Is God He, She or It?

For the past couple of years, since worshiping at my local United Church of Christ, I’ve been reading the Daily Devotional on the UCC website…nearly daily.  I like it, I learn some things, it inspires my prayer life, at times.

Alas, it has also made me more aware of an aversion I have to referencing God as “She” or using “Her” as a possessive for God.  Many of the contributing pastors/ministers use this “She” reference quite often; at this stage in my walk of faith, I find this to be both inaccurate and driven by a form of “political correctness.”  I may be wrong but my current studies support my discomfort with this practice of calling God, “She.”

1. I believe that the Bible contains, if not the words of God, the Word of God.  I believe that the  “authors” of the books chosen for the Christian Bible(s) were inspired by God to write what they wrote.  I believe that the message of the Word transcends the time period in which the Word was written, although that time period is definitely a part of the nature and “sense” of the writing.

2.  Jesus consistently refers to God as his “Father.”  Jesus never refers to God as his mother, sister, aunt…you get the idea.  Jesus refers to God as “Lord”…never as “Lady.”  As most Christians recall, in Matthew Jesus told us to pray, “Our Father…”.  Additionally, Jesus refers to God as, “Abba”…typically this is translated as “daddy”, I believe.

3. For centuries, we have referred to the Triune God as, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Ghost).”  As I read the Bible, God reveals Himself and His nature principally through the masculine – as a Father, as a Son (who did for a brief period in history take on a human body and did therefore for that time have a gender) and of course God also reveals Himself through the Person of the Holy Spirit – for Whom there is no direct, human equivalent. The one thing that He does not do in Scripture is to reveal Himself through a feminine Person in the Trinity (remembering that as well as the feminine noun in the Old Testament, in the New Testament the Holy Spirit is referred to variously as the Comforter/Advocate who is just like Jesus – the masculine noun parakletos - and further through the representation of moving air or rushing wind – the neuter noun pneuma John 14:16, 17, 26). As I inferred earlier, some would argue that this revelation of God as Father, Son and Spirit came through a patriarchal culture and therefore is informed and indeed constrained by culture. That’s no doubt true, timeline-wise… and yet God is sovereign over all things – including culture. Had God wanted to reveal Himself differently, He could readily have chosen a different time and place to do so, I submit.  Are there feminine images used of God in the Bible? Yes there is a relatively small number of them – Deut 32:18, Psalm 22:10, Psalm 131:2, Is 42:14, Is 49:15, Is 66:13 and Luke 15:8-10 to name the most commonly cited – there are others. But my hunch is that these serve no more to reveal Him as “She”, than the image of God as having wings (Psalm 36:7 and elsewhere) reveals Him to be a Bird.

4.  A simple search in the Bible makes it abundantly clear that “God” and “God’s name” are nearly inseparable from references to “He”, “Him”, etc.  This leads me to believe that God not only takes his name very seriously but reveals his name in “masculine” formats and situations to present to us a very specific identity.  This does not diminish the “feminine” qualities of God’s interactions with us…I would expect those qualities in Him (as I would in any other man or woman created in God’s image) because he directs those qualities in me…us…male and female.

5.  As most active church-going Christians my recall, over the past 15-20 years Christian churches have made efforts to remove, eliminate or diminish any historical direct reference to “Man”, “Men”, etc., in prayers, documents and encyclicals.  Perhaps this is to help women feel more inclusive in churches.  Perhaps this is to “update” the writings of “male dominated societies.”  Perhaps this is because it is politically correct.  Perhaps this is because it is less offensive to women.  Perhaps for these reasons and more…I don’t know.  I am confident of this, however:  God historically revealed Himself to us as a "He", and we ought not to dismiss that and pretend that we know how to interact with God in ways that are superior than the way that God chose to reveal Himself to us.

In sum, this is where my understanding and study has led me over these past 60 years.  So I ask myself:  What am I missing…what do I need to learn or consider, in this matter?

When will the Lord’s (Lady’s ??) Prayer begin with, “Our Mother, who art in heaven…”?  Or will it?

Does it even matter, in your opinion?

Why do I think that my understanding of God's nature captures the complete essence of God?

For the past 30 years, I have been a practitioner of Tai Chi.  As you may know, Tai Chi and Taoism have a very unique bond.  This being said,  I have been studying Taoism for quite some time.  The Tao Te Ching, “written” by Lao Tzu, is the legendary formal beginning of Taoism, as I understand other studies.

The essence of the Tao can be found in the opening lines of Verse 1:
The Tao that can be told is not the universal Tao.  The name that can be named is not the universal name.
In the infancy of the universe there were no names.  Naming fragments the mysteries of life into ten thousand things and there manifestations…

The verse goes on and says, essentially:  If you think that you can name/define/describe the Tao (the Path) then you don’t know the Tao…the essence of the Tao.

Reading this, I have come to believe that I know so little about God (and the Tao) that being biblically “literal” regarding the pronoun(s) being used for God may be another sign of my egotism.

Although I do not have, in fact reject, a God-In-A-Box faith or understanding about God, I may need to review/pray about my aversion to the use of “She”, “Her” and “Mother” by fellow Christians when “naming” God.  

The devil’s advocate in me might say: To other people, I may present both male and female thoughts, emotions, actions…characteristics…at different times, in varying situations during my life.  Those could be construed as some of the “essence” of  who I am.  But my name does not change, he is Bill.  But my gender does not change, I am male.

Of course (at least I believe at this point in my Christian journey), although God does have a name, God does not have a gender in the strictest sense of the word (Word) unless one considers “Creator” to be God’s “gender?”  Jesus’s gender is male, the Holy Spirit’s “gender” is spirit?

You know what, Reader?  As I read and reread my post…all of this stuff about “gender” and names and pronouns…it is becoming apparent to me that they have NOTHING to do with faith in our Triune God and God’s love of his creation…nothing. 

So I reread John, Chapter 1:  In the beginning was the Word… I don’t notice any gender in those words, in that chapter.

Perhaps I have become guilty of playing mental gymnastics so as to feed my ego.

This being said, I apologize for dragging you into my lack of openness to others’ beliefs…and hope that writing this post has given me something to continue to think (or un-think) about!