here<\/b><\/a>.)<\/b><\/p>\nGendering God can be either life giving or death dealing. Gendering God exclusively is harmful. Elizabeth A. Johnson\u2019s classic book She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse <\/i>is especially helpful here. Johnson writes:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhat is the right way to speak about God? This is a question of unsurpassed importance, for speech to and about the mystery that surrounds human lives and the universe itself is a key activity of a community of faith. In that speech the symbol of God functions as the primary symbol of the whole religious system, the ultimate point of reference for understanding experience, life, and the world. Hence the way in which a faith community shapes language about God implicitly represents what it takes to be the highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty. Such speaking, in turn, powerfully molds the corporate identity of the community and directs its praxis.\u201d (She Who Is,<\/i> Kindle Location 807)<\/p>\n
How we gender God serves to mold us, and also preserves those shapes once they\u2019ve been molded. Exclusively gendering God as male has served to harmfully exclude women in our Christian communities and frame them as \u201cless than.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nJohnson continues a few paragraphs later:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe symbol of God functions. Upon examination it becomes clear that this exclusive speech about God serves in manifold ways to support an imaginative and structural world that excludes or subordinates women. Wittingly or not, it undermines women\u2019s human dignity as equally created in the image of God.\u201d (She Who Is<\/i>, Kindle Location 825)<\/p>\n
And yet the images we use for God can work inclusively when we use symbols to lift up and liberate those our present system pushes to the undersides and edges of our communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cLanguage about God in female images not only challenges the literal mindedness that has clung to male images in inherited God-talk; it not only questions their dominance in discourse about holy mystery. But insofar as \u2018the symbol gives rise to thought,\u2019 such speech calls into question prevailing structures of patriarchy. It gives rise to a different vision of community, community, one in which the last shall be first, the excluded shall be included, the mighty put down from their thrones and the humbled exalted\u2014the words of Mary of Nazareth\u2019s song of praise (Lk 1:52), creating conditions for the formation of community characterized by relationships of mutuality and reciprocity, of love and justice.\u201d (Johnson, Elizabeth A., She Who Is<\/i>, Kindle Location 854)<\/p>\n
This challenges me as I reflect on some Bible passages that I\u2019ve cherished at other stages of my journey.<\/p>\n
One of those passages is from the book of Hebrews:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God\u2019s glory and the exact representation of his being . . .\u201d (Hebrews 1:1-3)<\/p>\n
The exact representation?<\/i> How does this teaching function for women given that Jesus was male?<\/p>\n
(Read Part 3<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The images we use for God can work inclusively when we use symbols to lift up those our present system pushes to the edges of our communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":6495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[696,699],"tags":[3372,1287,1314,780,3375,1251],"class_list":["post-6501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feminism","category-womanism","tag-exclusivity","tag-gender","tag-gendering-god","tag-inclusion","tag-mama-god","tag-representation"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Gendering](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1222\/2023\/05\/SJ2318.png\")
<\/p>\n