God and gender

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali comments on God's gender

Christians are entirely right in pointing out that both women and men are made in God's image and that this is the basis for our belief in their equality. Whether this necessitates speaking of God as feminine is, however, highly questionable.

It is true that God is beyond mere human gender and our language about God is limited and most inadequate but, in the Bible, we also have to reckon with God's language about himself. Here the fundamental categories of God as Father, King and even Husband are not just images drawn from the cultures of the human authors but are saying something of abiding importance about his relationship to us and to his world. Thus he is described as the Father of those whom he has created, different from but also related to the creation. He is the Father of his chosen people, Israel and, of course, he is Father of the expected Messiah. These images cannot easily be changed without violence to what is intended.

Jesus and his work cannot be understood without taking into account his sense of an intimate relationship with his Father, reaching back into eternity. His relationship with his earthly mother is quite different! He taught his followers to pray to God as 'Our Father....' We can speak of the Church as 'mother' of believers and, by extension, of Mary (John19:27,Rev12:17) but it would be strange to pray 'Our Mother in heaven...'.

God is never referred to as 'mother' in the Bible for all of these reasons,as well as to safeguard Israel from the mother goddesses of the sexual cults all around them (these abound today also). It is true, however, that God's love and care are sometimes compared to that of a nursing and caring mother.Jesus himself speaks of his work as of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings.

But these are analogies not substantial nouns or pronouns.

God's attributes,such as wisdom are also spoken of as feminine and not just grammatically.All of this rich material can and should be used by the Church without compromising the basic ways in which Bible and Church have spoken of our creation and salvation.