Oh no. I'm going to get in trouble with this one. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, it's one in the morning after all.
So this is something that I've been thinking about for, well, years to be honest with you. I am sure that all of us have heard the term "God the Father". I'm also sure we've heard plenty of people shaking things up (read that with sarcasm please) by calling God "her" or referring to God as a woman.
Can I throw my hat into the ring? Let's get one thing out of the way: Jesus has a gender. Jesus has a gender because Jesus has a body. He had to be a man (unfortunately) because cultures past and present would not have listened if he were a woman, blah blah. Trust me, men and women are one hundred percent equal in God's eyes. But the main point here is that yes, Jesus has a gender because Jesus has a body.
When I was a little boy, I would make fun of the girls in Sunday School and say that since we are made in God's image, and "boys were made first, the God is totally a boy, duh." Other people, Christians and non Christians alike tend to image God the Father as male, or at least assume that Christians see God as a male. Please allow me to address this.
Can you imagine God walking around? Does he have a beard? A mustache? Some killer biceps? Does he enjoy knitting or playing football? Or maybe the other way around: Is God beautiful? What shade of lipstick does she prefer? Does she prefer dresses or skirts? Is this sounding ridiculous to anyone else? Are we, as people, so ignorant that we believe that that God has some form of biological gender?
That's absurd. It's stupid. It's closed-minded and silly. I think that some people get hung up on the term "God the Father". Yes, it is powerful, it is true, but don't limit the semantics of it. People tend to freak out if anyone ever says "God the Mother," but you know what? Read scripture, it's true too. The truth of the matter is that God is not just the perfect father, God is not just the perfect mother, what it really comes down to is that God is the perfect parent.
God created both man and woman in his image. God contains perfect masculine attributes (whatever those are) and perfect feminine attributes (whatever those are. I don't even pretend to have those answers guys.) Let us not get hung up on the idea that God is one half of anything. He understands us, man, woman, and anyone else because God can relate, God can understand, and because God created us. Don't be afraid or offended if God is referred to as "He" or even "She" unless the speaker honestly believes that something as grand as GOD is limited to physical plumbing. If that's ever the case, well smile and nod to yourself. You know better.
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11 years ago
1 comment:
I think this is a great post. A number of "feminine" traits are attributed to God, and he is even referred to as a "hen" - which is female. I don't feel comfortable, though, if someone refers to God as "she" because there is way too much sociological baggage that comes with that. That person is probably attempting to be defiant and trying to make a point that really doesn't need to be made. God is genderless - I'm assuming. I've never seen him. So, to try and make a point by calling him "she" is just a little snotty, in my opinion, because the accepted vernacular is masculine. And we certainly can't start calling him "it" or "they", which used to be a plural pronoun but is now often used as a singular pronoun. There are too many problems that would arise with "it" or "they." Personhood issues, trinity issues, etc.
A friend of mine recently said that women desperately crave the approval of men because of the masculinity of God and our inborn desire for relationship with him. I don't know what to make of that comment. But I do know that the female desire for masculine approval is extremely strong. Anyway, just thought I'd mention that, though it is fairly contrary to everything I said above!
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