gender Flashcards
problem with ‘he’
group in Church of England is calling for services to address god as ‘she’ as well as ‘he’.
question of gods gender goes back to early christian church (Stephen Tomkins)
christian church always had a problem with gods gender
-‘he doesn’t have one’
-but as that statement demonstrates its hard to talk about god without giving him a gender.
-to talk about god we have to call god something, an avoiding pronouns altogether is cumbersome
-‘it’ seems to be rude talking about god as impersonal force like gravity or inflation
-so god has to be he or she and in patriarchal society there’s no contest
CCC quote
“god is neither man nor woman: he is god”
god in the bible pronouns
-in bible there are many titles given to god which seem to denote masculine quality (Lord, Father)
-always referred as he never she or it,
god the father
-title given to god in various religions. judaism god described ad father as he is seen as the absolute one, indivisible and incomparable, transcendent, immanent, non-corporeal god of creation and history
-god the father regarded as first person of the trinity. christian creeds included affirmation of belief in ‘god the father’
adopted children of god
-deep sense in which christians belief that they are made participants in the eternal relationship of Father and son, through Jesus Christ. call themselves adopted children of god.
-‘abba, father’
classical western philosophy
-CWP states that god should be referred to as masculine by analogy. it justifies this by pointing to gods relationship with the World as begetter of World and revelation
-‘god is neither man nor woman: he is god”
ruach
-hebrew ruach means ‘wind’, ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’,
-the corresponding greek word is pneuma both words are commonly used in passages referring to HS
-ruach is feminine noun in Hebrew which suggests that part of the Trinity could be referred to as ‘she’
st Catherine of Sienna
-women of deep spirituality
-passionate in her desire to make people aware of their openness to god.
“the souls dignity is that of her creation, seeing that she is the image of god”
soul given personal pronoun ‘she’
Gail Ramshaw
-scholar of liturgical language and professor of religion at La Salle University.
-her book God beyond gender presents third position, urging inclusion of many images for god, the correction of others and total avoidance of pronouns.
use of gender neutral language
-man - mortals/humankind
-man-person/anyone
-son-child
-father-parent
will gender neutral language help?
-whether this helps with understanding of Bible matter for debate
-terms such as father and king are part of patriarchal culture of ancient Near East, to remove them from text is to remove them from proper context
feminist critique of anthropomorphic and gender specific language about god
-offer perhaps most serious attack on Biblical view of god, objection that its irrelevant to half of human population.
Daphne Hampson
-feminist theology can be gender inclusive, language of Bible clearly masculine. God defined omni-everything and so represents what every male would like to be in his wildest dreams (all-powerful, all-knowing, perf in every way)
-god is male patriarch carried to the extremes. all-powerful warrior, leader of heavenly armies , king ruler etc.
-most of problems is that ‘truths’ are fundamentally flawed. Christianity insists there has been only 1 christ and only 1 resurrection
-so whole christian story that was ‘true’ in 1st century must necessarily be true in 21st century which means all its patriarchal ‘baggage’ has to be accepted in 21st century society which is becoming increasingly less patriarchal.
Daphne Hampson quote
“religions are a form of fascism”
“spirit has ever played second fiddle to male christ within trinitarian theology”
