meaningful, and to reject it is to somehow neuter our understanding of the God that is revealed in Scripture, to our detriment. But it has got me thinking.

This book and video has also gotten me thinking because of the other two ministers I know well in town. Both are clearly fundamentalists. And both very publically advocate the defeminizing of the church. They believe that the aestetics, language, and worship of the church has catered to females, and that is why men are less likely than women to attend church. In many ways I agree with this. Especially as it relates to some of the songs of the modern "praise song" worship movement. Yet, when a pastor says that any "love language" for God in musical expression communicates homosexuality with God, I think they take this a little too far. But I also disagree with their excessively misogenistic views toward church leadership (only men), especially when they base subordination of women in the Trinity, and say that men are by creation mandate closer to God because they were created first.

What has bothered me since childhood is that this hierarchical, complimentarian male dominated view of church life has come across as unjust. And I can see it in the way my pastor friends operate. They often take over things from women, and in my opinion speak to some women like children instead of like equals.

Anyway...I am working through all this...especially the Trinitarian/gender stuff because we have been doing a bookclub at church. And we have been using literature as a springboard to talk about theological stuff. This month is The Shack, and I know I am going to be asked questions.

What are your thoughts on this issue?