My friend Marko has recently posted about his views on the dangers of using only masculine pronouns when speaking of God.
I am not sure why this topic has made me think so much, but it certainly has.
Here are a few highlights
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.
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.
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.
I think that I agree with many of Mark's points, but I am still thinking about all of it...
I certainly think many of men have looked up to heaven and seen God smiling back to them in a magnified version of their own image. Then they turned away from the mirror and looked back at the world and told everyone that God was just like them...
this has certainly caused many people who weren't like these men to miss out on the true image of God...
Many conservatives will view this issue as a liberal agenda to feminize God... But I think Mark has a very valid point... certainly God is not male or female in a human sense.
I am really interested to gather some of your perspectives on this...
