When God Was a Woman

I like Jimmy Carter - he was a great President - but he never was able to communicate well. His investments in renewable energy were sold off to Japan and Europe - for pennies on the dollar and we and the climate are much poorer on account of it.

But President Carter is no theologian and to pretend he is, is silly. In the old testament in David's Psalms God has a mother's gentle care for her children but He can also be a wrathful God once He gets fed up with incest, idolatry, fornication, adultry, murder, and the like.

God is neither female nor male because He is more than either one - He is not sexless but full of life. He is life in abundance. And He pursues us until He catches us or we utterly reject Him. He is the lover than never tires. Always coming back to us until our time runs out. In that sense God is male.

So God has male and female attributes but He is more than either one.

""Everybody knows he has no sex." This male student's choice of pronoun says it all: God is a "he" and "everybody knows that." Women need not apply
Really. Actually you might want to try taking English 101 first Ms. Thistlethwaite. For those who don't know, it is appropriate to use masculine pronouns (like he) when the gender is unknown or abiguous. So, this gentleman was using proper English and not inadvertantly calling God male."

"Our FATHER, who art in Heaven, hallowed by they name"

Seems pretty unambiguous to me--someone has assigned a gender to their god and if you are not of the same gender, you are presumed not to be as godlike. It's codified in the language.

Here's another example where god is clearly defined as male, the Nicene Creed.

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made;

snip

And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets."

Tap-dance around it semantically, but it's pretty clear that the Abrahamaic tradition is a boys-only club. No mothers allowed to be god! If it were different, there would be text supporting the notion that women are godlike too.

There are those that are shaking things up by arguing that women are completely capable and called upon to represent their deity, and their actions are mirroring their words. I wish them well.

So, nikosd99, from your statement, I assume you answered my question, albeit not directly. Thanks for that, at least. You DO seem to want laws to force me to live as you direct. YOU, not God. You are not God, and you do not speak for God "...women are subjugated to the role that God has chosen for them," indeed.

Well, now at least I know. Now, just so you know, rejecting your beliefs is NOT rejecting God. It's rejecting YOU! I do not accept your narrow, literalist interperatation. I reject your view of Genesis as fact. And yes, If I want to "throw out the Bible" that's my right under the Constitution. Remember that? It's the highest law of the land around here.

If you can leave me in peace to follow my own way, without using the force of law to make me act like I share your beliefs and let God sort out any errors I may make, well and good. I wish you well. But, if you can't accept my right to ignore the crap out of you and your beliefs, be ready for a fight. And I'm pretty sure you'll lose.

Oh Brother, throw out the Bible because nobody believes it. What do these people base their faith on? Apparently it's everybody for themselves. Make up your religion as you go along. Can you imagine playing a game of football or baseball without a rule book? So it is with these people and religion. And the shame is that so many of them are theologians who should be teaching the Word of God as revealed in the Bible.

There's a reason that women are subjugated to the role that God has chosen for them. Let me say here that women are worthy of our love and are equally important in God's eyes. We are to love them and treat them as the weaker vessel. However, here it is in a nutshell as to why they are where they are in the pecking order.

Genesis 2:16, 17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 3:2,3 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

God didn't say anything about not touching it, but He did command them not to eat of it. And of course, we know that Eve did just that and got Adam to taste of it also.

Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 ~ Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

And God said to Eve in Genesis 3:16, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Note that Jesus didn't pick any women to be diciples but women accompanied them in their journeys to supply their needs. And not sexual needs as some of you liberal theologians like to speculate.

Luke 8:1-3 And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.

And finally, God is still called Father, and not Mother ~ except by Roman Catholics who like to make Mary their God.

So, misguided Thistlethwaite, GET OVER IT!

Susan, I applaud you for using "When God Was a Woman" as a teaching tool. Other good books include works by Carl Kerenyi, Tom Harper, Ft. Matthew Fox, and Mary Daly. It's a radical shift to think of God as a woman as well as (or in place of) a man. But it opens up a whole new level of understanding.

Many or perhaps all languages are deficient in expressing God. In our speech we are used to speaking "He" and "She". But in reality, God is neither.

(1) God was not born out of any one nor will reproduce any one. Reproduction is a phenomenon of life forms. God is not anthropomorphic.

(2)When there was nothing, God was there and when there will be nothing, God will still be there.

(3) Muslims believe that God has 99 different characteristics. Each charistic assigns a particular name to God. For example, God is merciful (Rahim), God is the owner of the universe (Malik), God is the punisher (Qahhar) for grave sins etc. etc.

