Is God male or female? Why this US church is debating it now
A debate is going on to decide whether God should be referred as a male or a female. How wonderful is this because all our prayers (those who have studied in Christian/missionary schools) have invoked our “Father” whose “kingdom” should come.
There is another wonderful thing about this.
The debate is taking place in the United States where the MeToo movement, and the model of aggressive masculinity preached by President Donald Trump, have been neck and neck so far.
Making God a female figure may not be possible, or may get laden with similar gender biases. But can God be made gender-neutral? That’s what the US-based Episcopal Church wants now.
But why now?
The idea is not new. Many churches in the past have opted for a less-gendered language for God. After the Church of England got its first female bishop in 2015, there was a demand to make God a “she”. In 2017, Church of Sweden stopped using “he” and “lord”.
The new translations of the Bible have also become more inclusive in language. For example, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, than thou visitest him?” in the King James Bible has been rewritten as “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” in the New Revised Standard Version of 1989.
So, the idea is old — but the timing is important.
Though former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is on bail now, accusations of rapes, sexual assaults against him initiated an unstoppable #MeToo movement, which did not limit itself to the geographical border of the United States, neither the boundary of the entertainment industry.
It created a new narrative of gender equality — and the Episcopal Church too can’t turn away from this movement.
According to a report of The Washington Post, Chicago bishop Jeffrey Lee has said the MeToo movement raised awareness about the need to examine assumptions about language. Lee is part of the committee deliberating on God’s gender.
“If a language for God is exclusively male and a certain kind of image of what power means, it’s certainly an incomplete picture of God… We can’t define God. We can say something profoundly true about God, but the mystery we dare to call God is always bigger than anything we can imagine,” he said.
The debate, as we can understand, would not be an easy one as there will be many voices against changing the words of the Book of Common Prayer.
But sample this:
According to the website of the Episcopal Church, two transgender clergy members explained how they found it difficult to convince people to their belief by words absolutely masculine. A deputy from the Diocese of California described her discomfort in presiding over the funeral for a woman as all she was doing was referring to the deceased as “he” and “him”.
A movement against sexual exploitation rising above gender and resulting in spiritual inclusion? Or, at least raising a debate?
That's quite a lot, albeit late.
Still, thank God.