Mother God…
How many of us have started a prayer with “Father God…”? Or at some point in a time of prayer referred to God as father? Last night at Soulstice I referred to The Shack by William Young in my talk about failure and how sometimes God takes us back to the source of greatest pain and deepest hurts to walk from that place and out of that memory into a place of healing and newness.
My reference of this book triggered some talk after our gathering about the book itself and some of it’s theological implications. If you have paid any attention to the reviews of this book you’ll know that it is somewhat debated among conservative evangelicals for a number of reasons. One major reason being the author’s depiction of God and the Trinity. In the book, what we typically refer to as “God the Father” is very robust African American woman named “Papa.” Remember that song entitled “Things that make you go hmmmmm”?
What do we know of God from scripture? He is WHOLLY OTHER. Meaning, he is neither male nor female. God is not and cannot be defined by our categories of male and female. This is called anthropomorphic language by the way, when we impose human categories and character qualities onto God, and we find all over scripture especially in the Psalms and Proverbs. In the creation account, we’re told that God made male AND female in our image…meaning that something within God connects to or can be expressed by both men AND women.
If we know this is true theologically, how do we explain all of the references to God as Father in the Bible? There are a couple of options here of course. God really is male in gender and thus the reference to God as such is but a confirmation of who He really is. Another option would be the context in which the Bible was written. When we think about America 10o years ago and we would probably all agree it was a very Patriarchal culture and context. I don’t think any of us can adequately understand how much more so the culture in which the Bible comes from was steeped in patriachal ways of relating. This then explains the useage of paternal language to describe God. We could go on and on with other alternative explanations but we’ll leave it at two for now.
I chatted a little bit about this topic in the lobby with some folks after Soulstice but thought it would be an interesting blog discussion and would love to hear your thoughts?
Would you ever feel comfortable addressing God in prayer as “mother God” instead of father God? Why or why not?
Does it really matter how we address God in terms of gender, i.e. what is at stake here?
How do we have this discussion and dialogue in light of the world we live in here in 2009?
Sorry I missed this one, Micah! I’ll have to catch the podcast.
Here’s what I’ve come across and have resonated with: “Motherhood” emphasizes immanence (because the created life is growing inside the mother) while “Fatherhood” emphasizes transcendence (because the created life, while very definitely “from” the father as much as the mother, is “external” to the father). Coupled with the historical matriarchal fertility goddesses of the surrounding cultures, God presented Himself as a “He” and emphasized His Holy and transcendent nature.
It’s not that one is “wrong” or that there needs to be a “change”; it’s very intentional.
To be blunt, I think that such a “external” or “transcendent” emphasis resonates with the Gospel message and our very nature as fallen sinners. It’s a false dichotomy, but if we draw God as the Mom who gives us the hug or the Dad who hands out the punishment we deserve… well, Jesus makes clear that — without Him — we don’t have hugs coming our way.
That’s not a very popular perspective… but, then again, it wasn’t very popular a few thousand years ago when God was saying it the first time around. (“Hey! Those Levitical Laws sound like fun! I want to join -those- people!”)
Question: In what gender is the Holy Spirit addressed in the original Greek and Hebrew, and to what end? Off the top of my head I can’t think of examples where It’s addressed as a He in English translations, but many (most?) languages other than English assign gender to their nouns and I’d bet that the Holy Spirit is also male. But, if so, is that happenstance or intentional?
The point is, if anyone has issues with the “maleness” of God (some for silly reasons, some for very well-founded concerns of past personal trauma), can we take comfort (no pun intended) in the fact that the Spirit doesn’t have an assigned gender?
P.S. For a good summary of the terminology, albeit from a Cathoic perspective, you can check out http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/mbrumley_father2_nov05.asp — not advocating the full content of the site, view with discretion, etc. etc. etc., but it might help the conversation.
Micah – you might be interested in something along these lines that I wrote last year. My conclusion was along these lines:
“Jesus was incarnate as the perfect human being, reflecting the complete image of God as Word and Wisdom, both male and female, flesh and spirit. And when we, as Christians, declare our faith and trust in Christ and are filled with the Holy Spirit, perhaps then we too are becoming complete human beings, reflecting the image of God in physical flesh and spiritual wisdom. Our flesh can be male or female, but without Wisdom, the Spirit of God, Goethe’s eternal feminine (Ewigweibliche), we are an incomplete image of God.”