God can not be perceived in shape, form, gender etc.

God's commands are for our own benefit. If followed they produce a harmonious society. When humans go astray, then social disruptions happen.

There is a system of reward and punishment for following God's commands. Heaven and hell.

God makes choices available to humans. Choosing the right ones is the key.

Susan;

You write;

"God is always the primary issue in religion--who we think God is and how we believe God acts with the world determines how we interpret our sacred texts. When, and only when, women equally reflect the divine image in humanity will they be fully equal in rights and in religious interpretation."

me;
God is always the primary issue in religion because when we created Him we made Him invisible and silent. How could we have done otherwise? It is easy to create a silent unseen God, (is there any other kind?) but very tricky indeed to get Him to walk and talk and actually BE.

If He was real, life would be so much simpler. But imaginary gods is the best our ancestors could come up with, and we just have to live with the confusion, or become atheists.

...For those who don't know, it is appropriate to use masculine pronouns (like he) when the gender is unknown or abiguous.
.... I think it is clear from the Bible God is neither male nor female but gives them different roles but equal standing before Him.
Posted by Kert1.

Actually, addressing your first point, the "he" convention was brought into standard English in the mid 18th century. Before that, the standard pronoun when the sex of the person was unknown was "they," as in "They went that-a-way." I don't know why the language was modified to use "he" as a neuter pronoun, but it's innacurate at best, unthinking exclusion at worst. Most people will admit, if they are honest about it, that when they hear "he" they picture a male. And when King James was translated, "he" was intended to apply to males only. If the English language was changed once, (or lots more than once) it can change again, in the interest of greater accuracy.

As to the second point, God may give equal standing to the different roles men and women have had in the past, but society didn't. Women have been kept from authority and control of their own lives based on those traditional roles. That is impossible to deny. If you (and any women in your life) choose those roles, fine. I wish you well. The point I have made to other posters making this argument is that I don't want those roles codified in law. In the past, women's lives were resticted by law, in deference to Biblican creeds. I don't want those laws back. Do you?

I will choose how I live my life, what roles I will play, what my concept of God is and how I relate to that concept, for myself. I am not willing to have those choices compromised by the beliefs others may hold regarding my divinly appointed role in life. I am perfectly happy to allow you to live your life according to your beliefs? Are you willing to afford me the same right?

I have asked this question over and over on various topics and never gotten an answer. Help me out, here. Do I have anything to fear from Christian conservatives, as a woman who wants to follow her own way? Are you just offering an opinion about what people "ought" to do, or do you want laws to force me and those like me to follow your rules, no matter what?

The "no gay marriage" stuff is what makes me not sure you won't impose your beliefs on others if given half a chance. No one has shown me how gay marriage has any effect on anyone, except the gay couple marrying, yet conservative Christians are convinced that it must not be allowed for reasons that always come back to their religious beliefs. If you can impose your religious restrictions upon unwilling gay people, why not women? Why not anyone? That's what scares me about conservative Christianity. So, conservative Christians, tell me. Do I have anything to fear? Can anyone reassure me?

"Everybody knows he has no sex." This male student's choice of pronoun says it all: God is a "he" and "everybody knows that." Women need not apply

Really. Actually you might want to try taking English 101 first Ms. Thistlethwaite. For those who don't know, it is appropriate to use masculine pronouns (like he) when the gender is unknown or abiguous. So, this gentleman was using proper English and not inadvertantly calling God male.

Actually, if you look at this young man's point you may learn something. I think it is clear from the Bible God is neither male nor female but gives them different roles but equal standing before Him. I wish authors would write some insight on this instead of trying to discredit male authors for being male.

You hit the nail on the head! I have read people on this very blog who say, "Oh, but I think of God as having no gender." That's all well and good and I would wish more people would think that way, but still that male pronoun is virtually always used (and capitalized for emphasis!). Not only the pronoun: God is frequently referred to as "Father". (The "Lord's Prayer" is familiarly called "The Our Father".) And if Jesus (also male) is Mary's son, God can only be his father. We can't have Jesus having two mothers, now can we? (Nor even one mother and one genderless parent?) So even if various individuals consider the deity to have no gender, linguistically and culturally he is stuck being a male. (I can't vouch for what gender is used in the original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic or even if the languages denote gender with their pronouns.)

A book I would recommend to anyone interested in feminine spirituality is Sue Monk Kidd's "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine."