When it comes to discussing gender and faith where should you start? Well, the nature of God would seem to be a good place, although even here it is contended ground.
On the egalitarian side is the statement: God is spirit. So Claire Jones in an article at Threads writes,
God is not male. Everyone with me so far? Jesus affirms that ‘God is spirit’. Christian doctrine has always generally agreed that gender is a creaturely distinction, and one that requires a body – though that obviously throws up a few more questions about sex, gender identity and biology – a post for another day. Most of us would say, if asked, that we don’t believe God has a gender. Instead, God transcends gender.
This belief is both a comfort and an irritation. The comfort comes from the belief that God is not male, but this itself causes problems. ‘Hold on a minute, does that mean our bodies determines our gender and how they should be used?’ You can see how that line of reasoning would prove uncomfortable for many.
Jones goes on to experiment with swapping gender pronouns in the Bible in the hope that this will deepen our experience of God. This approach does raise questions as it always does as to the nature, authority and character of the Bible. It also carries an assumption that for thousands of years our understanding of God has not been, ‘broad or deep’ limited as it has been by the language of the Bible.
A better discussion is to be found as Peter Leithart discusses the Divine Feminine over at First Things. Responding to the book of the same name by Virginia Mollenkott, Leithart first challenges the notion that masculine language of God developed because of the highly patriarchal culture.
If anything, what stands out in the Bible is the absence of feminine deities. If a masculine God is a sign of patriarchalism, the Bible is hyper-patriarchal. Which is odd, since biblical religion has been the single most potent force for the liberation of women in the history of humanity. And that means we may be mistaken in making straight-line connections between masculinity in religion and patriarchalism in society.
Then calls out some sexist gendered interpretations:
Hosea 11:3–4 must be referring to Yahweh as mother when it speaks of Him taking Israel in His arms and leading them with love, since it describes Yahweh showing “patient, yearning tenderness of material love” (27). Maybe, though, Yahweh is setting an example for men to hold their sons by the hand.
But praises Mollenkott for some areas where she makes clearer the feminine aspects of the character of God.
It’s common to point out that calling a woman a “helper” (ezer) is not demeaning, since Yahweh Himself is called a helper. Mollenkott reverses that logic: “the Bible applies the wordezer to only two specifically named entities: God and Eve.” From that she concludes that “woman is in some unique sense the channel of God’s ezer to the world; and conversely, God also is the ezer of humankind” (75). Woman is the channel of help specifically in her specifically female capacity to give birth: She helps by bringing Yahweh’s redeemer into the world.
These two articles remind me that in a culture where understanding of gender is increasingly complex and fragmented and fraught, there is a need to tread with care but that we need a source that is stable, trustworthy and true. I believe that is what we have in the Bible. It reminds me that reading the Bible in community, men and women together is helpful and important. It reminds me that we don’t need to alter the Bible but in fact, if anything we need to be more biblical than we currently are. It also reminds me that as a man I need helpers in life and God has provided.
Leave a Reply