“Seeking the female face of God releases divine mystery from its age-old patriarchal cage so that God can be truly God.” – Elizabeth Johnson.
Anyone paying attention can pick up on the fact that God is most often referred to historically as He. This is pervasive, and especially true, among cultures where the Abrahamic faiths have been foundational. Nonetheless, this male gender allocation is very problematic, not least because the living God is beyond gender. Certainly, Hebrew and Christian scripture use male pronouns to describe God. But likewise, there is a plethora of female descriptors of God offered by the biblical scribes that have just as much, if not more, depth and weight. What needs to be understood is that when female or male gender gets attributed to God, it is through analogy, or not infrequently as metaphor. It is not intended literally, but as part of storytelling, myth, poetry, and the like, to help us grasp something of the Divine, who is love and compassion.
God is way beyond gender allocation and the most brilliant scholars of every age, mystic and not, usually after a lifetime of pondering, conclude that God remains a mystery. Within our mystic purview, we can frequently glimpse this mystery of love and compassion through grace, but it can never be fully comprehended.
The He-God, when taken literally, reduces God to a mere human gender category and sets up all manner of other difficulties. Without doubt, we humans are created in the image of God (Imago Dei). We are people who thrive on story and naturally relate to human categories. But when we insist God is gendered, we may be crossing a very dubious line, and creating God in our image, rather than vice versa.
The age of the She-God has arrived.
That said, I have taken with some misfit mystic relish to the She-God descriptor in my writing and speaking. This appeals to the rebel in me and speaks to my heart and soul. I believe it is also a necessary countercultural correction to the long standing patriarchal entrenched obsession with insisting that God is male. As feminist theologians frequently point out, the problem with the He-God is the assumed superiority it offers to males here on earth. If God is male and the master of all things, surely males—made in his image–should naturally assume the earthy equivalent. You can see where this is going and indeed where it has led. Women under this entrenched scheme of things, although also biblically affirmed as created in God’s image, are not male. Therefore, they are forever doomed to be subordinate to their male heavenly made masters.
In her article Female Symbols for God, renowned scholar Elizabeth Johnson brings balance into the debate. She acknowledges that both women and man have a relatable need for images of the Divine mystery that can be woven into our self-image. We are, after all, made from God stuff. Likewise, she is correct in stating that God’s image as female in scripture, although largely unacknowledged by thousands of years of deep-rooted patriarchy, is just as pervasive and persuasive as any corresponding male image.
It might have been a slow train coming, comrades, but the age of the She-God has arrived. The only question is, will we dare to get onboard? It’s one hell of a ride, a magical mystery tour, for those who do.
– Cormac Stagg, author of The Quest for a Humble Heart