I draw on an article by Ian Paul, entitled:

Can we describe God as ‘she’? Does it matter?

A recent Communion Service at Hereford Cathedral began with an Introit which re-writes Psalm 23 as follows:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need, She makes me lie down in green meadows, Beside the still waters, She will lead.

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs, She leads me in a path of good things, And fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk, through a dark and dreary land, There is nothing that can shake me, She has said She won’t forsake me, I’m in her hand.

She sets a table before me, in the presence of my foes, She anoints my head with oil, And my cup overflows.

Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me, All the days of my life, And I will live in her house, Forever, forever and ever.

Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter, And to the Holy of Holies, As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, World without end. Amen.

It is a theological axiom that God is not sexed.  He is ‘without body, parts or passions’.

Few languages (including the biblical languages) have a personal pronoun that is not sexed.  Historically, given the dominance of men in public roles, the default choice of generic pronoun has been male.  Thus, in the absence of a neutral personal pronoun for God, we have used ‘he’.

But in changing the inclusive male pronoun to female, as in the Introit, the effect is not to signal that God transcends sex, but rather that God is sexed, and that sex is female.

This becomes clear – and problematic from a creedal point of view – in the Gloria: there is an altogether new trinity here, in which God becomes ‘our Mother’, Jesus becomes ‘daughter’, and the Holy Spirit becomes ‘the Holy of Holies’ (a place, not a person!).

(It is ironic that, in a day when it is urged that people should be free to choose their own pronouns, the pronouns that God has chosen for himself (in Scripture) are ignored!)

Although in Scripture male images of God predominate, female images are by no means absent.

In the OT, the main references are Hosea 11.3–4 and 13.8, Isaiah 42.14, 49.15 and 66.13, Deut 32.11-12 and 18.

In the NT, we have

• the kingdom of God being like a woman kneading dough (Lk. 13:20-21)
• God being like a woman who has lost a coin (Luke 15.8–10)
• Jesus likening himself to a mother hen (Matt 23.37, Luke 13.34).

Plus, we have Paul’s striking description of himself as a women in labour (Gal 4.19).

Whereas in other ancient religions gods were either male or female, in biblical teaching God does not have a sex.  Moreover, it is male and female together who represent the true image of God (Gen 1:27).

Sex is a bodily reality.  God is spirit (Jn 4) and thus does not have a sex.

If God is not male, why does Scripture use so many male images?  Are these merely a reflection of the culture of the time, and therefore open to renegotiation?

Jon Parker maintains that the use of masculine language has less to do with ‘patriarchy’, and more to do with fruitfulness.  The masculine is the first stage of progeny.  The masculine ‘sowed the seed’ – into the soil, into the womb.  So it made good sense to think about God, the progentor of all things, in masculine terms.

Alastair Roberts emphasises a fundamental assymetry between male and female – especially, father and mother.  In Scripture, God is called ‘Father’, and never ‘Mother’.  The two are not interchangeable.  The one cannot be substituted for the other without changing the meaning.  (Not can it be gender neutralised without loss of meaning).  Fathers and mothers are not interchangeable, but relate to their offspring in different ways:

‘A mother’s relationship with her child is a more immediate, naturally given union of shared bodies. It is more clearly characterized by close empathetic identification. A father’s relationship with his child, by contrast, is characterized by a “material hiatus” and more typically involves a greater degree of “standing over against” the child. While motherhood is more naturally given and more rooted in the body through the process of gestation and nursing, fatherhood is established principally by covenant commitment. If he is to be more than a mere inseminator, a man must lovingly commit himself to his wife and offspring. The different nature of the father’s relationship with his child also means that he more readily represents law and authority to the child: he can stand over against the child to a degree that the child’s mother can’t.’

This is significant as we think about God:

‘A shift beyond biblical feminine metaphors and imagery to feminine identification of God will have a noticeable effect upon our vision of God, our ideas of where God stands in relation to us, the way that we conceive of the Creator-creature distinction, and the sort of language that we use when speaking about sin, separation from God, etc.’

Ian Paul concludes by noting that the language we use of God touches on central issues of confessonal faith.  The ecumenically agreed Apostles Creed declares faith in ‘God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth’ and in ‘Jesus Christ, God’s only Son’.  And the Lord’s Prayer is addressed to ‘Our Father’.

This is not, then, a matter of personal preference.  A failure to speak up on this matter is not simply a pastoral failure.  It is, rather,

‘a failure to proclaim the faith uniquely revealed in the Scriptures to which the formularies and doctrine of the Church of England itself bear witness.’