Christian Podcast Central
Why God Is a He with Dennis Prager
Who nailed it for this week? It took seven podcasts to get to him, but anyone who knows me will tell you it’s only a matter of time until I bring up something from the great talk show host and thinker Dennis Prager. He caught my attention this week with his take on a touchy subject concerning the Bible’s expression of God’s gender, and you need to hear this.
{I’m Joel Fieri, Executive Producer of Christian Podcast Central. And this is “The Best Thing You’ll Hear This Week”}
If you don’t know Dennis Prager from his talk show, books and especially his online video site Prager University, then first off shame on you! Where have you been? But on second thought, good for you! I envy anyone who has the treat of discovering, as I did years ago, Dennis’ wisdom and insights on all things cultural, political and religious. Dennis is a Jew, and one of the leading experts on Judaism in the world. And even though his theology is not in sync with mine, his insights into the Torah and the Old Testament in general have always fascinated and instructed me. This week he posted a Prager U video asking and answering the question “Why Is God A He”? As I say Dennis’ theology is not mine. In the video he states that the purpose of the Bible is to create a “good World”, which in a general sense may be true. But in my Christian theology, of course, the purpose of the Bible is to point the world to Jesus and His death and resurrection precisely because we can’t create a good world with just the rules and commandments of the Old Testament. But putting that aside, I think his insights can be very instructive to the Church today, especially in dealing with the pressures from our society and culture to either feminize or neuter the depiction of God in the Bible.
To summarize the video, the main reason God is depicted as male, even though God is clearly neither male or female, is for the purpose of molding the character and morality of men. That is the key to making a good society, because in every society men (especially young men and boys) are the biggest source of mayhem and violence. If you depict the God who commands us to have “compassion, mercy and care for the downtrodden” as a strong male authority figure, then men will see those values as masculine and will be more inclined to adopt and follow them (and so will women). If you depict that God as female, they’ll be less inclined to follow them. So it’s in the best interests of both men and women to depict God as male. In a good society with good men, women are valued, protected and even empowered. But in a bad society with bad men, women suffer the most.
As usual we’ve posted the video below for you to watch and enjoy.
As for what Christians can take away from Dennis Prager’s message, I would argue this; the Church of today has a male problem. Men are either missing or a non-factor in too many protestant and evangelical churches. There are lots of reasons why, but the heart of the problem is, as another great thinker David Murrow says in his book Why Men Hate Going To Church, “we don’t need to bring men back to church, we need to bring the Church back to men”. In the future you can count on many podcasts from me highlighting messages from Dave and others about how to reengage men. But at the very core of our message to the world, we need to return to the idea of God being a strong, authoritative and yes, male figure. Not only will this register with men and boys, it will highlight just how amazing and powerful his love and sacrifice on the cross really are. And also how amazing his return as the conquering King will be. So thanks to the great Jew Dennis Prager for being courageous, and insightful enough to give us a much needed lesson on how to win over and reengage men for the sake of the Gospel. Watch it, please! It’s “The Best Thing You’ll Hear This Week”!
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In